I watch as she takes in the room, reaching up to card my fingers through my messy hair. I still feel groggy, thoughts like sludge, but I can tell she’s surprised. I’d cleaned everything within an inch of its life—Killer would be so proud, and he can never fucking know—only partially because it was such a sty. Mostly, it just kept my hands and mind occupied.
“Wow,” she breathes, eyes taking in the space. “You’ve been busy.”
“You don’t need to sound so shocked,” I say, walking past her to the bed. There’s this way shit goes kind of sideways when I’m close to her. No one else has ever made me feel like that—annoyed and tender, all at the same time. As I pass, I reach out to graze her hip, just a little greeting so she’ll know what this is.
No hard feelings, girl.
Surprise registers, once again, in the flash of her eyes, and she’s not alone. Holding grudges is sort of my thing, but with her? I’m so non-stick, she could fry an egg on me.
“You should have told me.” When I turn to her, she’s got her head tilted, scrutinizing me. “I didn’t realize you’d—I mean, I knew you’d cut back, at the very least, but you’ve been sober for days now.”
I give a loose shrug. “I’m not really the bragging type.”
Her eyes narrow. “Yes, you are.”
Another shrug. “Yeah, I am.”
She shifts her weight and crosses her arms, but aborts the gesture, letting her arms hang awkwardly at her sides. “You really don’t want me to wrestle?”
“Would it matter?” I might not be holding a grudge, but the thought of it still makes my blood simmer. It’s not all about the wrestling. Most of it’s about the memory of the pit and all those fucking perverts taking a piece of what’s mine. Ours. “If I asked you not to do it, would you change your mind?”
“Honestly?” she asks, giving me a hapless look. “I don’t know.”
Well, that’s a surprise. She’s well within her rights—legal and otherwise—to do what she wants now. I gave her a ‘final answer’ because old habits die hard, but I’m not stupid. It doesn’t actually mean anything anymore.
Only it’s possible it does.
But she’s gazing up at me with those wide, guileless eyes, and I see it for what it is: a sort of plea. She’s begging me not to make her find out, because there’s fear there, too. She doesn’t want to face the fact she might care, might cave, and doesn’t want to give me that power.
I approach her, documenting the subtle changes in her expression. Her eyes flick down to my chest, lower, and then ping back up. When I reach for her wrist, she lets me take it and doesn’t move away when I lean in close, grazing our cheeks together. “Only if I can be there with you.”
I’m not sure if it’s the low murmur or my breath hitting her ear, but she shivers. “Of course you’ll be there with me. If you want to.”
Humming, I skate my fingertips up her arm, reveling in this newly earned ability to touch. “And you’re here to…what, exactly? Show your appreciation? Make good on your offer?”
Her throat clicks with a swallow. “I keep my word.”
“I bet you do.” Her jaw is soft and warm beneath my lips, but I don’t kiss the skin. I just rest my mouth there, speaking against it. “What was the deal, again? That you’d sleep in my bed?”
Her jaw twitches beneath my lips when she answers. “Yes.”
“And where am I sleeping in this arrangement?” My fingers reach the strap of her tank top and I inch one beneath it, sliding it up and down. Up and down.
Her chest contracts and expands. “Beside me.”
“And what are we wearing in this—”
In a move more swift and assured than I think she’s capable of, she twists her head and pushes her mouth against mine. Always surprising me, this one. Her mouth is warm and aggressive, brow furled in an expression that looks all frustrated and surly. She’s never been good at taking the initiative—at taking what she wants—but she’s fumbling her way for it, anyway. She puts her hand on my chest and it feels cold, or maybe my skin is just overheated, but I wind the strap of her tank top around two fingers and use it to yank her closer, plunging my tongue into her wet mouth.
She makes a breathless noise and tips her face to me, letting me take charge of the kiss. No, requesting that I take charge of the kiss. It’s the only reason I pull back.
“Aren’t you tired?” I give her an out because I suspect this isn’t really about showing ‘appreciation’. I just wonder if she can do it. Can she fuck someone without it being repayment, or reward, or obligation, or the threat of something worse looming over her head? The way she’s looking at me, that flash of hunger beneath the small, timid gestures…can she make it about want, about desire, about us and nothing else? Because make no mistake about it, the next time I fuck this girl, it’s going to be because she’s fucking aching for it. No terms. No manipulations. No forced situations. Just us.
