Chapter 16: Claiming What's His
The packing cube was both stupid and profound. A small, black, nylon zippered pouch designed to compress an entire segment of a life into a 12-by-12-inch space. Mark stared at it, sitting atop a pile of folded t-shirts, a feeling of profound dissonance swelling in his chest. He had traveled the world with two suitcases and a backpack. This felt heavier.
Tomorrow’s flight to Austin was a 6:45 a.m. knife-edge. Three months.
The practical machinery of departure—checked luggage, ride-shares, TSA—thrummed a low, anxious hum beneath the surface of the loft. Everything looked the same: the neon lights, the glowing gaming PC, the kitchen island where they’d shared countless midnight snacks. It all felt borrowed now, items in a staged apartment.
Alexis was in the bedroom. He could hear the soft rustle of her moving, the faint click of a drawer. Not packing for herself. Just… existing. Being where he was for one more night. Her quiet, pre-law-student determination to treat this like any other evening was more heartbreaking than tears would have been.
He walked to the doorway.
She was seated cross-legged on the floor on her side of the bed, meticulously organizing a stack of her study materials. Highlighters, legal pads, thick LSAT prep books. She wore one of his old, oversized Howard sweatshirts, the collar slipping off one shoulder. Her hair was piled in a messy bun, a few spirals of dark hair framing her face. She looked up.
A silent current passed between them. The agreement was in place. The plan was logical, mature, solid. It was also a chasm opening up at their feet."You good?" he asked, his voice sounding gruffer than he intended.
She nodded, her gaze steady. "Just clearing some space for you. My stuff can migrate back to my apartment bit by bit."Her apartment. The place she’d barely slept in for months. It was a geographical fact that now felt like a betrayal.
He didn’t want to talk about logistics anymore. He’d talked logistics with his brothers for two days straight. His tongue felt thick with floor plans and sponsorship tiers and video conferencing schedules. He was sick of the future.
He wanted the present. The visceral, tactile, undeniable now of her.
"Leave it," he said, the words short, a command and a plea.
She paused, a blue highlighter hovering over a page. She understood the shift in the air. The pragmatic bubble they’d been inhabiting popped.
He crossed the room in three long strides. The sight of her, surrounded by the evidence of her separate, brilliant future—a future he was deliberately stepping out of—sent a sharp, possessive ache through him. He needed to be etched into her skin, a memory so physical it would withstand the distance.
He knelt in front of her, displacing a stack of notecards. He didn't kiss her. He cupped the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck, and pulled her forehead to his. Their breath mingled, hot and fast.
"I'm not gonna be able to do this tomorrow," he breathed against her lips. "I'm not gonna be able to hug you and say 'see you later' like we're going to class. So I need to feel you tonight. All of you. I need to fuck you until neither of us remembers there's a state called Texas."
Her exhale was a shudder. The highlighter dropped from her fingers, rolling across the polished concrete floor. Her hands came up, gripping his forearms, her nails digging into his skin through the fabric of his hoodie. "Then don't talk," she whispered, her voice fierce and low."Just take."
That was all the permission he needed. Whatever gentle, loving tenderness they'd shared before was incinerated by the urgency of the clock. This was goodbye made flesh, a desperate attempt to store enough of each other to last a season.
He grabbed the collar of the sweatshirt she wore—his sweatshirt—and pulled. The worn cotton strained, then tore at the seam with a sharp, satisfying rip. She gasped, not in protest, but in thrill. He yanked it down her arms, trapping them for a moment before she shook it off. Her breasts, bare and full, swayed with the motion. He palmed one roughly, his thumb circling her nipple until it peaked into a hard, dark point against his calloused skin.
He leaned down and took it into his mouth, sucking hard, nipping with his teeth. She cried out, her back arching off the floor, pushing herself deeper into his mouth. "Yes…"
He switched to the other, lavishing the same rough attention, marking her with the promise of a bruise she’d feel tomorrow on the plane. A souvenir.
His hands went to the waistband of her soft, gray sweatpants. He hooked his fingers in them and her panties beneath, and in one brutish motion, yanked them both down to her thighs. The cool air of the room hit her wetness, and she shuddered.
"Open," he growled.
She bent her knees, letting him drag the garments completely off, kicking them aside. She lay bare before him on the carpet, surrounded by the detritus of her academic life. The contrast was obscene.Perfect.
He stood up, looking down at her, his own need a painful, thick pressure against his zipper. He stripped his own shirt off, then tore his jeans and boxers down in one frantic movement. His cock sprang free, thick and already leaking. He fisted it once, a brutal stroke, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Turn over," he commanded, his voice gravel. "On your knees."
