He groans – a deep, primal sound – and grabs my hips, grounding himself.
Then he moves.
Hard.Fast.Reckless.
Water crashes around us, plastering our hair to our faces, our bodies to each other.Every thrust slaps skin against skin, loud and wet and obscene.The sound bounces off the tiles, mixing with the groan in his throat, the breath hitching in mine.
I dig my nails into his back.Bite down on his shoulder.He slams into me again, deeper this time, faster, chasing everything we’ve held back since the first moment we laid eyes on each other.
His fingers grip my arse, pulling me tighter against him.I hook my leg around his waist to leverage myself higher.He thrusts up, again and again, hitting that perfect spot that sends stars spiralling behind my eyes.
Steam fogs the glass.
My body burns.
I don’t say his name, but I think it.
He doesn’t say mine, but I feel it – in the way he grips me as if I belong to him.As if this is the only place where we’ve ever made sense.
I come with a cry that echoes through the bathroom, breaking open against him.He follows, hips jerking, chest heaving, forehead pressed to mine as we fall apart together.
Just water and heat and the sounds we make when we finally stop pretending that we’re not starving for each other.
THIRTY
The rain taps against the tin roof in a rhythm so gentle it sounds close to a lullaby – the kind my mother never sang yet maybe would have if she hadn’t been so busy squeezing more money out of the divorce.The whole house is swaddled in that steady hush, as if the weather is apologising for existing.
I walk barefoot across the cool wooden floor, hair damp.I head straight to the record shelf, because apparently I’m now the kind of person who starts every night with a vinyl and a quiet sense of dread.
My fingers skim the jackets.Bob Dylan.Nick Cave.Midnight Oil.Then – Powderfinger.Odyssey Number Five.
The cover is creased and familiar.I slip the record from the sleeve and place it gently on the turntable.
The needle drops.
A breath, a crackle.Then that guitar – warm and nostalgic and heartbreakingly alive.
‘Waiting for the Sun’ echoes through the room.
And in some sort of cinematic manifestation, he’s there.
Luke.
Framed in the doorway.He’s not smiling, yet there’s a softness in his face that wasn’t there this morning.It’s like he’s unspooling, like the rain has finally given him permission to breathe.
‘Do you know this one?’I ask, eyes on the spinning record, though every nerve in my body is tracking him like a heat-seeking missile.
‘Yeah,’ he says.His voice is rough like the edges of something well used.‘Brought that one back from uni, actually.’
I glance at him over my shoulder.‘I have the same one in my apartment.’
Something flickers across his face – recognition?Nostalgia?
‘It was one of the first records I bought after my dad gave me a record player for my fifteenth birthday,’ I say, keeping the words casual – as if I’m not handing him a slice of something sharp and buried.‘It was a “sorry I missed your birthday party, here’s a record player” kind of gift.’
Luke steps into the room slowly.I meet him halfway – because I always do.And I hate that I do.And I don’t stop myself.
His hands slide around my waist, because he knows I won’t pull away.
