Chapter 20: You can’t tell me who I can and can’t have sex with
Trevor didn’t wait. He moved with a speed that contradicted his earlier, drunken lethargy, slipping behind Tessa like a shadow and making a beeline for the suite’s main door.
“Tessa, I just wanna talk to him,” Hardin growled, his focus trying to track Trevor’s movement, but Tessa planted herself like a rooted tree, her hands flat against his chest. The heat of her palms bled through his thin t-shirt.
“No.”
From near the door, Trevor’s voice was calm, trying to cut through the voltage in the air. “Look, Hardin, I think this is a misunderst—”
Hardin reached past Tessa, his arm swinging out to slam the heavy wooden door shut with a definitive, thunderous bang. The framed hotel art rattled on the wall.
“Fuck off,” Hardin said to the closed door, the words final.
He turned back to her, his ocean eyes black in the low light. The storm wasn’t brewing anymore; it had made landfall.
“You’re such a dick!” Tessa’s voice cracked, a blend of fury and sloshing intoxication. “Why are you even here?”
He walked past her, his body radiating a chaotic energy that seemed to warp the space around him. He headed into the lounge area, He shrugged out of his leather jacket and let it drop to the floor beside the sofa before sinking down onto it.
“I’m a dick?” He let out a cold, mirthless laugh. “I’m not the one taking advantage of drunk girls.”
The accusation hung in the air, vile and sharp. Tessa stumbled a half-step, the remaining alcohol making the room tilt. She righted herself, her blue eyes blazing.
“You know that not every guy is trying to get in my pants, right?” Her words were loud.
They echoed off the high ceiling, a defiant shout in the expensive quiet.
Hardin just looked at her from the sofa, his expression flat. A muscle in his jaw ticked once, a tiny tremor of contained fury.
“You’d be surprised,” he said, his voice low and rough.
Tessa shook her head, a sharp, disbelieving motion. The green silk whispered. “You can’t tell me who I can and can’t have sex with. That’s none of your business anymore.”
The silence that followed was thick, charged like the air before lightning. Hardin didn’t blink. “Were you going to have sex with him?”
“Oh my God.” She yelled it, throwing her hands up. The gesture was loose, unbalanced by the alcohol.
“What?” he said, his tone dangerously even.
“You’re insane.” She spat the words, her blue eyes glittering with a mix of rage and a vodka-induced haze.
“You’re avoiding the question.” He said it calmly, a dark contrast to her turmoil.
She stared at him, her chest rising and falling too fast. Then she moved, sinking into the plush armchair opposite him. The city’s neon glow edged the drawn blinds behind her, framing her in a sickly light. She looked at him. He looked at her.
“What if I was?” she asked, her voice dropping to a challenge.
“What?” he said, the single word taut.
She stood up again, the motion fluid despite the drink. She walked towards him, each step deliberate on the soft carpet. She placed her hand on his knee. The heat of her touch seared through the denim.
“You heard me. What if I was?” Her voice was a husky taunt. “What, you don’t like that?”
Her hand moved. It slid up his thigh to his crotch, her palm pressing against the growing hardness there through his jeans. Her hand stayed there.
Hardin breathed a low moan, his eyes locked on hers. They were dark pools, storm-tossed and helpless.
“You don’t like the idea of Trevor’s hands,” she murmured, leaning in so her lips almost brushed his ear. Her scent—vanilla, sweet, wrapped around him. “All over my body.”
She kissed his ear, a soft, wet touch. Hardin breathed, a ragged inhale.
She put her other hand in his hair, her fingers tangling in the messy brown strands. Then she kissed his neck, just below his jaw, her mouth open and hot against his skin. He could feel the faint scrape of her teeth.
“I’ve missed this,” she whispered, the words vibrating against his throat.
She moved her hand away from his crotch, both hands now sliding through his hair. He tilted his head back, a surrendered motion, his eyes closing for a second.
“Tessa,” he said, his voice strained. He lifted his head back up to look at her, forcing his eyes open. “You’re drunk.”
He stared up at her, his ocean eyes clouded with a war between want and something harder. “You’re drunk,” he repeated, the words a strained attempt at a boundary.
She leaned in again, her lips brushing the sensitive skin of his neck. “Mm, so?” Her breath was warm, laced with the sweet, chemical burn of vodka.
“Tess.” His voice was a rough scrape against her ear, a warning that lacked any real conviction.
She pulled back just enough to look at him. Her hands came up, her palms cool as they cupped his jaw, her thumbs resting on the sharp line of his cheekbones. She held his face, forcing his gaze to stay locked on hers. “You don’t want this?” she asked, her voice low and challenging.