From the way her mouth purses, she thinks I’m being a tease. “Am I tired? Right now?” Her hand slides down my chest, over my abs, hooking into the waist of my jeans. My stomach caves at the tickle of her knuckles as she fiddles with the fly, popping it open. “Not particularly.”
I stand still and just watch as she fumbles with her instincts, throat bobbing with a gulp as she grabs my waistband and gently hitches it down. She pauses in fits and starts, like she’s expecting me to protest.
I arch an eyebrow, willing to see where this leads.
Her lip gets caught between her teeth as she casts those big eyes down, gaze tracking each slowly exposed inch of skin. She stutters to a stop when my cock appears, springing free. I’ve been hard since before she even knocked on my door. My dreams have been full of the promise of the panties I’d absconded with this morning and everything I planned to do with them later.
It’s looking like that might not be necessary.
But it’s not until she drops to her knees, her palm curling around my shaft, that I begin to actually let myself hope. I’ve never been the optimistic type. I figured the best I could count on tonight might be something that couldn’t be referred to as cuddling by anyone who wanted to keep all their digits, but let’s face it, totally fucking would be.
I hook a finger under her chin, forcing her eyes to mine. For a long moment, I just look, searching for a clue. When all I find are her dark, steady eyes, I quietly ask, “You want my cock, baby?” She answers by pitching forward and running her tongue over the swollen head, never breaking our stare. My jaw clenches at the feeling, and it’d be easy to feed her my cock, to tell myself she’s on her knees because she’s hungry for it, but it’s not enough. “Tell me.”
“Dimitri.” She speaks with her lips right against the head of my dick. “I’ve wanted it for weeks.” Her fingers blaze a trail down my thigh, and then she sinks her mouth onto me. It’s so fucking toe-curling that I let out a long hiss, watching myself disappear between her lips. She goes and goes, and she doesn’t stop, pushing me deep into the back of her throat and resting there.
It takes me so long to gain any semblance of equilibrium that by the time I do, her face is red. “Goddamn, girl.” I wind my fingers into her hair, easing her back. “Hey, hey, I’m not Tristian.”
She pulls back with a loud gasp, and her eyes, holy shit. They’re all watery and wide, and it’s true that choking girls on his dick is more Tristian’s thing than mine. But with the way her eyes shine up at me?
Jesus fucking Christ.
Fine.
I see the appeal.
She takes me shallower, watching me as I watch her back, lips and tongue sliding up and down my dick. I know she’s good at this. Even though I can see Tristian’s deft hand in the bald fucking ambition of that deep throating, I’m the one who taught her how to suck cock—guided her, molded her, right here in this very room. I talked her into getting on her knees for me. Let the others watch from the camera in the corner as she fumbled, unskilled and uncertain. Made her ask for it, just like she did now, so I could maximize my point gain. And then I watched as she steadily grew more assured, learned the ways a man wanted to be sucked and touched and handled.
It was the first time I really felt like she was mine.
I pull her off my cock, so laser-focused that I don’t even give myself time to admire the thread of spit leading from the head to her red lips. Instead, I haul her up and crash my mouth to hers, swallowing her soft, surprised sound, because this isn’t a show. The camera is long gone. The only people here are the two of us, and I don’t need skilled or assured.
I slide one hand under her hair and the other over her tit, squeezing, feeling out the pebble of her nipple. “Gonna let me fuck you?” I ask, finally tearing that strap over her shoulder. It’s a frantic, barely-restrained movement that completely belies my words, because I’m already yanking half of her top below her chest and giving her breast a massage that’s too rough, too impatient.
She’s a stark contrast to it, her mouth gentle as it skitters over my jaw, lips finding a spot on my neck. “Maybe you’ll let me fuck you.”
I freeze, unaware that my dick could even get any harder. What the fuck?
“Can I?” she whispers, giving me this tiny little shove toward the bed. “Like you said, back when you told me your plans. You said—”
“I know what I said.” I remember it like it was yesterday, Story between my legs as I edged her senseless, whispering dirty little things into her ear.
