Chapter 2: Ruined Appetites
The flannel shirt hung on the back of her bedroom door for three days, a soft grey ghost in her otherwise curated space. Eleanor touched it every time she passed, the fabric still holding the faintest scent of oil and workshop and him. It made her pulse quicken in a way she couldn’t rationally explain. She was planning a dinner, not a siege. Yet.
She cleaned her small apartment with a ferocity usually reserved for spring cleaning at the library archives. Every book was dusted and straightened on its shelf. The worn leather armchair was fluffed. She selected a bottle of red wine she couldn’t really afford, something Italian and robust, and set two glasses on the low table by the couch. The menu was simple but precise: pappardelle with a slow-cooked ragu, a salad with sharp parmesan, crusty bread. Comforting. Controllable.
When the doorbell rang at seven sharp, the panic was a live wire in her throat. She smoothed her simple black dress—knee-length, sleeves to her elbows, the most daring thing she owned—and opened the door.
Lando filled the frame. He wore dark jeans and a simple black t-shirt that clung to the lines of his chest and arms. He’d shaved, but the shadow of a beard was already promising a return. In one hand was a bottle of wine; in the other, a single, perfect sunflower. He looked utterly out of place in her quiet, book-lined hallway.
“Hey, Ellie.” His voice was a warm rumble.
“Hello. Come in.” She stepped back, accepting the flower and the wine, her fingers brushing his. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”
“Show’s I was raised right,” he said, stepping inside. He took the room in with a slow, sweeping glance—the towering shelves, the soft lamps, the neat stacks of books on every surface. A small smile played on his lips. “This is you, huh? All these words.”
“It’s a bit much,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. “I’ll get a vase.”
The dinner started with a careful, predictable cadence. They talked about his day at the shop—a tricky transmission job—and her day at the library—a donation of 19th-century botanical sketches. He teased her about her “proper British” pronunciation of ‘tomato.’ She asked about his tattoos, and he told her stories of the ones from Naples, the ones from New York, the ones that were just because he liked the art. The wine eased something between them, a tension that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
But he watched her. Not with predatory hunger, but with a focused, unhurried curiosity that was somehow more disarming. He watched the way she carefully twirled her pasta, the precise dab of her napkin at the corner of her mouth.
“You’re so fucking precise,” he said, halfway through the second bottle. He wasn’t slurring, but his words had taken on a lazy, molten quality. He leaned back on her couch, his arm stretched along the back, his fingers almost, but not quite, touching her shoulder.
“I’m not,” she protested, though she was. Every action was measured, considered.
“You are. It’s cute.” He swirled the wine in his glass. “All these books, all this… order. I bet you alphabetize your spices.”
“I do, actually. It’s efficient.”
He laughed, a deep, genuine sound that vibrated in the space between them. “See? Proper.” He set his glass down and turned fully towards her. The movement brought him closer. The heat from his body was a new presence in the room. “I wonder what it takes to make you messy, Eleanor Ainsworth.”
Her name on his tongue was a dare. The wine, the candlelight, the sheer proximity of him—it was melting the careful frost around her edges. A reckless, unfamiliar heat was pooling low in her belly.
“Maybe I like being precise,” she said, her voice lower than she intended.
“Maybe you’ve never been given a proper reason not to be.” His hand came up, not to grab, but to gently trace the line of her jaw with his knuckle. His touch was electric, calloused, real. It shattered her last pretense of composure.
A sound escaped her, a small, helpless sigh. It was all the permission he needed.
His hand slid into her hair, his fingers tangling in the strands, not rough but decisively possessive. He pulled her in, and his mouth was on hers. It wasn’t a gentle first kiss. It was a claim. His lips were warm, insistent, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth until she opened for him with a soft gasp. The taste of him—wine, mint, something fundamentally male—flooded her senses. Her hands flew up, fluttering for a moment before settling on his chest, feeling the hard planes of muscle beneath the soft cotton.
He deepened the kiss, one hand still fisted in her hair, the other coming to rest on her waist, his thumb stroking the curve just above her hip. He swallowed every one of her small, shocked breaths, turning them into soft moans that she didn’t recognize as her own. The world narrowed to the heat of his mouth, the scratch of his stubble, the solid weight of him pulling her closer.
