Chapter 74: Making the opposite argument

Tom caught the steering wheel like he had a personal beef with it. He pulled away from the sophisticated entrance, gritting his teeth.

He had never been felt this angry before...

While working as a bartender and serving rich people, he had faced embarrassment but nothing like this. Maybe it hit harder now that he had money in his bank account.

That embarrassment tightened his chest and it seemed he couldn’t breathe alright.

The politicians’ voices still trailed him through the city even as he drove. He gritted his teeth. His anger was sharper now...

Especially at Adrian.

That Adrian Cole, who had invited him as a convenient utility. Adrian, who had watched the table close and chosen comfort over him without blinking. How would he bite back this Adrian?

Then an idea rose in his mind...

This Adrian had a fiancée who Tom could reach in under an hour.

The soft part of him tried to rise, that old guilt, the hesitation about walking into another man’s home and taking what waited there. Tom shut it down with an intentional high level of force. Stella wanted him. She had made that plain with her body, her messages, her risk. If she wanted him, she could work with his schedule. She could work with his temper.

The System chimed in, uninvited and openly delighted at that thought forming in Tom’s head;

[Yes. There it is. That is Netori energy.]

Tom did not bother commenting on that.

He took the turn toward Stella’s place and stepped harder on the accelerator. Within a few minutes, he had arrived.

He parked the Mercedes in the open where anyone could see it, and stepped out before second thoughts could grow legs. The evening air did nothing to cool him, if anything, it seemed to add more strength to his anger. He crossed to the entrance, found her unit, and pressed the button with his thumb held firm.

He held on for a few seconds. Then the housekeeper’s face appeared on the entry feed, lined with polite suspicion. She had never seen him before. A moment later she disappeared from the screen, no doubt carrying the description upstairs.

When the door finally opened, it was Stella herself.

She stood in an oversized shirt that left her legs bare, her hair loosely gathered, even though the polished public version of her was set aside for private hours, she still looked gorgeous. Effortlessly so.

Surprise moved across her face first. Then recognition. Her mouth opened, definitely wanting to ask what he was doing here without a notice.

Tom didn’t allow her to make a sound before he did what swept her off her feet...

He kissed her.

He had the distance between them swiftly, caught her face in his hands, and took her mouth with the full weight of the anger still burning under his skin. Stella made a small sound of shock that broke almost immediately into something hotter.

Her fingers fisted in his shirt as he kissed her like a man trying to rewrite the last hour with the fact of being wanted. When he finally pulled back, her breath was uneven and her lips already looked claimed. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

"Am I welcome?" Tom asked, looking directly into her eyes.

Stella stared at him, disbelief cutting through the haze. she blinked as if she just properly realized what was happening; "You came to my house. Undisguised? Are you out of your mind?"

"Am I welcome," he repeated, now in a very low voice, "or should I go back?"

And that low voice somehow made the question landed heavier. Stella blinked but she went quiet.

The silence stretched just long enough to show the calculation behind her eyes; this was a risk, she had an image to protect, Adrian...

But there was the wild, thrill seeker part of her, greedier than the other. That part won. Stella exhaled sharply, caught his hand, and pulled him inside.

She did not take him far. She pulled him toward a side room off the hall, and shut the door. The moment privacy sealed around them she dragged his mouth back to hers.

This kiss was less startled than the first and more demanding, her body already rising to meet the temper he had brought with him. Tom’s hands moved over her through the thin shirt and found bare skin underneath; it was warm, soft, immediately responsive. No bra. The discovery sent a fresh pulse of heat straight through him.

They broke apart only when breathing forced it.

Stella searched his face, still close enough that her words brushed his mouth. "You look upset." A beat. "Should I ask what happened... or how I can help?"

"The latter," Tom said simply.

"How can I help?" she asked almost immediately.

"By being here." he replied.

He kissed her again, harder, and this time there was nothing exploratory in it. His cock had already thickened painfully against his trousers, fed by anger and the relief of her door opening for him instead of closing on him.

He guided her down to the floor, the oversized shirt riding up her thighs as she went on her knees. Tom didn’t waste time in unzipping his trouser and when he freed himself, the air of the air-conditioning room did nothing to reduce how hard he was.

Tom looked down at her, his voice roughened by everything he was refusing to carry alone as he spoke up;

"Let me know I can be welcomed anywhere. Show me that I belong..."

At that, Stella’s eyes lit with something bright and wicked. A low chuckle left her as she wrapped her fingers around his cock and stroked him once, firm and appreciative.

"Then pay attention," she murmured.

She leaned in and took him into her mouth slowly, her gaze tipped upward to hold his while her lips stretched around the head of his cock... and then sank lower.

The wetness and hotness of her tongue dragged a rough sound out of Tom’s chest. In that moment the politicians and their comments about unearned cars and borrowed status all narrowed to a single, punishing point of contrast:

They had decided he was nothing.

Yet, here he was, making one of their wives going on her knees in a locked room, making the opposite argument with her mouth.