I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the words left his mouth. It should have annoyed me. It did, a little. Arrogance and implication wrapped in politeness. But the slow curl of his tone—and the way his gaze slid over me like he’d already catalogued every fragile place—had cut through something too old and too stubborn to name.
“You’re ridiculous,” I whispered to the quiet room.
The room didn’t argue.
I stood and turned out the lamp. Moonlight made a spill of pewter on the floor, soft as skin. I shut the curtains halfway and left the window a finger’s width open for the sound of the ocean. The sheets were cool against my legs when I slid under them, and the ceiling crack split the dark into a neat geometry.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of lists. Tasks. Contractors to call. The order of work—roof, then plumbing, then cosmetic. I tried to picture line items and estimates and schedules.
Instead, I saw him.
He was on the porch in my mind, the way I’d seen him in the reflection of the kitchen window—still, listening, the last of the sun smoldering in his hair. Then the scene shifted without my permission. He was in the foyer, at the desk, the guest ledger open under his hand. He looked up at me as if he already knew what I’d say before I said it. He had that kind of face—made for reading a room or wrecking it.
“I’m not doing this,” I told the ceiling. My voice came out soft. It didn’t sound like a refusal.
Heat moved through me, slow and heavy, a tide pulling back to gather itself. My thighs pressed together of their own accord. My breath shortened. I gave myself one last chance to be reasonable.
Then I slid my hand under the sheet.
The first touch was a test. A line drawn from hip to hip. A circle at my navel. The barest brush lower, pulse tripping. Iwasn’t practiced at this. Not like some of my friends who talked about self-care in the same tone they used for face masks and early bedtimes. I’d always been better at ignoring need than feeding it.
But my body felt like a lock already turned, waiting.
I let myself picture his hands where mine were. Not careful. Not cruel. Just sure. The pads of his fingers would be rough. He lived in his skin. He knew the difference between pressure and force and how a woman’s breath changed when he found right.
In my mind, he didn’t ask me to open my thighs. He parted them with a nudge of his knee and a look that warmed me all the way to my mouth. The room got smaller. The air got heavier. The ocean outside went from hiss to hush.
“Good girl,” he said, maybe. Or maybe he didn’t speak at all. Maybe the sound was his breath near my ear, beard scraping my throat, that hot-cold contrast that makes you want and want and forget your own name.
My fingers slipped lower like they knew a path. I spread myself with the heel of my hand and almost laughed at the flash of shame that rose up—sex as a to-do list item, sex as an efficiency study. As if a body could be managed like a quarterly review.
I pushed that voice away, and when I found the tender, slick place that made my hips twitch, I pressed, just enough. Pleasure flickered like a pilot light catching. I circled once. Twice. The third time, my breath went ragged. I set a rhythm because rhythm always saved me. Slow, then slower, the way he would make me do it if he were here, sayingnot yetagainst my mouth, making patience feel like sin.
“Please,” I whispered, not sure who I was asking. The bed, the night, the ghost of a man who’d checked in and vanished.
I imagined him at the foot of my bed, one forearm braced on the mattress, watching. His eyes were that light stone gray, wolf-quiet and intent, and when I sped up he shook his head, just once. The tiny refusal undid me. I slowed. Heat pooled until it ached. My free hand fisted in the sheet.
“Look at me,” he said, the fantasy so crisp I had to obey, even alone. “Hazel.” My name roughened around his tongue like it was a thing he’d earned.
My hips rolled. Wet and wanting, wanting, wanting—God, I wanted. The circles went ragged as the room narrowed to the point of my touch. I could feel how much there was to lose by surrendering. I could feel how safe it was to lose it, just this once, when no one was watching but me.
“More,” I breathed.
In the sharp, bright second before it broke, my mind gave me one more gift: his hand covering mine, broad and hot, pressing down with just enough weight to make me gasp, guiding me through the last tight circles like he’d known me for years.
I came hard, all at once, the pleasure quick and deep and mean with relief. My mouth opened on a silent cry. The house creaked like it had felt it, too. The ocean answered with a soft, triumphant hiss.
Yes.
After, the world returned in pieces—the sound of my breath, the thud of my heart, the cool of the sheet where my palm had been. I lay there, floating, until the ache softened into something sweet and a little sad. My cheeks were hot. My throat felt tight. I didn’t know if I was embarrassed or proud. Maybe both.
I cleaned up with the corner of the sheet, then folded that corner under because the idea of sleeping with proof of myself against my skin made me absurdly shy. I reached for my notebook out of reflex and wrote nothing. No bullet point for this. No box to check.
The night shifted.
A headlight slid across the ceiling—one pale arc that cut across the crack in the plaster and disappeared. An engine’s low growl rolled up the drive, then a crunch of tires on sand. Footsteps on the porch—measured, unhurried. The bell didn’t ring. The front door opened and closed with a hush only someone careful could manage.
My heart started up again like it had been waiting for this beat. I listened. The stairs complained under a heavy stride, familiar now, deep and steady. One. Two. Three. A pause halfway up—no, a shift, a recalibration. Then the rest. The second-floor landing groaned. The hallway breathed.