“I would have let you be on top…I was going to show you how to ride me, nice and slow. Let you set the pace.”
I step back, kicking off my jeans as I go, and she watches with dazed eyes, hand still held halfway aloft, a moment suspended in time. I lie back on the bed, bared for her. Cock hard. Hands tucked behind my head. Waiting.
It takes her a second to get with the program, but when she does, there’s no hesitation. She works her tank top off, tossing it aside, giving me a nice view of her perfect tits. I watch, enraptured as she shimmies her pants down her legs, panties and all. It makes me think of those early days, back in high school—days when she’d be shy about wearing something too tight, nights where she’d pull a cardigan around her middle, hiding all her womanly curves from our predatory eyes. Story’s not that same shy teenage girl, though. Since living here, she’s become unabashed about showing her body to the three of us. Baths, showers, hasty shirt exchanges—punishments—she rolls with it, uncaring, almost mechanical in her nudity.
When we were first rolling around the idea of making her our Lady, I used to have all these fantasies about what a future would be like with her in it. Living with us, catering to our every whim, our perfect, pale, irritated doll. She could do homework naked, a leg slung over the arm of a chair as she lounged back. Make phone calls topless. Eat dinner at the table, stark-ass nude. Come to bed naked, wake up naked, take a shower naked. She could just never put anything on, existing for us in a constant state of bare-bare-bare. It was a juvenile thought, some vestige of a tired, teenage daydream, but it still had some shine.
Now, I’m not sure if any of us have a future at all.
If we don’t, we might as well enjoy the present.
I stay perfectly still as she knees herself up on the bed, slowly—fucking agonizingly slowly—crawling over me. Her tits look nice from this vantage and I enjoy the view, biting down a flinch as her long hair tickles over my thighs, hips, sides.
It must be a tease, the way she manages to not touch me in any significant way as she does this. I lick my lips and wait for her to engage, touch, anything—she could do anything, what will she do—and it’s embarrassing how long I take to understand what this fizzy, frenetic thing inside my chest is.
Excitement.
She sits back, holding my gaze as she rests her center right on the hard, throbbing length of me. I can feel her wetness and heat without even having to thrust against her. That’s one of the best parts of Story, that her body will always let me know what it’s thinking.
Like how her cheeks have gone pink, or the quaver in her voice when she says, “It’s weird being in here without music.”
Unable to stand it anymore, I let my eyes descend, taking in the sight of her body mounting me. “Then I guess you need to make some.” That’s how it’s been, my putting the phone on speaker at night, letting the sounds of her rushed breaths and small, tortured cries fill the space with our own melody. It’ll be good to hear it without all the static between us, to watch as she makes it, to be the one to drag it out of her.
Usually I try to avoid looking at her scars. They always come with a rush of conflicting thoughts and one can’t possibly reconcile with the other—guilty thrill, somber possessiveness. They’re both hideous and breathtaking. But tonight, I let myself look. I let myself notice how the ‘R’ carved into her chest is a little thicker, deeper, than the ‘K’ and the ‘T’. I let myself remember the way I’d felt that night, because nothing less would be fair. I told her once I couldn’t bring myself to regret it, but it’s not that simple.
Under her gaze, I prop myself up, ducking my head to press a kiss to the puckered skin. I can barely feel my initial beneath my lips, but if I close my eyes and focus, the raised skin is unmistakable. I turn my head, mouthing over her supple tit, and sightlessly find her nipple. She makes a soft noise as I wet it with my tongue, her hips rocking down into me, fingers tangling in my hair and pulling me close.
“Demanding,” I mutter, finally taking her nipple into my mouth, but we both know I like it. I can feel the rush of wetness sliding over my twitching cock, seeking, waiting.
That first moment of pressure and hot-slick-tight as she sinks onto me makes me fall back, and I give in to the instinct to relish it. To watch her lips part. To see her eyelids grow heavy. To feel that sweet pussy finally taking me in, making me a part of her. To anchor her as she braces her hands on my chest, arms pushing her tits together as she rocks down, and I’m filled with one singular thought.
