“Ooooh!” I cry, my pussy spasming violently as pleasure rushes through my veins. “Mmmm yes!”
We pump and pulse desperately, our climaxes incredibly powerful. My breasts shake, pussy exploding as this man takes me to the Heavens and back. Even as the ecstasy subsides, we stay locked together, breath mingling, sweat slicking our skin.
Kent collapses beside me, drags me into his arms, and buries his face in my hair. I can feel his heartbeat against my chest, wild at first, then slowing.
For a long time, neither of us says a word.
My body hums, every nerve ending alive. The pain is gone, replaced by a strange, aching joy. My thighs are sticky with cum, my hair tangled, lips swollen and raw.
I close my eyes, listen to the sound of Kent’s breathing, and think: This is it. This is what I wanted.
I drift, half-asleep, tangled in the sheets and in him.
When I wake, the fire’s out, the room cold, but his arms are around me, tight and certain, like he’ll never let go.
I believe him.
I never want to leave this bed.
16
THE MORNING AFTER
MARY KATE
It takes a minute to remember how I got here.
I’m on my stomach, face buried in a pillow that still holds the ghost of his cologne—sandalwood and sharp, resinous spice, heavy enough to burn behind my eyes when I inhale. The duvet is a weighted thing pinning me to the bed, every inch of me sunk into the mattress as if I’ve aged a hundred years overnight, or maybe been freshly poured in concrete. The room is too bright: rays of the morning sun strobe through cracks in the blackout curtains and burn hot on the sheet-tangled mess where my legs should be.
My first real thought is: I’m alive. My second is: my body’s not mine.
There’s an ache, low and bruised, a soreness that makes itself known with every shallow breath. I roll my hips experimentally, and a shot of pain splits me at the seam—my thighs, my lower back, the raw, battered place between my legs. The skin there feels chafed, hyperreal, a reminder that what happened last night was not a dream, not a story I told myself while drifting inand out. I’m flooded with the memory of him: Kent, his weight, the jaw hard as a riverstone and the mouth that refused to be gentle, the way he held my wrists above my head and told me, over and over, what I am.
I turn over, the sheet dragging sticky along my skin. There’s a dried streak of red where my thighs meet, rust-colored and delicate as a watercolor. My breath catches in my throat. Next to it, a glop of caked semen, milk-white against the inside of my knee. I reach down and touch it, rubbing the flake between my thumb and index finger, and then I laugh, because it’s so honest and gross and real.
I’m his, now.
I stretch, arms over my head, and stare at the ceiling, at the abstract shadows thrown by the crystal chandelier. The air is cool—Kent must have cracked a window sometime after I passed out—and my nipples harden instantly, the memory of his mouth making me squirm against the mattress. I fumble around for my phone but it’s not in the bed. Instead, my hand lands on a button-down shirt, pale blue, soft as butter, the kind of thing you only buy if you’re rich or want people to think you are. Kent’s shirt. I drag it on, rolling the sleeves up past my elbows, and button just enough to keep the world from seeing my tits. The hem barely hits mid-thigh. I like the way it covers nothing. I like the way it smells like him.
I swing my legs out of the bed, every muscle protesting, and stand. My knees almost buckle. There’s a sheen of dried sweat on my arms, and the same at the curve of my waist. I feel ruined, and I love it. The floor is cold under my bare feet—white marble, so clean it reflects the morning sun in blinding streaks. The room itself is gigantic, the kind of bedroom you see in a hotel so expensive you have to Google it to know it exists. Kent’s side ofthe bed is empty, but there’s a dip in the pillow, a shadow of his head and the faintest imprint of his hairline.
I shuffle to the bathroom and pee, wincing at the soreness. There’s blood, but not much, just enough to make me feel like I’ve accomplished something. My hair is a snarl of gold and static, but I don’t even try to fix it. I want to be marked. I want everyone who sees me to know what happened.
Down the hall, the house is silent. I make my way past the closed doors, past the gigantic oil paintings and the slick, modernist furniture that looks like it’s never been touched. On the landing, I pause. The staircase is wide enough for a parade, the marble so cold it burns. My bare feet leave prints behind me, and the hem of the shirt flutters around my thighs with every step.
The kitchen is alive. Sizzle of bacon, metallic rattle of a spatula on a skillet, the low purr of the espresso machine. Kent stands at the stove, shirtless, the ridged muscle of his back mapping the light like topography. His sweatpants are the soft gray kind, clinging to the V of his hips and falling just low enough to hint at the line of hair below his navel. His hands—one still bruised from last night—man the spatula with the precision of a surgeon. There’s already an empty mug waiting on the marble island, and another set beside it, both perfectly aligned like a ritual.
He looks up. Blue eyes rake over me, slow as a lick, and then he grins, just barely, the edge of his mouth curving up with a tightness that feels like possession and pride at the same time.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he says, voice scratchy.
“Morning,” I mumble. My own voice is barely there—sleepy, or maybe just shy. I slide onto a stool at the island, the seat coldthrough the shirt, and tuck my legs up under me, the pads of my feet pressed flat to the chrome rung.
Kent turns back to the stove. He plates the bacon, then cracks three eggs into a pan without looking, the yolks bright orange against the white. He moves like he owns the world. I watch his forearms as he whisks, the veins jumping as he works the bowl. I want to lick them.
There’s a silence, but not an uncomfortable one. The only sounds are the snap and hiss of bacon, the whirr of the espresso, and the tick of the quartz clock above the range.
He pours the coffee and brings the mugs to the island, sliding one across to me with a deliberate grace. His knuckles are still mottled and purple, the cut on his thumb dark against the bone. I remember the way he hit Clay, the way his hand locked around the other man’s neck. My pussy clenches at the memory.
