Chapter 8: The Rehearsal Dinner
The humid night air hit them like a wall as they stumbled from the coat room’s plush silence into the hotel’s garish portico. Tasha’s hair was escaping its pins, her dress slightly twisted at the waist. Ares’s tie was gone, stuffed in his pocket, the top buttons of his shirt straining open. They were both still breathing hard, the ghost of each other’s touch humming on their skin.
“Your family,” Tasha started, smoothing her dress with unsteady hands.
“Fuck ‘em,” Ares grinned, that traffic-stopping smile flashing in the valet lights. But it didn’t reach his eyes, which kept scanning her face. “You were a goddess in there. The way you handled Valeria? Shit. I heard about that.”
Tasha’s laugh was a short, sharp exhale. “She was rude.”
“She’s jealous.” He pulled her close, his mouth against her temple. “Because you’re fucking unreal.”
The drive back to Coral Gables was a tunnel of streetlights and quiet. The adrenaline of the confrontation, the frantic sex in the dark, was ebbing, leaving a strange, hollow static in its wake. Tasha watched Miami blur past, her reflection ghostly in the window. She could still feel the bite of the fur coats against her back, the raw, claiming grip of his hands on her hips. It had felt like victory then. Now, it felt like a performance.
Ares’s hand found her thigh, squeezing gently. “You okay?”
“Just tired,” she said, and it wasn’t a lie.
The mansion was dark and cool. They moved through the echoing halls, their footsteps soft on the marble. In the kitchen, Ares grabbed two glasses of water, his body moving with the easy, unconscious grace of an athlete even when exhausted.
“My tía Lucia asked about you,” he said, leaning against the granite island. “Asked what you do again. I said yoga. She said you carry yourself like a CEO.”
Tasha’s throat tightened. She took a long sip of water. “What did you say?”
“I said you were the boss of me.” He winked, but the joke fell between them, landing with a soft, awkward thud.
Upstairs, in the cavernous bedroom, the facade crumbled faster. Tasha stood at the bathroom sink, wiping away her makeup, staring at the woman in the mirror—the one who’d just told a petty girl she was “exactly my age in bed,” the one who’d screwed her boyfriend in a closet at his cousin’s wedding. The lawyer who’d spent the day before dismantling a witness on the stand receded, leaving someone she barely recognized.
Ares came up behind her, his frame enveloping hers in the mirror. He nuzzled her neck, his hands sliding around her waist to cup her stomach. “That was the hottest fucking thing that’s ever happened to me,” he murmured, his voice rough with renewed want.
He turned her around, his mouth claiming hers. This kiss wasn’t like the desperate, silent one in the coat room. It was slow, deep, and terribly focused. He backed her into the bedroom, towards the bed, his fingers already working the zpper of her dress. It pooled at her feet. He unclasped her bra, her breasts falling heavy into his waiting hands. He groaned, thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked into hard, sensitive points.
“Look at you,” he breathed, pushing her back onto the cool duvet. He stood over her, drinking her in as he tore off his own clothes. The chandelier light carved the muscles of his abdomen, shadowed the line of his hips. His cock was already hard, jutting out thick and flushed.
He didn’t join her. He knelt at the foot of the bed, grabbed her ankles, and dragged her to the edge, her ass just off the mattress. He hooked her legs over his shoulders, his breath hot on her inner thighs.
“Ares,” she whispered.
“I need a taste,” he said, his voice dark. “Need to know you’re still mine after all those fuckers looking at you tonight.”
His mouth was on her, not with playful teasing but with a single-minded intensity. His tongue licked a broad, wet stripe through her folds, then zeroed in on her clit. He sucked it into his mouth, flicking it with the tip of his tongue, then flattened his tongue and lapped at her with steady, rhythmic pressure. One hand gripped her hip, holding her in place, the other slid up her torso to roughly palm her breast, pinching her nipple.
Tasha cried out, her back arching. The intimacy was brutal, overwhelming. He was devouring her, claiming the very core of her, and the duality of it shattered her—the tender boy who brought her water, and the possessive animal between her legs. Her hands fisted in his dark curls, not to guide him, but to anchor herself as the sensations mounted into a steep, inexorable climb.
“That’s it,” he growled against her, the vibration pushing her higher. “Come for me. Come on my fucking face.”
The obscenity, the raw command, did it. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seismic wave that clenched her entire body. She shook, gasping, seeing white spots behind her eyelids.
Before the last pulse faded, he was moving. He flipped her over onto her stomach with a strength that left her breathless. He pulled her hips up, angling her ass into the air. One hand pressed between her shoulder blades, keeping her down. The other guided his cock, not to her entrance, but lower, through the slick mess he’d made, rubbing the broad head against her tight, forbidden hole.