Thank fucking god I’m sober for this.
She exhales this little, “oh,” when our bodies meet, my cock buried deep. For such a small sound, it’s saying so much—that she’s surprised at how good it feels, that she’s overwhelmed with it, that she wants to take more.
I slide my palms up her thighs, my gaze raking over her body as my hips flex into her. “That feel good, baby?”
She nods, mouth still agape at the stretch. It’s been a few days since she and Killian…and even longer before that. She’s so tight that it makes my teeth clench with the urge to lift her, to feel that friction sliding up and down.
But I wait.
I wait for her to inhale and roll her hips, my body going rigid as she tests the connection, seats herself the way she likes. I wait and I let my hands roam, sliding up her ribs to cup her tits in my hands, but I can’t keep them still. I grab her waist and reach around to squeeze her ass, her thighs, palm rubbing into the flat of her stomach like maybe I could feel the bulge from my cock, but even though my hands are restless and indecisive, my eyes watch her face. She looks fierce and soft, rocking into me as her fingertips curl against my chest.
My balls clench. “Goddamn, you’re sexy.”
Her hips stutter, but don’t stop. The flush on her cheeks bleeds down, tinting her chest a vivid pink. “As sexy as Augustine?” she asks, voice small.
I’m so filled with the sensations of her, the scent of her hair, the heat of her eyes, that it takes me a long moment to process the words. When I do, I go still. “What?”
“Augustine,” she repeats, and it’s possible she tries to hide the shy, sad thing in her eyes, but she’s not exactly successful. “Do you think—I mean, can I be as sexy as her?”
I lie there for a minute stumped, and not because I don’t know the answer. I just have no fucking clue where this is coming from. “What does Augustine have to do with anything?”
“Nothing.” She says it too quick, too flippant. “I just wondered.”
Yeah, bullshit.
“Did Tristian tell you something?” It’s not exactly a secret that Auggy’s had her eye on me, but no one else around here would bring it up to Story.
She drags her lip through her teeth, her hips doing this little, unconscious roll that momentarily blanks my thoughts. “Nothing that isn’t already obvious.”
I stare at her, too stunned to form words, because this can’t be jealousy.
Can it?
I know it’s true when she averts her eyes, using that moment to lift and fall, whiting out all my sense with the drag of her pussy over my cock. Shooting out my hands, I grab her hips and still her, fighting back a shudder at the restraint it takes.
“Look at me,” I demand, but when all I get is a quick flick of her eyes, I lever myself up, sliding a hand behind her neck. I pull her face to mine, forcing her to watch me say, “Auggy’s sexy. She could probably get a man off with the tip of her pinky, and you wanna know why? Because she’s a whore.” At the furrow in her brow, I stress, “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just the way it is. I respect her hustle. But, baby…none of that’s real.” I brush her hair back from her cheek, letting my fingers linger against the soft skin below her jaw. “She couldn’t hold a fucking candle to you.”
Story watches me, eyes pinging back and forth between mine. “I’ve done…things, for money,” she whispers. Her mouth pulls into a self-deprecating slant. “And I wasn’t even good at them.”
I snort. “You were good at them because you weren’t good at them.” I don’t need to see her brow knit to know how confusing that statement is. “You’re real,” I explain, pressing a kiss to her jaw. “Sometimes you’re so real, it fucking hurts to look at you.”
Blinking, she asks, “Why?”
“Because you make me…” My voice trails off, partly because I can feel her clenching around my dick, but partly because I don’t think I can put it into words. “You make me wish I could be different. Do more. Be less. It’s hard to explain.” Laughing darkly, I add, “You called me empty once, but I have no fucking clue how. I feel so full of this shit that its gotta be bleeding from my ears.”
She reaches up to touch my mouth, fingertips resting lightly on my lips. Frowning, she breathes, “I don’t think you’re empty.”
“No?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “What’s all this about, anyway?” My fingers slide down her collarbone, trailing along her sternum. I graze my fingertips over the scar, tracing the letter I’d carved there. “You already know you’re mine. Everyone does.”
