AFTER HOURS – EPISODE 3 – UNSPOKEN RULES
Morning came with indifference.
The city didn’t care what she had done. Traffic still snarled. Coffee brewed. Aaron still pecked her cheek and asked if she wanted eggs, as though nothing inside her had cracked open the night before. Normalcy wrapped around Olivia like a heavy coat she couldn’t shrug off, suffocating and familiar. She wore it anyway, because she must. Because the taste of Jasper’s kiss still haunted her lips, a phantom heat that no amount of toothpaste or denial could cleanse. She didn’t know what else to wear except her pretense. It clung to her tighter than her skin.
Her phone buzzed just after nine, slicing through her distracted thoughts like a blade.
Jasper: “If I distracted you last night, I’m not sorry.”
She stared at the screen too long. Her thumb hovered, poised between impulse and caution. No clever reply formed. No heart emoji felt appropriate. Only a flush of heat spread from her chest downward, curling low and deep where last night still whispered. Her thighs pressed together subtly beneath her desk. She slipped her phone face down on the smooth surface and pretended she hadn’t read it. Pretended she hadn’t clenched subtly, remembering his mouth, his breath. Remembering how easy it would have been to keep kissing him until nothing of herself remained but that ache.
At work, everything looked the same, but everything felt altered. Every surface, every familiar task, carried a faint afterimage of the night before.
He didn’t pounce. That wasn’t Jasper’s style. He passed her desk with polite nods, as casual as any coworker. Chatted easily with Maya. Joined a meeting and cracked quiet jokes that made the team laugh while keeping his eyes carefully neutral. He didn’t let his gaze linger. He didn’t let it slip. Not on her.
It drove her mad in ways she hadn’t expected.
By lunch, Olivia felt hyper-aware of his every subtle movement: the way he loosened his tie with languid fingers, the way he pushed his sleeves up again, baring those unforgivably masculine forearms that spoke their own private language to her now, the way his thumb circled the rim of his coffee cup, the way his fingers toyed absently with a paperclip, bending and unbending it as though unaware of how each motion tightened her insides.
Every casual gesture felt calculated.
It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. But the absence of overt desire? That was worse. The absence made her ache, made her wonder. The restraint hummed louder than an open confession ever could. It draped itself across the day like silk sheets pulled too tight — suffocating and sensual all at once.
They were pretending now.
Unspoken rules hung between them like spider silk. No touching. No too-long glances. No hidden smiles. The kiss had been a mistake, or at least that was the story they silently agreed to wear. The story they told themselves when they passed in hallways or stood beside each other at the copy machine. The story that allowed them to keep breathing, keep functioning, while beneath that fragile surface, something dark and hungry writhed.
And yet—
She lingered at the end of the day. So did he.
By 6:43 PM, the office had emptied. Olivia remained at her desk pretending to work, while Jasper paced lightly nearby, phone in hand, texting someone, or maybe no one. The minutes dragged and tangled around them like invisible ropes. Their eyes met once. Held too long. Dropped fast, burning from restraint. The entire floor seemed to tilt with the tension between them.
She rose first.
“I should go,” she said, gathering her things quickly, her voice tight and too polite to be natural. Her pulse thrummed beneath her skin, insistent as a wound refusing to heal.
“Yeah,” Jasper agreed. Too fast. Too easily. But he didn’t move an inch. He stayed, rooted in a stillness that vibrated louder than any motion.
Her purse slipped from her shoulder, deliberately careless. She bent to pick it up, breath hitching, as she felt him step closer behind her—close enough that his warmth radiated against her back without touching—close enough to unravel her without a single word.
“Olivia,” he murmured, low and sharp, slicing through her fragile resolve like silk torn by sharp teeth. Her name sounded wicked on his tongue, yet reverent too — like a prayer whispered in the dark.
She straightened slowly, every heartbeat heavy and dangerous. When she turned, his face was beautifully serious and devastatingly close. Their breaths tangled immediately, caught in invisible threads neither dared pull. Their bodies existed in inches — aching, thrumming inches — that neither crossed nor escaped.
“This can’t happen,” she whispered. Weak. Wild. Torn apart from the inside out. Her voice cracked under the weight of everything unsaid. “This isn’t us.”
“It already did,” Jasper answered without hesitation, his voice velvet-wrapped steel. Firm, unforgiving in its honesty, his eyes gleamed with the burn of restrained hunger. “And it still is.”
Silence devoured them. The moment stretched, unbearable and yet too exquisite to end. The quiet roared between them, louder than confessions, heavier than denial. Her lips parted. She wanted to speak, reason, push him away, or pull him closer — but nothing came.
Then—
He stepped back first, controlled and respectful. His restraint tasted like cruelty, like a punishment she hadn’t known she deserved. It hollowed her out, leaving her trembling and hollow and starving for what he refused to take.
“Goodnight, Olivia.”
His low and steady voice sliced through the air. She stood frozen, watching him walk away. The hallway swallowed him whole, leaving only absence where his heart had been. She couldn’t breathe until the echo of his footsteps died.
Her legs barely carried her to her car. She drove home in a daze, hands tight on the steering wheel, shaking in places no seatbelt could steady. Each stoplight bled into the next, faceless strangers surrounding her in vehicles, unaware of the storm raging inside. When Aaron greeted her at the door with habitual affection, she kissed him too quickly, too softly, with lips still branded by another man. She smiled when she didn’t feel like smiling. She answered mundane questions like her body wasn’t humming with restless sin.
She showered until her skin turned pink and raw. None of it washed Jasper away. Though brief and barely real, his touch clung to her pores like smoke that refused to dissipate.
That night in bed, Aaron fell asleep beside her with the ease of the oblivious. Olivia stared at the ceiling, hands fisted in damp sheets. She couldn’t bring herself to touch herself, not while his name hummed unsaid behind her clenched teeth, sweet and sharp as a swallowed blade. Not when doing so would mean admitting the truth: she wanted more. She wanted everything. She wanted ruin.
Tomorrow, she promised herself.
Tomorrow, they wouldn’t cross any more lines.
Tomorrow, they would follow the unspoken rules.
But tonight, the rules felt like the cruelest, filthiest lie she’d ever tried to believe. They felt like temptation sharpened into law, designed only to be broken… eventually.