A flicker of surprise, then raw hunger, crossed her face. She rolled, the rough texture of the carpet grazing her nipples. She got onto her hands and knees, presenting herself to him. The curve of her back, the swell of her ass, the glistening wet folds between her thighs—it was an offering and an invitation.
He didn't hesitate. He knelt behind her, one hand gripping the swell of her hip, the other guiding himself to her entrance. He was throbbing, the head slick with her wetness and his own pre-come.
"Mark," she breathed, pushing back against him, a silent plea.
He didn't ask if she was ready. He could feel her readiness, the hot, slick welcome. With a guttural sound that was half-snarl, half-prayer, he drove into her in one deep, punishing thrust.
She screamed, a sharp, unfiltered sound that echoed off the loft's high ceilings. He was so deep, stretching her, filling her completely. The sensation was overwhelming—a merger so complete it felt like it could halt time.
"Fuck," he groaned, pausing for a second, buried to the hilt, feeling her internal muscles clench and flutter around him. "Fuck, Alexis."Then he moved. He set a relentless, driving rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The sounds were obscene: the wet slap of flesh on flesh, their ragged breaths, the low grunt he made with every thrust. The bed was right there, but the floor felt right. Primal. Uncomfortable.Real.
He leaned over her, his chest plastered to her sweat-slick back, one arm wrapping around her torso, his hand finding her breast again, squeezing, pinching her nipple. His other hand slid down her stomach, through the coarse hair, and found her clit.
"Come for me," he hissed in her ear, his breath scalding. "Come for me right now. I want to feel you come on my cock."
His fingers worked her in tight, insistent circles, matching the brutal pace of his hips. The dual assault was too much. The pressure, the fullness, the rough command in his voice, the knowledge that this was the last time for months—it coiled and snapped.
Her entire body went rigid. A broken, sobbing cry tore from her throat as the orgasm ripped through her. Her inner walls clenched around him in violent, rhythmic pulses, milking his cock.
The intensity of her climax pushed him over the edge. With three more frantic, deep thrusts, he buried himself as far as he could go and let go. A raw, unfiltered roar erupted from him as he came, jet after hot jet of his release pumping into her, claiming her, marking her from the inside.
They collapsed together in a heap on the floor, a tangled mess of slick limbs and heaving chests. He was still inside her, both of them trembling with the aftershocks. The silence that descended was punctuated only by their gasping attempts to breathe.
Slowly, his softening cock slipped from her. He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, so she lay half on top of him, her head on his chest. The carpet fibers prickled against his skin. They were both a mess—sweat, come, the smell of sex thick in the air.
For a long time, they just lay there. The neon "RDC" sign across the room cast a pink glow over their bodies.
Her finger traced a random pattern on his sternum. "So much for not remembering Texas," she finally said, her voice hoarse.
A laugh, dry and brittle, escaped him. "I think I just associated it with the best fuck of my life. So, there's that."
She smiled against his skin, but it was a sad smile. The high was fading, and the reality was seeping back in, cold and inexorable. His flight was in seven hours.
"We should shower," she murmured, not moving."In a minute."
He held her tighter, his face buried in her hair, breathing in the scent of her sweat and her shampoo. He tried to memorize the exact weight of her on top of him, the rhythm of her heartbeat against his ribcage, the way her breath hitched when she was almost asleep.
This was the memory he would cling to. Not the kiss at the airport tomorrow. This. The raw, messy, perfect ruin of them on the floor.
The alarm on his phone, when it blared hours later in the dark, felt like a death knell.
The alarm on his phone, when it blared hours later in the dark, felt like a death knell. Its digital screech sliced through the fragile sanctuary of their sleep, through the memory of her weight on his chest. Mark’s hand slapped the screen to silence it, a gesture of pure violence in the blue pre-dawn gloom.
They moved through the next hour in a muted, clinical daze. The previous night’s frantic energy was gone, replaced by a hollow efficiency. Showers were taken separately, the hot water failing to thaw the cold knot in his gut. Jeans were zipped, shoes were tied, teeth were brushed with mechanical strokes.
Alexis re-emerged in her own clothes—a simple pair of jeans and a burgundy Howard sweatshirt. Seeing her out of his stolen apparel was a small, specific agony. She made coffee in the sleek machine he never used, the grinding beans obscenely loud. The rich smell felt like a taunt.