She chooses that moment to rock against me, her hips undulating in a short, lazy rhythm. “I am yours,” she replies, winding her arms around my neck. “But you’re not mine.”
“What?” I’m already guiding her hips, distracted with the push and pull. “What are you talking about?”
“All of you,” she clarifies, eyes falling closed as she rocks into me. “There’s nothing tying you to me. Not really. You could—” Her lips part on a gasp when I push her down, grinding her against me. “Killian has that girl tattooed on his arm, and you have an actual professional after you. Any of you could go to someone else. There’s nothing to stop you. Even the contract is just…” She doesn’t finish, her pussy clenching around me.
“That’s what this is about,” I realize, breathing hard into the space between us. “You don’t think I’m yours?” I want to tell her she’s crazy, but I doubt it’d be taken very well. “You’re the only girl any of us have fucked in months, and most of that was basically spent celibate and fucking miserable.”
“Exactly.” Her chest hitches, forehead screwing up in pleasure as she rides me. “Someone like Augustine wouldn’t—you wouldn’t ever be celibate or miserable—oh, god, Dimitri…” The last part results from me flopping back, planting my feet, and driving my dick into her hard.
“Look at me, baby.” I wait for her to meet my stare before asking, “Do you want me to be yours?”
She rolls her hips when I push them, only to pull them back. “I-I don’t—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” Sharper, I add, “Don’t lie to yourself. Do you want me?”
There’s a beat where I think she’s not listening because her eyes are so glazed with the way I’m pushing my dick into her. But then she nods, voice quiet and ragged. “Yes.”
The problem with this whole arrangement is that it’s always been hard to know. She came back—she wanted to stay here, to be ours—but it was tied up in revenge and vengeance. Now that we’re past that, there’s a distinction to be made between being wanted and wanting.
It isn’t until something barbed and tense unwinds in my chest that I realize how bleak I’d felt about it all. The things we’ve done to her… there’s no taking them back. There’s no changing them or turning them into something that isn’t ugly. I figured they were much like those scars carved into her chest—a permanent mark of something mangled.
I shove my hand beneath my pillow, not having to fumble to find what I’m looking for. I’ve slept with it for weeks now, tucked beneath my head as I laid here, night after night in the silence and fog of too much liquor. I pull it out now, the blade glinting in the low light of the lamp, and Story freezes, thighs clenching.
Before she can react, I grab her wrist, pressing the knife into her palm.
She looks at it, still perfectly frozen. “What…?”
“Then do it,” I demand, curling her fingers around the handle. “Right here.”
Her eyes grow wide when I guide the tip of the blade to my chest—to the exact same place my initial is carved into hers. “Dimitri, I—I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can.” I let her hand go and clutch at her knees, bracing myself. “I did it to you, didn’t I?”
There’s a long pause where she just stares in bafflement at the blade against my skin. “You want me to cut you.”
The answer comes out easily. “Yes.”
“You want me to cut my initial into your skin.”
Again, “Yes.”
Her eyes jerk up to mine. “But it’ll hurt.”
I smirk. “Oh, baby girl. You say that like it’ll put me off.”
That makes her eyebrows climb a little higher, but she seems to disregard it. “The scar will be there forever.”
I hold her gaze, willing her to see the gravity in mine. “That’s the idea.”
She lets out this short, disbelieving laugh. “You don’t even know me.”
I narrow my eyes, searching her face. “I know you want to do it, but you’re scared. I know when you brush your hair, you look sad, like you’re missing someone, or feeling nostalgic. I know you test Slytherin on every quiz you’ve ever taken, but swear up and down you’re Gryffindor. I know you didn’t like sweets half as much before you moved in with Tristian, and I know you can’t get a full night’s sleep because it freaks you out that none of us can watch over you. I know that, despite that, you’d rather hold your ground because you’re god-awful stubborn.” Running my thumbs over the dimples in her knees, I list, “You make bad decisions when people threaten you. You hate ska, but somehow like Sublime. You’re curious about your dad, but figure the reality will never measure up to the dream, so you don’t try to find him. You miss being places where no one knew you. You always sleep with a fan on, which is why Killer put one in his room, even though he despises the thought of dust blowing around. I know you noticed it, but pretended not to.” Raising an eyebrow at her expression, I add, “I know that blush on your face right now has nothing to do with you sitting on my dick.”