He swallowed, the muscle in his jaw working again. “Of course I want this, but I—”
She didn’t let him finish. In one fluid, unsteady motion, she sat in his lap, straddling him. The green silk of her dress pooled around them. She cupped his cheeks again, her fingers pressing into his skin. “Hardin, you have two options here.” Her blue eyes were clear now, focused and burning with a raw intensity that cut through the alcohol haze. “Either, you fuck me, or you leave. You decide.”
He leaned in quickly, capturing her lips with his.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a collision, a desperate claiming. Her hands immediately tangled in his hair, tugging at the roots. His own hands moved to the back of her thighs, his fingers digging into the soft skin there with a gentle, possessive pressure. He groaned into her mouth, the taste of her—ice cream, vodka, and Tessa—filling his senses.
He wrapped one arm around her back, the other bracing on the edge of the couch for leverage. He broke the kiss momentarily, just a fraction of an inch, his breath mingling with hers.
In one swift motion, he flipped them.
He was hovering over her, caging her in against the soft cushions. She let out a small gasp of surprise, her hair fanning out beneath her. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. He kissed her again, desperately, his mouth moving over hers with a hunger that felt years deep. His hand cradled the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.
Her fingers were still twisted in his hair, pulling him closer. He settled his weight between her thighs, grinding slowly against the thin silk of her dress. A soft, broken moan escaped her lips, vibrating into his mouth.
He tore his lips from hers, his breath hot and ragged. He kissed a trail down her jaw, over the frantic pulse in her throat. He followed the line of the dress’s neckline, his teeth grazing the swell of her breast above the fabric. She arched beneath him, a sharp intake of breath hissing between her teeth.
He looked up at her, his eyes dark and hazy. A faint, wicked smile touched his lips.
She let out a low, breathless laugh that was half a sob.
He bent his head again, his mouth moving lower. He kissed the inside of her thigh, his lips soft against the tremble of her skin. She moaned, the sound louder now, less restrained.
Her hands slid from his hair to her dress she hiked the skirt of her dress up slightly, the silk whispering over her skin.
He kissed higher, “Hardin,” she gasped, her head pushing back into the couch cushion.
Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him back up to her. She needed his mouth on hers again, needed the anchor of his weight. He came willingly, covering her body with his.
The weight of him was a relief, a familiar pressure that grounded the spinning room. She could feel the rapid thud of his heart against her own frantic rhythm.
She kissed him again, desperately needing him, her mouth searching for a truth his words never gave. She broke the kiss momentarily, her lips swollen and breath hot. “Do you have a condom?” she asked, the words a blunt whisper against his cheek.
He went still above her, his body tensing. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice gravelly with want and something else caution.
“Why not” she said, the phrase brittle and challenging.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his ocean eyes searching her face. “You’ll hate me tomorrow.” The statement was flat, a resigned prophecy.
“Yeah, well I hate you already,” she said, the old, Her hand slid between them, fumbling for the wallet in his back pocket. She retrieved the foil square.
She grabbed the condom, tearing it open with her teeth. The sound was stark in the quiet room. He grabbed it from her, his fingers brushing hers, and rolled it over his length with a practiced, hurried motion.
She cupped his face, pulling him down to kiss him. It was softer now, a momentary surrender. He broke the kiss for a moment, his gaze holding hers as he positioned himself. He pushed himself inside of her.
She moaned loudly, her head falling back, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back. The feeling was an agonizing relief, a painful homecoming that cracked her open.
“Tell me I’m the only one,” he said, his voice a strained command against her throat. His hips stilled, waiting.
“You’re the only one,” she said, the admission wrenched from a place deeper than pride or anger. It was just a fact.
He moved slowly then, kissing her with a devastating tenderness that felt more dangerous than any roughness. She clung to him, her legs tightening around his waist, each measured movement pulling a shaky breath from her lungs.
The world narrowed to the points where their bodies connected, a map of heat and pressure. He ran his hand down her waist to her thigh, gripping it with a possessiveness that made her gasp. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, and she tightened them now, pulling him in deeper.
They both moaned when she did that, a shared, fractured sound that broke the quiet of the suite. Her hands moved to his hair, her fingers tangling in the messy brown strands and tugging gently. He groaned, burying his face in the curve of her neck, his lips tracing a path across her skin.
“I missed you,” he breathed against her pulse point, the words raw and stripped bare. It was a confession.