“Ares—no,” she gasped, the word muffled by the duvet.
“Just a little,” he coaxed, his voice strained with need. He spat onto his fingers, worked them against her, pressing one in alongside where his cockhead nudged. The stretch was burning, unimaginable. “Relax, baby. I need it. Need to be in the deepest part of you.”
He pushed, just an inch, a devastating, full invasion. The pain was sharp, bright, a lightning bolt of pure sensation. She cried out, and he stilled, panting against her back.
“Tell me to stop,” he challenged, his body trembling with the effort of holding back.
She didn’t. A filthy, dark part of her wanted the violation, wanted to feel owned so completely it erased the elegant lies. She pushed back, taking him deeper.
He swore, a long, reverent stream of Spanish and English obscenities. Then he began to move, shallow thrusts that gradually deepened as her body yielded. The pain melded into a devastating, full ache, a sense of being stretched to her absolute limit. Each thrust jolted through her, a raw, primal punctuation. He leaned over her, blanketing her, one arm wrapping around her waist to find her clit again. He rubbed harsh, quick circles as he fucked her, his rhythm growing frantic, brutal.
“You’re so fucking deep,” he grunted, his teeth grazing her shoulder. “Taking all of me. Christ, Tasha.”
His own climax hit him like a seizure. He slammed into her one final, crushing time and held there, a guttural roar tearing from his throat as he emptied himself inside her. They collapsed together onto the bed, a tangled, sweating, spent heap.
For long minutes, the only sound was their ragged breathing. The room smelled of sex and salt and him. Slowly, the world reassembled itself. The pain radiated, a deep, persistent throb. Ares rolled off her, his hand immediately finding hers in the darkness.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
She couldn’t speak. She felt scraped raw, physically and emotionally. She curled onto her side, away from him. He shifted closer, spooning her, his body a furnace against her back. He kissed her shoulder, her neck.
“You’re amazing,” he mumbled, already sliding into sleep. “My amazing girl.”
She lay awake, listening to his breaths even out. The digital clock on the nightstand cast a faint red glow. 2:17 AM. On the floor, beside his discarded jacket, his phone lit up with a notification. The screen was visible from the bed.
It was a calendar alert for tomorrow.
TEAM MEETING - SCHOLARSHIP PAPERWORK DUE. 10 AM. COACH’S OFFICE.
Below it, another, older notification peeked through: MOM - CALL BACK RE: FINAL TRANSCRIPTS.
Tasha stared at the glowing screen in the dark. The words swam in her vision. Scholarship paperwork. Final transcripts. The brittle fiction of their lives, so easily shattered by a misplaced phone. A cold clarity, sharper than any post-orgasm haze, settled over her. He was lying. About more than just his age. And she was lying about everything.
The love was real. The passion was a consuming fire. But they were building it on a foundation of quicksand, and she felt it beginning to give way beneath her, there in the dark, with the proof of his deception glowing silently on the floor.
But they were building it on a foundation of quicksand, and she felt it beginning to give way beneath her, there in the dark, with the proof of his deception glowing silently on the floor. The phone screen went black, plunging the room back into a gloom that felt heavier, more suffocating than before. She carefully extracted herself from his loose embrace, the throbbing between her legs a physical echo of the violation that now felt less like passion and more like a painful metaphor.
She stood naked by the bed, looking down at him. In sleep, he looked younger. The hard set of his jaw softened, the fierce confidence replaced by an almost boyish vulnerability. Her chest ached. She walked to the bathroom and closed the door without turning on the light, leaning her forehead against the cool mirror. Scholarship paperwork. A high school senior filled out scholarship paperwork. Not a college sophomore. The math was brutal and unavoidable.
When she slipped back into bed, the movement woke him. His arm snaked around her waist instantly, pulling her flush against his bare chest. “Couldn’t sleep?” His voice was sleep-roughened, his lips moving against her neck.
“Thinking,” she said, her tone flat.
He shifted, rolling her onto her back. He hovered above her, his green eyes searching her face in the faint light. “About what? That bitch at the wedding? Don’t. She’s nothing.”
“It’s not her.” Tasha looked past him at the ceiling. “Your phone lit up. On the floor.”
He went very still. The warmth in his eyes cooled, replaced by a watchful, guarded sharpness. “Yeah?”
“It said ‘scholarship paperwork due’.” She turned her head, meeting his gaze now. “You finished your associate’s degree last year. You told me. Remember? Over pancakes at that diner on 8th. So why would you need scholarship paperwork now, Ares?”