Her throat jumps with a swallow, eyes moving anxiously from the blade to my face, as if she’s expecting me to reveal this whole thing is a prank. When I don’t, she breathes, “You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.” Raking my lip through my teeth, I gently urge, “Come on, baby. Make me yours.”
The shudder that goes through her body might be subtle, except I can feel it all around me. It’s nearly as electrifying as the way the blade feels, finally piercing into my skin. She sucks in a short inhale at the bubble of blood, big eyes pinging to mine. “Are you…?”
“Keep going,” I insist, staying still. “Make it deep.” Wetting her lips, she returns her gaze to my chest, pressing the blade in deeper. “That’s it,” I breathe, going limp beneath the surge of endorphins. It makes my cock jump and I know she feels it—can tell by the way her lashes flutter—but she doesn’t stop. Not even when the blood pools in the valley between my muscles.
Her breath is coming quick and shallow, and I don’t need to see the tremor in her wrist to know she’s afraid. Afraid of hurting me, perhaps, but more likely, afraid of what it means to have me.
To really have me.
The ‘S’ might be bigger than my ‘R’, but when she pulls back, ashen and slack-faced, I look at it and can’t tell. There’s too much blood to see the edges.
I lift a hand and run my fingers through it, smearing the blood across my skin.
Yours.
But instead of inspecting it, I reach up to slash a long line of scarlet across her parted lips. For a moment, she looks stunned, transfixed and frozen as I prod my bloody fingertips between her teeth, forcing her to taste me. I know she’s lost when she lets me, a slave to this trance, just like I am. Slowly, I lean up, holding her gaze as I fuck my fingers into her mouth, pressing against her tongue, making her just as open and gruesome as we both know we should be.
And then I lick her.
Over her lips, around my fingers. Her tongue meets mine somewhere in the middle, sharing the taste as it rubs against my tongue in a grisly offering.
I grab the knife before rearing up and flipping her over. She lets out a startled yelp, but it’s over just as fast as it begun, and then I’m gazing down at her, pressing our bloody chests together as I kiss the shocked noise from her mouth. The taste is sharp and bitter, a metallic edge that doesn’t go away.
The way I look at her might be tender, but the first punch of my hips into hers is anything but. Her body jerks with the movement and she clings to me, brows collapsing in rapture. But she doesn’t close her eyes. That’s how I know she feels this too. This wild intensity running between us, the thrill of wanting and having.
Give me a masked man in a dark alley any day, because this?
This is terrifying.
“Don’t stop.” She lets out a whimper, fingernails digging into my shoulder blades as I pummel into her, and it’d be easy to pull it back, to give away less of myself, too close my eyes and hide the fact I want her so badly it fucking hurts.
But Ms. Crane was right. People like us can’t do ‘easy’.
So I grab her by the chin and make her see it—all of it. “There’s never going to be anyone else for us. Do you understand that?”
She looks just as scared as I feel, breath bursting from her blood-stained lips with every body-jolting thrust. “You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I fucking can.” I steal the kiss—there’s no other word for it—forcing my tongue inside, making her take me as I fuck her. It’s not how I wanted it to be. It’s nothing like that soft, sleepy morning fuck I’d promised her all those weeks ago. What’s happening here is all desperation and sharp edges, a grunt being pulled from my throat as my hips drive mindlessly into her body. Somehow, it feels fated to be this way, though. Fast and rough and bloody.
It’s how I know it’s real.
She comes with a cry tearing from her chest and it makes me crazed, both hands reaching up to grab the headboard so I can get closer, dig deeper, batter her even harder. It’s senseless, this notion that if I can just get enough of myself inside her, she’ll never be able to exorcise it.
I realize she’s made her way out of this maze of deranged lust when I see she’s gone limp and passive. A strand of her hair has gotten caught on her lip and it billows away from her mouth as she pants into the space between us, eyes fixed sightlessly on mine. For once, I don’t drag it out, the days and weeks of not being inside of her testing my limits in a different kind of way. Teeth clenched, I hiss, spine going stiff as I pump her full of my come. Maybe it’s not the sweet morning sex I’d envisioned, but an energy shudders between us, and when she reaches up to sweep my hair back, it expands and ebbs, the crescendo of a grim symphony.