She moaned in response, pushing against him to meet with his thrusts. “I missed you.” Her nails scraped over his shoulder, then down the ridges of his spine. He stopped kissing her neck, looking at her.
He wrapped his hand around her back and lifted her off the couch. They both groaned as he was still inside her, buried deeper. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
He kicked off his shoes and walked across the room to the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed. He lifted her dress up over her head. She grabbed his shirt, lifting it over his head.
She kissed him, pushing him back against the bed. He slid his pants down his legs, kicking them off. She slowly started to move back and forth, her hands on his chest holding herself up.
She moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm that felt like both a punishment and a prayer. Her eyes were open, locked on his, refusing to let him hide. Each roll of her hips was a question.
He answered with his hands.
He put his hands on her hips, his fingers pressing into the delicate bones. His thumbs traced the sharp crests. He watched her face, her eyes closed, her mouth agape as a low moan tore from her throat.
“Hardin.”
His head fell back against the bed, his own eyes closing as the sensation ripped through him.
“Fuck, Tessa.”
His grip tightened, guiding her pace now, meeting her with a driving urgency. The room dissolved into sound and sensation the ragged pull of their breathing, the soft creak of the mattress.
Her hands slid from his chest to brace against the headboard, her back arching.
The rhythm between them fractured into something breathless a silent, mutual race towards an edge they both remembered too well.
His eyes opened when her hands left his chest.
He sat up quickly on the edge of the bed, She kept her pace, grinding against him a low moan vibrating in her throat. Her eyes were now open.
She put her hand on his right shoulder, The other wrapping around his neck to pull him back against her. They watched each other the dim street light casting a glow through the window.
Every moan, every sound, every eye roll of pleasure was reflected back at them, Hardin laid Tessa against the mattress, turning her onto her back and starting a slow, deep rhythm. He looked at her, needing to see her. The city’s grey light traced the lines of her face, her parted lips, the flutter of her eyelids.
Her hands cupped his face, her thumbs brushing his cheeks. She bit her lip, holding his gaze as he moved within her, each thrust measured and devastating. This was different. This was a silence filled with things they couldn’t say.
“Keep looking at me,” he whispered, his voice raw.
“I am,” she breathed back.
He slowed almost to a stop, hovering, his forehead touching hers. Their breath mingled. This was the devastating part, the part that had nothing to do with friction and everything to do with recognition. Her eyes were glassy, but they didn’t look away.
When he finally moved again, it was with a focused intensity that made her whimper. Her legs locked around his hips, her heels digging into the small of his back. The bedframe gave a soft, rhythmic protest against the wall.
He could feel the tension coiling in her as she clenched around him. “Hardin,” she gasped, a warning and a plea.
His name was a gasp, thin and strained. It hung between them, a frayed thread holding back the collapse.
He didn’t stop. His rhythm became deliberate, each thrust a calculated strike against the last of her control. The air grew thick with the sounds of them—skin meeting skin, the rustle of sheets, her ragged inhalations. Her nails bit into his shoulders.
“I know,” he said, looking at her.
His eyes were pools of chaotic blue, desperate. He sped up the pace a little bit, not too much, a fractional shift that tightened the coil in her belly.
“Ohhh, fuck, Tessa.” He moaned, his head dropping forward as if the words had a physical weight.
He let out a quiet, broken exhale of breath. That did something to her—those words, the sound he made. It was raw, unguarded. She grabbed his face, her palms cool against the fevered skin of his cheeks, and lifted his head up to look at him.
He kissed the hand on his cheek, a soft, unexpected press of his lips against her knuckles. Then he looked back at her, his gaze stripped bare.
Something in her fractured. A sob ripped from her throat, choked and wet. It wasn't from pleasure alone. It was the kiss on her hand, the unbearable tenderness. Her vision blurred, the city lights behind him smearing into streaks of gold.
Her body arched into him.
His movements lost their calculated edge, becoming something seeking. Her heels locked tighter around him, pulling him in as deep as he could go. Every nerve ending was alive, singing a taut, white-hot wire of sensation. The world shrank to the space where they were joined, to the pressure of his body and the burn in her lungs.
Her moans grew shorter, sharper, punctuating the dark. She was trembling, a fine vibration that started in her core and radiated out to her limbs. He felt it, and it undid him.
“Look at me Tessa.” His voice was soft.
Her eyes found his, drowning in that blue. She was holding onto something, clinging to the last ledge of herself before the fall. A tremor wracked her entire body, violent and unbidden. Her head pressed back into the pillow, the tendons in her neck standing taut.