When he finally broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavily. His eyes were dark, the pupils blown wide, reflecting the flickering candlelight.
“Fuck your dinner,” he growled, his voice thick.
Before she could process the words, his hands were at her hips, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. He dragged her across the cushions and onto his lap, straddling him. Her skirt, already riding up, gathered around her thighs. The feel of him, hard and massive beneath the denim, pressed against the heart of her. A sharp, desperate need clenched deep inside her.
“Lando,” she whispered, half-protest, half-plea.
“You asked me here, little mouse,” he murmured against her throat, his lips tracing a burning path down her neck. One hand stayed anchored on her hip, the other sliding up her thigh, under the bunched fabric of her dress. His fingers brushed against her bare skin, higher, higher, until they met the shocking, damp heat between her legs.
He stilled. Pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, his expression one of pure, predatory surprise. “No fucking panties?”
She blushed furiously, the heat spreading across her chest. She’d told herself it was the laundry, that her good ones were in the wash. But here, now, with his calloused finger hovering at her very core, the lie evaporated.
He didn’t wait for an answer. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Christ, you’re already soaked for me.” He touched her then, a single, deliberate stroke through her slick folds. Her head fell back, a strangled cry tearing from her throat.
It was too much. Not enough. The sensation was catastrophic, unraveling every stitch of her carefully constructed self. She rocked against his hand, seeking more, her fingers clutching at his shoulders.
With a groan, he stood up, taking her with him. In one fluid, powerful motion, he swept the remains of their dinner from the low table with his arm. Plates crashed to the floor in a discordant symphony. He laid her back on the smooth, cool wood, her dress pushed up around her waist, her thighs falling open in helpless invitation.
He knelt on the floor between her legs, his hands pushing her knees wider. The cool air of the room hit her wetness, making her shiver. He looked at her, spread open before him, and the raw hunger in his gaze stole the breath from her lungs.
“Let’s see how proper you taste,” he said, his voice a dark promise.
And then his mouth was on her.
It was not a gentle exploration. It was a devouring. His tongue parted her, licked a long, flat stripe from her entrance to her clit. She jerked, a shocked, wordless sound ripped from her throat. He held her hips down, pinning her to the table, and did it again. And again. His stubble scraped the tender skin of her inner thighs, a delicious, punishing friction. He lapped at her, drinking her in, humming his approval against her flesh. The vibration sent shockwaves straight to her core.
“Oh, god,” she whimpered, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the slick tabletop.
He zeroed in on her clit, sucking the sensitive bud into his mouth, flicking it with relentless precision with his tongue. The world dissolved into a white-hot pinpoint of sensation. She was babbling, half-formed curses and pleas, her back arching off the table. Her hips bucked against his face, but he held her firmly, controlling the pace, driving her higher.
“Please,” she sobbed, not even knowing what she was begging for.
He slid one thick finger inside her, then two, crooking them upward. The sudden, exquisite stretch made her cry out. He pumped his fingers in time with the ruthless work of his tongue, a double assault that pushed her right to the edge. She was wound so tight she felt she might splinter.
“Come on my tongue, Ellie,” he growled, the words vibrating against her soaked flesh. “Let go. Fucking let go.”
It was the command, the filthy, raw permission in his voice, that shattered her. The climax tore through her like a wildfire, violent and consuming. Her whole body seized, a silent scream locked in her throat as waves of pure, electric pleasure radiated out from where his mouth and fingers worked her. She convulsed, her thighs clamping around his head, her vision spotting.
He worked her through it, gentling his touch but not stopping, until the spasms subsided into helpless, twitching tremors. Only then did he pull back, breathing heavily. His mouth and chin were glistening with her. He looked up at her, his eyes blazing with triumph and a dark, unfulfilled need.
She lay sprawled on the table, utterly wrecked, more exposed than she had ever been in her life. The scent of sex and spilled wine and extinguished candles hung thick in the air. He rose to his feet, looking down at her with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. He unbuttoned his jeans, freeing his erection. He was thick, veined, fully hard, curving up towards his stomach.
