Chapter 109 Who Is Alvin?

Chapter 109 Who Is Alvin?
Chapter 109: Who Is Alvin? 

Ivy

After a minute of trying to catch my breath, I slowly crawled toward the edge of the bed and dropped my wobbly legs to the floor. 

Leo hadn’t said a word yet. But I could feel him behind me. I’m guessing he was also trying hard to make sense of this. Of what had possessed us into fucking barely twenty-four hours after seeing each other again.

The second my feet touched the floor, my body told me exactly what we’d done.

It wasn’t a vague ache. It was specific. Deep. My core throbbed in a slow, heavy pulse that matched my heartbeat, like it was still trying to remember the exact shape of him. I hissed when I tried to straighten. The stretch he’d forced into me hadn’t closed yet. I felt open. Swollen. Tender in a way that made even standing feel like another thrust.

Five years.

Five years since anything that size had been inside me, and my body had not only forgotten how to take him, but it had forgotten how long it took to recover from taking him. 

Every tiny shift of my hips sent a dull, dragging burn through the places he’d stretched widest. The rim of me felt raw and used, like it was still shaped around him even though he wasn’t there anymore.

I tried standing fully. My thighs trembled. My knees threatened to fold. And worse, Leo’s release poured out of me the moment I was upright.

It was warm and thick. It ran down the inside of my thigh in a slow trail, cooling as it went. I gripped the edge of the table hard enough that my knuckles went white, trying and failing not to hiss at the fresh sting the movement caused. 

I felt another pulse of him slip out. Humiliating and intimate all at once. That was evidence. Solid proof. The kind you couldn’t take back.

My skirt was still bunched around my waist. I glanced down at the ruined panties hanging off one ankle and pulled them completely off.

What’s the point anyway?

They were already torn. Already soaked. My thighs were slippery with both of us. I needed to clean up before I faced Callum. Before I faced anyone.

Without turning, I asked, “Can I use your bathroom… please?”

“Of course.” His voice was quiet. I heard a little shuffling, then he was on his feet.

He appeared in front of me, still naked. I looked away even though it was stupid now. There was no point. Which part of him hadn’t I seen? Which part of me hadn’t he just used?

I tugged my skirt down with shaking hands. The fabric dragged over hypersensitive skin and made me flinch.

He picked up his towel from the floor but didn’t wrap it around himself. Instead he walked into the bathroom with it and came back wearing a robe.

“Can you walk?” he asked quietly.

I shook my head. “No.” The word came out smaller than I meant it to.

The second he scooped me up like I was made of paper, my body protested and melted at the same time. Being lifted pulled at everything sore. 

I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t make a sound. He marched toward the bathroom and set me down carefully, like he suddenly remembered I could break.

I held onto the edge of the sink. My legs were still shaking. When I looked up, my reflection made me look away immediately.

I looked exactly like what I’d done.

Hair wrecked. Mouth swollen. Mascara running. Eyes glassy and too bright. There was a faint red mark at the corner of my lips where he’d kissed me like he was starving. My neck was flushed. My skirt sat crooked. 

I looked like a woman who had been fucked so hard she forgot her own name—and then remembered it at the worst possible time.

“I’m sorry.” He said it quietly, standing just behind my shoulder. “This never should have happened. I lost my head and did something stupid.”

That made my heart break into a million pieces. It felt like he’d just stabbed me in the chest while I was still leaking him.

I nodded, biting my lip so I wouldn’t cry. “Right. Same here.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Lennon.” He drove the knife further in with the name. Formal. Distancing. Like the woman he’d just held against a wall and come inside didn’t get to be Ivy anymore. “This will never happen again. You have my word.”

The first tear dropped. His eyes followed it. And I saw hurt in them. Like he was genuinely sorry.

Sorry for touching me. Sorry for wanting me. Sorry for the part of him that had growled take it while he stretched me open.

I took a deep breath and wiped the tear with the back of my hand. Relax, Ivy. It’s just sex. Nothing else. Just great, hot, unprotected sex with my ex after five years of silence. Everything will be fine.

Just sex.

I plastered a smile on my face that didn’t reach my eyes. “Of course. It will never happen again, Mr. Teague.” I echoed the distance right back at him. “And please, I’d like no one else to find out about this. This is very unprofessional. And it would get me in trouble at school.”

I noticed how his jaw tightened when I addressed him formally. “No one will know.”

My curiosity resurfaced then. The reason I’d sought him out in the first place. His relationship with Maddie. Callum’s resemblance to Andy.

I cleverly asked, “I hope you can also keep this from Callum’s mom. I don’t want your girlfriend thinking—”

He didn’t let me finish.

“Maddie and I aren’t together.” He shut the assumption down flat. “She has a boyfriend now. And we’ve never been together.”

I don’t know if that should have made me happy or sad. “Never ever?” I asked quietly.

He shook his head. “Never ever. We’re just really good friends now. And we’re raising Callum together.”

My heart sank so hard I felt it in my stomach. “So… he’s yours? Callum, I mean.”

The look he gave me was one of surprise. He arched a brow and laughed under his breath, folding his arms across his chest. The robe pulled tighter. And I hated that I noticed that.

“Really, Ivy?” He shook his head. “He looks like his father. How can he be biologically mine?”

That casual answer made my knees buckle.

