"Come on, baby," I demanded, my mouth against her ear. "Let go."
She did. Her body locked up, her walls clamping down around me so tight I saw stars. Her cry was raw, desperate, and I swallowed it with a kiss, my hips stuttering as I followed her over the edge.
Pleasure ripped through me, white-hot and brutal, and I buried myself deep, spilling inside her with a groan that tore from my chest. My cock pulsed, my body shuddering with the force of it, and for a second—just a fucking second—I forgot every goddamn thing wrong with me.
Then reality crashed back in.
I collapsed beside her, my chest heaving, my skin slick with sweat. The room was too quiet. The air too thick.
Fuck.
I didn’t even know her name.
Her breathing evened out first, slow and quiet against my ribs. The room still smelled like rain and sex. Sheets twisted halfway off the bed, bruises already blooming along my hip where her knee had pressed. I stayed still, waiting for the usual restlessness to take over, the itch that sent me reaching for a cigarette or the doorknob.
Didn’t come.
Instead, I reached for her. My arm found that narrow dip at her waist and I drew her back against me. She stirred, murmured something that sounded like something sweet—or maybe not. Her hair brushed my mouth, damp strands tasting faintly of salt.
I buried my face there.
Warmth seeped into my chest, unfamiliar, dangerous. The kind that didn’t belong in nights built on forgetting. Normally this was where I’d hand over my phone, thumb hovering on the rideshare app, offer her a polite exit and the number she’d never use. Clean break, no chance of remembering each other in daylight.
But she fit too easily against me, like the space had been waiting.
My hand slid over her stomach, feeling the steady rise and fall, the pulse that matched my own. She reached back—barely awake—and tangled her fingers with mine. Just that small touch, grounding and quiet.
Outside, wind pushed against the window. Somewhere down the street a car door slammed, muffled by distance. I closed my eyes, breathing her in, catching traces of soap, sweat, a ghost of whiskey.
She shifted again, this time turning toward me, her thigh hooking over mine. I angled closer, and the last bit of air between us vanished. Her breath warmed my throat.
The ache in my chest eased. For once I didn’t think about tomorrow. I just held her, and we sank together into the dark.
Chapter 5
Billie
The light came in thin stripes through the blinds, cutting across the ceiling like someone had carved the dawn into pieces. Sheets tangled around my waist, smooth cotton against bare skin. The air smelled faintly of soap and cold—like the world outside had slipped in through a crack in the window and decided to stay.
For a second I didn’t move. My head felt heavy, my mouth dry. Then the memories started crawling back one by one: his mouth on mine, the weight of his shoulders, the soft rasp of his voice when he asked if I was okay. How I’d nodded, unable to speak, because words felt too flimsy to explain what I needed out of him.
I rolled onto my back, eyes to the ceiling, and let myself breathe. It didn’t feel like shame. Not even close. Just a steady thrum somewhere under my ribs, like my heartbeat had finally synced with something again.
Fabric shifted beside me—the hollow space still warm. I half expected him to be gone, a ghost made of liquor and grief. But then came the sound of water running, a dull hiss behind a closed door. The shower.
For a second, I froze.
That sound shouldn’t have belonged here. It used to mean Sunday mornings and shared toothbrushes, Nate humming some dumb song that stuck in my head all day. My stomach flipped. My brain reached for old habits, tried to slip into the shape of who I was with him—quiet, careful, smaller than I needed to be.
But it didn’t stick.
Whoever stood behind that door wasn’t him. The water didn’t mean apology or routine. It was just a man cleaning the night off his skin. A man who’d never asked for my name, who hadn’t looked at me like a possession dressed up in sequins and self-doubt.
I pressed my palm against the sheet where his body had been, feeling the leftover heat fading slow.
Last night had been reckless. Maybe stupid. But when his breath touched the back of my neck and he held still—waiting, not taking—I’d remembered what it felt like to move without fear of being watched. I remembered laughter. Mine. Small and cracked at first, then real.
The hiss of the shower deepened, steady, unbroken. Steam crept under the door, a ghostly curl through pale light.