The silence between them thickened, grew teeth. He didn’t look away, but something behind his eyes shut down. She saw the calculation, the rapid search for a plausible lie. It was the same look she saw in depositions when a witness realized they’d been cornered.
“It’s for a transfer scholarship,” he said, but the rhythm was off. “To a better program. Coach is handling it.”
“You’re a liar.” The words came out quiet, final. “You’re 18. You’re still in high school.”
His jaw tightened. The charming, smiling boy was gone, replaced by someone harder, defiant. “So what if I am? Does it change this?” He pressed his hips down, letting her feel him hardening again against her thigh. “Does it change how you come on my tongue? How you screamed in that fucking coat room?”
“It changes everything,” she whispered, but her body was betraying her, a traitorous heat responding to his weight, to the memory of his mouth.
“No it doesn’t.” He seized her wrists, pinning them above her head with one strong hand. “It doesn’t change a goddamn thing. You lied too. You think I’m stupid? A ‘freelance yoga instructor’ with a fucking Rolex and a mansion? You think I don’t see the legal briefs in your bag, the way you talk on the phone when you think I’m not listening?” He lowered his face until their noses almost touched. “We’re both liars. So we’re even. Now shut up.”
He crushed his mouth to hers, a kiss that was pure anger and ownership. It wasn’t gentle. He bit her lip, and she tasted copper. She struggled for a second, a futile push against his chest, but the fight melted into a molten surrender. This was the truth they had: this clash, this fire. He released her wrists and his hands went to her breasts, kneading them roughly, his thumbs scraping over her nipples.
“You want the truth?” he hissed, moving his mouth down her neck. “Here it is.” He took one nipple into his hot mouth, sucking hard, his tongue flicking the peak until she gasped. He switched to the other, teeth grazing, his hand squeezing the tender flesh. “The truth is you’re a thirsty fucking slut for me. The truth is you love my cock in your ass. The truth is you don’t care how old I am.”
He sat back, pulling her up with him. The silver chain he always wore, a simple crucifix, dangled against his chest. He fisted a hand in her hair, not gentle, and brought her face to it. “Kiss it,” he commanded. She pressed her lips to the warm metal, a blasphemous submission. “Now me.”
He claimed her mouth again, his tongue pushing past her lips. He pulled back just an inch, a thread of saliva connecting them. He gathered spit in his mouth and let it fall onto her parted lips. “Open.” She obeyed, and he spat directly onto her tongue. The act was degrading, absolute. She swallowed, her eyes watering, her cunt pulsing.
“On your knees,” he ordered, shoving her off the bed.
She knelt on the carpet, the view of him standing over her, his cock fully erect, both terrifying and exhilarating. He stroked himself, the head glistening. “You’re mine,” he stated, and it wasn’t a question. He turned her roughly, positioning her on her hands and knees. He mounted her from behind, one hand gripping her hip, the other tangling in her hair to yank her head back. He didn’t guide himself in; he just pushed, the broad head stretching her open in one relentless, burning shove.
She cried out, her back arching. He set a brutal pace immediately, each thrust a deep, jolting impact. The sound was obscene, skin slapping against skin, her wetness making a filthy, sucking noise with every drive. He pounded into her, his balls slapping against her clit, the overstimulation pushing her toward a dizzying edge.
“Look at me,” he growled, pulling her hair harder so she had to crane her neck. He leaned over, catching her reflection in the dark window. “Look me in my eyes and take it.”
Tears streamed down her face from the intensity, from the emotional wreckage, from the sheer physical overwhelm. She held his reflected gaze, green and fierce, as he fucked her with a punishing rhythm. She was split open, completely filled, every neuron firing for him. She was so deep with him, in this lie, in this passion, that she couldn’t see a way out. She didn’t want one.
“I’m gonna come,” he grunted, his rhythm starting to fracture. “You come with me. Squirt all over my fucking dick. Do it.”
The command, the raw need in his voice, triggered something primal. The climax tore through her, a different kind than before—a bursting, flooding release that gushed out of her as he slammed home one last time. She felt her own release soak her thighs, the carpet beneath them. He shouted, his body locking as he emptied himself inside her with a ragged, trembling groan.
He collapsed over her, both of them sweating and slick and ruined. He rolled them to the side, still connected, his arms vise-tight around her. She shuddered, aftershocks wracking her body.
They lay in the wet dark, breath sawing in and out. He nuzzled her shoulder, his voice a shattered whisper. “Don’t let go, Tasha.”
She clutched his arm, her fingers digging into his skin. She wouldn’t. Even as the quicksand swallowed them whole, she knew she’d cling to him all the way down.