Chapter 7: The Morning After
The buzz was an assault. A harsh, electric rattle against the polished wood of the nightstand. It sliced through the hazy, golden silence of Rio’s bedroom.
Agatha flinched, the sound registering like a physical blow. Rio’s thigh, heavy and warm between hers, twitched but didn’t withdraw. The morning light, now a clear, insistent yellow, illuminated the dust dancing over their tangled legs, the dried streaks on Rio’s skin, the abandoned water glass. It also illuminated the phone screen, flashing like a distress beacon.
Wanda (4), Alice (7), Beatrice (3).
The names were anchors, dragging her back from a deep, weightless place. Beatrice. Three calls. That was more effort than she’d shown in weeks.
“Ignore it,” Rio murmured, her voice sleep-rough and muffled against Agatha’s shoulder. Her arm tightened around Agatha’s waist.
“I can’t.” The words were automatic. A reflex born of three years of conditioned response. Of waiting. Of hoping for that specific buzz.
She twisted, reaching. The movement broke the seal of their bodies, letting in a sliver of cool air. Rio exhaled, a sound of profound displeasure, but released her.
The phone was warm in her hand. She tapped the screen. Three voicemails. She hit play on the first, the volume low but stark in the quiet room.
“Aggie. Hey. It’s me. Where are you? I got held up, this thing with Marcus ran late. He’s such a fucking drain, you have no idea. Call me back, okay? I’m… I’m heading home now. Maybe.”
Beatrice’s voice was slurry, the consonants soft. The background noise was a bar, glasses clinking, laughter. A familiar soundtrack to Agatha’s disappointment.
The second message: “Seriously, Agatha. Pick up. I’m outside your place. You’re not answering. Are you pissed? Don’t be pissed. It wasn’t my fault. Just… call me back.” A car horn blared. She was outside their apartment. Had been.
The third: “Fine. Whatever. Do what you want. You’re probably just asleep. Or you’re being a bitch. I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me when you come in.” Click.
Agatha stared at the phone. The emotional arc was a worn path: faux-concern, defensive blame, petulant dismissal. She felt nothing. Not anger, not hurt. A hollow, buzzing numbness. She’d heard these notes a hundred times before, but now they sounded tinny, far away, like a broadcast from a country she’d left.
A fingertip traced the line of her spine, from the nape of her neck down to the base. Rio was watching her, propped on one elbow. Her dark eyes were clear now, all sleep gone, taking in Agatha’s frozen posture.
“The ghost, I presume?” Rio’s voice was neutral, but her gaze was analytical.
“She showed up. Eventually.” Agatha dropped the phone. It thudded on the duvet. “She was outside my door. Our door.”
“And you’re here.” Rio stated it as simple fact. “In my bed. Still glistening with my come.”
The crude, possessive words were a splash of cold water. Agatha looked at her. Rio’s expression was unreadable, but a new tension thrummed in the space between them. It wasn’t the soft, dawn vulnerability anymore. It was something harder, more competitive.
“She sounds like a child,” Rio said, flicking a dismissive glance at the phone. “A spoiled, noisy child.”
“She’s not,” Agatha said, the old defense rising on autopilot. But it died on her lips. What was she defending? The drunken voicemails? The three years of ‘maybe’?
Rio’s hand slid around her hip, palm splayed flat on Agatha’s stomach, pulling her back until their bodies aligned. Rio’s front to Agatha’s back. Her lips brushed the shell of Agatha’s ear.
“Her voice is in your head. I can see it. That pinched look around your eyes.” Rio’s other hand came up, fingers threading into Agatha’s hair, not gently. “Let me replace it.”
“Rio…”
“I’m not asking.” The hand on her stomach drifted lower, fingertips dipping through coarse curls. “You’re in my bed. Your head is mine right now. Not hers.”
It was a command. A territorial claim. And a part of Agatha, the part that was tired of being understanding, tired of waiting, tired of the hollow sound of Beatrice’s apologies, responded with a sharp, liquid surge of want. This was not negotiation. This was conquest.
Rio’s fingers found her clit, already swollen and sensitive from the night and the morning. She didn’t tease. She pressed the pad of her finger directly against the hard nub and began a slow, insistent circular grind. At the same time, her mouth found the juncture of Agatha’s neck and shoulder, biting down just shy of pain.
Agatha gasped, her back arching. “Fuck.”
“That’s the idea.” Rio’s voice was a dark hum against her skin. “I want you to come so hard you forget what your own name is, let alone hers.”
The pleasure was immediate and overwhelming, a direct line from Rio’s commanding touch to the base of her spine. It was different from the slow, worshipful attentions of earlier. This was purposeful, almost punitive in its intensity. Rio’s fingers were slick, moving with a ruthless efficiency, the heel of her hand adding a deep, thrilling pressure. Her teeth and tongue worked Agatha’s neck, marking her.
“You’re so fucking wet for this,” Rio growled. “A few drunk messages and you’re dripping. You like this, don’t you? Being taken. Being claimed so you don’t have to think.”
It was too true. Agatha couldn’t speak. Her world narrowed to the relentless circle of Rio’s finger, the heat of her body, the sharp scent of their sex on the air. She was hurtling toward the edge, fast and frightening.
“I can feel you clenching around nothing,” Rio whispered, cruelly insightful. “You want me inside you. Say it.”i
“Yes.” It was a ragged whisper.
“Yes, what?”
“I want you inside me.” The obscenity, spoken aloud, shattered the last of her resistance.
Rio shifted. Her fingers withdrew, leaving Agatha empty and aching. Then she was pushing, not one, but two fingers deep into her without warning, a swift, filling invasion that stole Agatha’s breath.
“Oh, god…”
“That’s it. Take it.” Rio fucked her with her fingers in a steady, piston-like rhythm, her palm slapping against Agatha’s flesh with each thrust. The sound was obscene, wet and sharp in the sunlit room. “Forget her voice. All you hear is this. All you feel is this.”
Agatha was coming undone. The orgasm built not as a wave but as a sudden, catastrophic fracture. It tore through her, a silent scream locked in her throat, her body seizing around Rio’s pumping fingers. Lights sparked behind her eyes. Rio didn’t stop, didn’t gentle her pace, fucking her through the violent pulses until Agatha was whimpering, oversensitive, pushing back weakly against her wrist.
Finally, Rio stilled. She slowly withdrew her fingers, bringing them to her own mouth. Agatha, spent and trembling, watched over her shoulder as Rio sucked them clean, her dark eyes locked on Agatha’s the entire time.
“Now,” Rio said, her voice low and satisfied. “Whose name is in your head?”
Agatha couldn’t answer. Her body was a map of Rio’s possession. The phone lay silent and dark on the rumpled sheets. The world outside, with its voicemails and its complications, felt galaxies away.
Rio kissed her shoulder, a softer press of lips now. “Get up. Shower with me. Then I’m making you coffee. And you’re going to decide what you’re doing next.”
The command was still there, but it was laced now with a practical care. Agatha, her limbs heavy and mind blissfully blank, allowed herself to be pulled from the bed. The sunlight felt like a spotlight on her naked, marked skin. As she followed Rio toward the steam-filled bathroom, the phantom buzz of the phone seemed to echo in her bones, a warning she was no longer sure she wanted to heed.