“Hardin, I can’t.” The words were a choked gasp. Her hands fisted the cool hotel sheets, her body arching into his, begging for an anchor.
“I know, Tessa.” His gaze never wavered, watching her shatter. He shifted his weight, a subtle tilt of his hips, and the friction changed. He was hitting every spot just right, a devastating, precise assault on her senses.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and desperate, completely naked in every possible way. “Hardin, please.”
God, that word broke him. That ‘please’. It wasn’t a plea for him to stop, but for something else entirely. He kissed her, craving the taste of that surrender on her lips. It was a messy, breathless collision.
“Let go, Tessa.”
And she did.
She was breaking. Her mouth opened in a silent cry as the first wave hit her, a deep, internal convulsion that stole her breath. Her eyes slammed shut, her back bowing off the mattress. It wasn't a scream, but a wordless expulsion of air, of all the tension, the anger, the months of missing him. It rolled through her in relentless, pulsing waves, making her shudder uncontrollably beneath him.
He watched her come apart, the sight unspooling his own control. “Fuck, Tessa,” he groaned, her name a shattered prayer as his own release slammed through him. His rhythm stuttered, fractured by pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. He buried his face against her throat, a low, guttural sound tearing from his chest.
His pace slowed then, became slow and deep, helping both of them ride it out as the aftershocks trembled through them. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing mixing in the dark, and the faint, distant sigh of city traffic.
His body collapsed over hers, a dead weight of spent energy. His forehead came to rest against her damp collarbone. He kissed the skin there gently, his own breathing heavy and warm against her neck.
They lay there, tangled and still. The air grew cool on their heated skin. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her lashes dark fans against her cheeks. He kissed her, a slow, tender press of his lips that held no demand.
He slowly pulled out, his movements careful, not wanting to hurt her. The loss of contact felt profound, a sudden, vulnerable emptiness. He rolled to her side, taking his weight off her but keeping one arm draped across her stomach.
She didn’t pull away. Her breathing was slowing, deepening. The vodka had finally been burned off, leaving a hollow, aching clarity in its wake. She stared at the ceiling, tracing the faint pattern in the plaster with her eyes.
Hardin shifted beside her. He propped his head on his hand, his body a warm line against her side. She could feel him looking at her. The neon glow from the window painted the planes of his face.
They turned to look at each other.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The fight was gone, drained out of them. All that was left was the wreckage and this fragile, proximity. Hardin reached out, his movement slow, He brushed a damp strand of blonde hair behind her ear. His thumb lingered, stroking the curve of her cheek, a touch so gentle it made her throat tighten.
They closed their eyes, falling asleep.
Morning sun broke through the slats in the blinds, laying sharp, hot lines across the rumpled duvet. Hardin rolled over in his sleep, his arm sprawling heavily across Tessa’s bare shoulder. He nuzzled against her, his lips brushing the skin of her lower back, and settled there, his breathing deep and even.
Tessa moaned in her sleep, a soft, distressed sound. The phone on the nightstand rang, a shrill, electronic intrusion that sliced through the fragile quiet. Her eyes flew open.
Confusion swamped her—the unfamiliar room, the weight of an arm across her, the brutal sunlight. The phone rang again, insistent. She slipped out from under Hardin’s arm, the movement frantic. She grabbed the tangled sheet and wrapped it around herself, a clumsy toga.
She padded into the lounge, the marble floor cold under her feet. The wreckage of the night before was everywhere: the empty fry basket, the two spoons in the melted ice cream, Hardin’s leather jacket on the floor. She snatched the ringing hotel phone from its cradle.
“Hi.” Her voice was a croak.
“Morning. You up?” Kimberly’s tone was brisk, already caffeine-sharp.
Tessa squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her fingers to her throbbing temple. “Yeah, I’ve been up for a while.”
“See you down in five.”
“Five?” The word jumped out, panicked.
“Problem?” Kimberly’s voice cooled a degree.
Tessa’s gaze swept the room, landing on the closed bedroom door. Her mind spun, calculating the impossible logistics. “Nope. Not a problem.”
“Great. See you down in the lobby. Don’t be late.” The line went dead.
Tessa stood frozen for a second, the dial tone buzzing in her ear. “I won’t be,” she said to the empty receiver. She slammed it down.
“Shit.” She whisper-yelled it, a burst of pure panic.
She looked around the room, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Where are my clothes?” she whispered to the silent, sunlit disaster.
Her gaze landed on the bathroom door. Hanging from the hook, neatly, was a blazer, shirt and skirt.
“Tessa.” Hardin’s voice floated from the bedroom, thick with sleep.