“You packed your charger?” she asked, her back to him. Her voice was carefully neutral, a tour guide for the end of the world.“Yeah. In the backpack.”
“Good.”
She handed him a travel mug. Their fingers brushed. The simple contact sent a jolt through him, a pathetic echo of the carnage on the floor just hours before. He took a scalding sip, wishing it would burn the feeling away.
The ride-share arrived exactly at 5:15 a.m., a silver SUV idling under the streetlamp like a waiting hearse. Mark hefted his suitcase into the trunk. It was too light. How could three months of a life fit into something so insubstantial?
He turned to her, standing on the curb in the damp, chill air. Her arms were wrapped around herself. She looked young, and he hated it.
“So.”
“So,” she echoed.
The goodbye they’d rehearsed—the mature, see-you-soon hug—now seemed impossible. The ghost of his hands on her hips, her nails on his back, hovered between them. What came out was stiff, insufficient.
“I’ll call when I land.”
“Text me before you take off.”
He nodded. He leaned in, intending to kiss her cheek. She turned her head at the last second, catching his mouth with hers instead. It was a soft, closed-mouth kiss, achingly gentle compared to what had come before. It tasted like coffee and resignation.
“Go,” she whispered against his lips, pulling back first. “You’ll miss your flight.”
He got into the car. The door closed with a definitive thunk. The driver, a man listening to a sports talk radio at low volume, nodded at him in the rearview. “Dulles?”
“Yeah.”
They pulled away from the curb. Mark didn’t look back. He kept his eyes forward, watching the familiar buildings of his neighborhood scroll past the window, gray and indistinct in the dawn light. Each block was a layer of his life being peeled away.
The airport was a hive of muted chaos. He checked his bag at the kiosk, the robotic voice thanking him. He navigated the security line, placing his shoes and laptop in a plastic bin, feeling anonymized, processed. He bought a bottle of water and a magazine he’d never read at a newsstand, the transactions numbly polite.
His gate was at the far end of the terminal. The walk felt endless, a conveyor belt towards a sealed door. He found a seat near the window, overlooking the tarmac where grounded planes hulked in the morning mist. He pulled out his phone.
A text from her, ten minutes ago.
> Alexis: Back at my apt. It’s quiet.
He stared at the words. Her apartment. The silence there was his fault. He typed three different responses, deleting each one. Finally, he sent:
> Mark: I know the feeling.Boarding soon.
A lie. The feeling here was a low, buzzing dread, surrounded by hundreds of strangers.
They called his group. He stood, shouldering his backpack, joining the orderly queue. This was it. The final physical action. One foot in front of the other, through the jet bridge, into the aluminum tube that would catapult him away.
He handed his boarding pass to the attendant. His phone vibrated in his hand.
> Alexis: Look to your left.
He froze, mid-step. His head swiveled.
And there she was.
She was standing on the other side of the giant terminal window, maybe fifty yards away, on the public side of security. She must have driven straight here after his car pulled away. Her hands were pressed flat against the glass. Her face was a stark, pale oval, her eyes huge and dark even from this distance.
Seeing her was a physical blow. The careful composure he’d armoured himself with shattered.
She wasn’t crying. Not yet. But her expression was utterly unraveled, a raw open wound of a look that carried across the crowded gate area. It was the face she made when he was buried deep inside her, the one of completely defenceless, overwhelming feeling. She wasn’t hiding any of it now.His throat closed. The line behind him murmured, nudging forward.
He raised his own hand, pressing it against the cold window in her direction, a pathetic mirror. He couldn’t breathe. The attendant’s voice came from far away. “Sir?”
He took one last look. A single, perfect tear broke free and tracked down her cheek, cutting a glistening path through the faint reflection of the airport lights on the glass.
He turned away. He had to. He walked down the jet bridge, the image of her hand on the window, that single tear, seared into the back of his eyelids.
He found his seat, a window on the opposite side of the plane. He buckled in, his hands trembling. The engine whined to life. As the plane pushed back, he stared fixedly out at the concrete and the fuel trucks, refusing to look for her. A hot, sharp pressure built behind his own eyes, a dam straining.
The plane turned onto the runway. The engines roared with a sudden, savage intensity. The acceleration pushed him back into the seat. As the wheels left the earth, the vibration ceasing into a smooth, terrible silence, the dam broke.
A choked, silent sob wracked him. He turned his face fully to the window, watching D.C. shrink into a grid of insignificant lights. He let the tears come, hot and unchecked, streaming down his face in the privacy of the crowded, indifferent sky. He didn't wipe them away.