The soreness chose that exact second to remind me it existed. Pain lanced through my core as my legs gave way. I started falling. He reached out immediately, catching me before I could hit the tile, gathering me against his chest like the last few minutes of cruelty hadn’t just happened.

“Ivy!” He called my name. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

No. “So… Callum isn’t yours?” I asked, heart pounding so hard I could feel it between my legs.

He frowned. “No. How could he be mine? Maddie and I have never had a sexual relationship.”

After all these years of thinking he cheated on me with Maddie. Of believing he’d betrayed me in the ugliest way possible. Of leaving. Of hating him and missing him in the same breath.

Turns out it was a lie?

“Anderson got Maddie pregnant and left her to deal with it after telling her to get it removed.” Leo said. His voice had gone careful. “She came to me. She needed help. She didn’t want to get rid of the baby. I couldn’t turn her away. So I gave her my word that I’d be there for her and the child.” He paused. “And so far it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

I burst into tears on the spot, ignoring the ache in my body because the ache in my chest was louder.

Leo still held me. Even though I knew he was confused by the outburst. He said nothing.

I held onto his robe tightly, fists twisting in the fabric. “So it was all a lie! Maddie lied to me! She told me the pregnancy was yours!”

“What? No.” Leo pulled back just enough to look at my face. I noticed the crease between his brows. “That’s not true. Callum’s not biologically mine. She probably told you that to make you leave.”

The words landed like a second climax I hadn’t asked for.

“I followed you,” I said. The confession tumbled out before I could stop it. “Five years ago, Leo. I saw you and her in a kids’ store—”

“That was nothing. I helped her get an apartment and helped her get some stuff for her baby. That was all there was to that.” He paused. Blinked. “Wait. Why were you following me?”

“Because you were being cold and mean to me.” My voice sounded more desperate than I wanted it to. “I thought you were cheating on me.”

“I never cheated on you. Ever.”

The sentence should have healed something. Instead it opened a different wound. If he never cheated, then I left for a ghost. I built five years on a story that wasn’t true. I let another man into my life while this one had been raising someone else’s child out of loyalty I hadn’t known existed.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, he shook his head and straightened. My body instantly felt cold without him. The places he’d held me went empty. 

“It’s best if we stopped talking about the past.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s not complicate things further. What happened earlier was a mistake. I apologize.” 

“Really? That’s all I get?”

He sighed. “I don’t hate you, Ivy. I just don’t think we should be together.”

I laughed, nodding as I tucked both sides of my hair behind my ears. The movement pulled at my shoulders. Even that tiny thing made my core clench around nothing, a sore, empty flutter that made my eyes sting again.

“So that’s how it’s going to be? I get it.” Then it dawned on me again. “You didn’t use a condom, Mr. Teague. Don't you think that's irresponsible and reckless?”

He ground his teeth so hard I feared he’d crack them. He almost looked offended. Then he spoke.

“I’m sorry. My fault. Please take a pill. I’ll handle the cost.”

I managed to help myself up using the sink. Standing made another warm trickle slide down my inner thigh. I pretended I didn’t feel it.

“You can keep your money.” I wiped my tears furiously. “I don’t need it.”

He wanted to speak. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Please leave. I need privacy.” I said it without looking at him. If I looked at him I would ask him to stay, or I would ask him to fuck me again, or I would ask him why he could hold me against a wall like I belonged to him and then call me Miss Lennon two minutes later.

Thankfully, he didn’t say anything else. He just opened the door and walked out, closing it behind him.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry anymore. If Leo wanted us to act like strangers toward each other, then I would gladly do so.

I sat on the toilet because standing had become a negotiation with my own body.

Peeing stung. Not sharply but still enough to make me suck in a breath and grip my own knee. 

I was sensitive. The kind of used that doesn’t fade in an hour. When I wiped, the tissue came away streaked with both of us. I wiped again. And again. There was still more. His release had been deep and unending. 

I could feel it even now, a residual warmth that made my stomach twist.

I stood at the sink and washed my face. I had nothing of mine, so I used Leo's stuff. The water was too cold when it touched my face. My reflection still looked messed up afterwards. 

I tried to fix what I could—wiped the smeared lipstick, smoothed my hair with wet fingers, tugged my skirt into place like that could undo what had happened.

I don’t want to appear in front of my student looking like I’d just fucked his father.

My mind had been so occupied with Leo that I’d lost sight of other things. Like my phone. And my relationship status. 

It was only when I opened the door and saw it in Leo’s hand that the last piece of the day dropped into place.

He had a frown on his face. “Who is Alvin?”

The name hit me harder than the first thrust against the wall.

Oh my God. I just cheated on my boyfriend! 

The realization of everything dawned on me in the little details. It arrived in my body first. In the bruises I could already feel forming on my hips from his hands. In the bite mark I left on his shoulder. In the fact that I could still feel the ghost of his size every time I took a step.

I had let him inside me without protection.

I had come on him.

I had cried on him.

And somewhere in the list of unanswered messages on my phone, there was a man who thought I was his.

Leo was still looking at me, waiting.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. My legs were still shaking. And for one terrible, honest second, the worst part wasn’t that I’d cheated.

The worst part was that, even now, even sore, even ashamed, even with Alvin’s position in my life, only one person mattered. Leo. 

I still felt Leo. Everywhere. And that was the only thing I could think about.