Her breath hitched. The reality of what was happening, of what was about to happen, slammed into her post-orgasmic haze.
He leaned over her, bracing his hands on the table on either side of her head. He kissed her, deep and slow, letting her taste herself on his tongue.
“Still want to be proper?” he whispered against her lips.
Wordlessly, her body still throbbing, she shook her head. She reached for him, wrapping her hand around his hard length. He hissed, his eyes squeezing shut for a second.
“Good,” he breathed. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head pressing against her slick, swollen flesh. He watched her face as he began to push inside. “Look at me.”
She did. The initial stretch was intense, a burning fullness she had only ever imagined. She gasped, her nails digging into his forearms.
“Breathe, little mouse,” he soothed, stilling, letting her adjust. When her body relaxed, accepting him, he sank the rest of the way in with a low, guttural groan. “Fuck. You’re so tight.”
He was buried to the hilt inside her, a complete, staggering invasion. She felt impossibly full, stretched around him, every nerve ending screaming with the new, raw reality of him. He didn’t move for a long moment, just let her feel him, her inner muscles fluttering wildly around his shaft.
Then he began to move.
It was not making love. It was fucking. Hard, deep, desperate strokes that drove the air from her lungs with each impact. The table legs scraped against the floorboards in a rhythmic protest. He hooked his hands under her knees, pushing them back towards her shoulders, opening her even wider, angling himself to hit a spot deep inside that made her see stars.
“Oh, God, Lando… right there,” she cried out, her politeness, her precision, everything obliterated.
“You take it so well,” he grunted, his rhythm becoming more urgent, less controlled. Sweat gleamed on his temple. “This sweet, proper cunt was made for this. For getting fucked just like this.”
His words were filthy, obscene, and they sent another jolt of desperate arousal through her. Her own noises were wanton, animal sounds she’d never made before. She met his thrusts, her hips rising off the table to meet his punishing pace. The tension was coiling inside her again, tighter, fiercer than before.
He shifted, bending lower, his mouth finding hers in a bruising kiss. “Come with me,” he demanded, his thrusts becoming frantic, erratic. “Now, Ellie.”
It was the ragged edge in his voice that tipped her over. Her second orgasm crashed into her, a deep, internal convulsion that milked his length. She screamed into his mouth, her body bowing off the table.
With a final, driving thrust and a raw shout that was more growl than word, he followed her. She felt him pulse inside her, hot and endless, his whole body shuddering with the force of his release.
For long minutes, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant hum of the city outside. He was still inside her, his weight partly on her, his face buried in the curve of her neck. The table was hard and unyielding against her back. Her legs ached where they were hooked over his arms.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He straightened up, looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher—a mix of awe, satisfaction, and something darker, more possessive. He gently lowered her legs, then reached down and swept a strand of sweat-dampened hair from her forehead.
She was a mess. She was glorious. She was completely, utterly ruined.
Without a word, he bent and gathered her into his arms, lifting her from the wreckage of the table. He carried her the few steps to her worn leather armchair and sank into it, cradling her in his lap. She curled into him, her face pressed against his throat, inhaling the scent of sex and skin and him.
The silence stretched, filled only by the slowing beat of their hearts. Outside, a car alarm blared and then cut off. A siren wailed in the distance. Her apartment, her sanctuary of quiet order, felt fundamentally altered. The air itself seemed charged.
Finally, he spoke, his voice raspy. “Your pasta was really good.”
A startled laugh bubbled out of her, half-hysterical. She pulled back to look at him. His grin was back, softer now, edged with a tired satedness.
She traced the line of a tattoo on his forearm, her touch tentative. “You ruined my table.”
“I’ll fix it,” he said, his hand stroking slow circles on her back. “I’m good with my hands.”
She knew he was. She had just felt conclusive, devastating proof. She nestled back against him, staring at the chaotic aftermath of their dinner—the overturned glasses, the shattered plate on the rug, the single sunflower now lying on the floor. The careful life she had built felt very far away. Here, in the warm circle of his arms, smelling of sweat and him and their joining, she felt something else entirely. She felt… found.
And she had no idea what to do with that.