And then, its bittersweet coda.
She kisses me back just as sweetly as this was supposed to be, bringing me down from the brink with her sticky lips and soothing fingers. I think it’s like that for a while, but my brain’s too slow to notice, because all it cares about is not breaking this connection. My cock’s going soft, but I keep surging against her cunt, keeping it burrowed inside.
We take a long time to catch our breath. Probably because we won’t get another, our kisses turning slow and languid, but no less fervent. It isn’t until Story turns her head to the side, gasping, leaving me to nip at her jaw, that I let myself roll away.
“Fuck me, that was worth the wait,” I mutter, staring up at my ceiling. Normally, I’d reach for a cigarette or a bottle. Instead, I reach for her, ready for that very first post-sex cuddle.
Thwarting me, she bolts upright. “Oh my god! It looks like a massacre! Are you okay?!”
“I just had the best nut of my life,” I tell her, stretching my arms above my head. “I’m fucking aces.”
She assesses the bed, pulling the (formerly) white sheet to her breasts and using it to wipe away the smear of blood on her mouth. “Tristian is going to have a coronary if he finds out we did that!”
I snort. “Tristian? Ms. Crane will tan my hide if she sees this.” I give the sheet a firm tug, ripping it out of her hands. I’m not ready for her to cover up. “I’m burning these. No one will ever know.” Again, I reach for her, but she winces, catching herself before she falls into my side.
“We need to clean that. And us. And our mouths. Oh, god.”
Catching her, I roll us so she’s on her back, pinning her to the bed. “This isn’t exactly the post-orgasmic glow I was hoping for. How are you squirming around like this? I was throwing you my very best in dicking downs, girl. You should be halfway comatose.”
She pauses, tongue peeking out to wet her lips. “Sorry.” She doesn’t look sorry, though. She just looks bright-eyed and a little too wired. “It’s not you. I just had, like, ten gallons of coffee tonight.”
“You must have if that didn’t fuck it out of you.” Sighing, I roll away, heaving myself off the bed. “Fine. We’ll clean up, then sleep.”
But even after we’ve had a hasty wiping down and toothbrushing session, I’m still watching her fine ass zip around the room, stripping the bed, gnawing on a fingernail as she inspects the cut she’d made, jiggling her knee as she perches on the mattress and rubs ointment over the wound. I can tell she’s grossed out by it from the way her forehead puckers, but the shine in her eyes as she flicks her gaze up to me fucking beams with satisfaction.
It’s almost enough to chill her out.
Ten minutes later, we’re laying in the dark, me wrapped around her, nose buried into her hair. I wasn’t lying before. That was an epic fuck—easily the best I’ve ever had. It’s still zinging through my veins, filling my head with sounds and melodies. But here, with her, it’s quiet.
Except for the rustle of sheets as she fidgets.
“You’re still not tired?”
“Not really.” She shrugs and looks back at me, giving me an apologetic smile. When she whispers, “It’s so quiet,” it’s such a perfect mirror to my own thoughts that I press a laugh into her neck. If things were different, I’d get out a blunt and blow her as many shotguns as she needed to finally settle down. I’ve already won both the challenge and the prize. There’s nothing stopping me.
But maybe I can cool it for a little while longer.
She squirms again, rolling to her back and looking across the room. “Maybe if you,” her voice is quiet, timid, “played something for me?”
I follow her gaze to the piano, and my fingers twitch instinctively. It happens every time I look at or walk by it. Groaning, I push my hair back. “Fuck, Story.”
“Please?” She leans into me, her bare chest drawing my gaze to the scar, the letters that mark her as ours. “I miss hearing you play. It always gives me good dreams.”
I look at her, waiting for that ball of dread to rise in my stomach at the thought of pressing the keys. But whatever transpired at the performance between us was over. She hurt me. I hurt her. She made music for me. She made music on me.
Relenting, I lift her chin. “For you,” I kiss her mouth before climbing from the bed, “anything.”
