Chapter 6: Scars & Silk
The first sliver of sun cut across Oliver’s bedroom, turning the sheer curtains into panels of glowing honey. It illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air, the discarded script on his laptop, the half-empty coffee cup from a night spent pretending to work. It also illuminated Brooke, astride him, her spine a tense, perfect curve.
She moved with a dancer’s control, a furious, rhythmic precision. Her hips drove down, taking him in deep, her nails biting into the muscles of his chest. The silk sheets were cool and treacherous beneath her knees. She hadn’t said a word since letting herself in with the key he’d given her—a mistake, he’d realized too late—and sliding under the covers, her skin cold from the night air.
“This isn’t love,” she hissed, finally breaking the silence filled only with the sound of skin and breath. Her voice was low, scraped raw. She leaned forward, her face hovering inches above his. Her eyes were dark pools, all pupil. “It’s revenge.”
He watched her, his expression neutral, his hands resting loosely on her thighs. He knew this dance. The anger-fueled late-night arrival. The aggressive claiming. It was a script he’d seen before, just with different actors.
“Revenge for what?” he asked, his voice morning-rough and calm. “For telling you the truth? You wanted a villain. I’m just playing the part.”
Her rhythm faltered for a second. She hated his calm. She wanted him to fray. To feel something. She dug her nails in deeper. “For making me feel ordinary.”
A flicker then, in his green eyes. Not guilt. Recognition. He’d struck true on that rooftop, and the wound was festering. Good.
He shifted suddenly, a fluid roll of his hips and shoulders that disrupted her balance. In one smooth, startling motion, he flipped her onto her stomach, the silk whispering violently. He pinned her, his body a solid weight against her back, one hand snaking around to cup her breast, the other wrapping in her hair, pulling just enough to tilt her head to the side.
His mouth found the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder. He didn’t kiss it. He bit.
The pain was sharp, bright, a branding. A sound escaped her throat, a broken, gasping sob that dissolved into the pillow. It wasn't from the bite. It was from the sheer, devastating surrender of it all—of being known so completely in her ruin, of having her pathetic revenge dismantled so easily.
He released the bite, his lips soothing the mark with a soft, open-mouthed kiss. “You don’t do revenge, Brooke,” he murmured against her damp skin, his hips moving in a slow, deep cadence that felt less like sex and more like a conversation his body was having with hers. “You do grace. You do pointed toes and pretty smiles. This?” He thrust harder, pulling another choked sound from her. “This is just another performance. And you’re a terrible actress.”
Tears, hot and shameful, leaked from her clenched eyes into his pillow. It smelled like him, like expensive cologne and salt. She hated it. She turned her face into it, breathing him in.
“Why did you let me in?” The words were muffled.
He stilled inside her. The sudden absence of motion was more intimate than the thrusting. For a long moment, the only sound was their mingled breathing and the distant whir of the city waking up.
“Because you meant it when you called me ‘Liam’s Boy’,” he said, his voice quiet, stripped of its usual mocking edge. “No one here says it to my face.”
He began moving again, but the rhythm had changed. It was slower, deeper, less about conquest and more about… something else. An acknowledgment. Her hand fumbled behind her, finding his where it gripped her hip, their fingers tangling. It was a small, devastating act of connection.
The climax, when it came, was different. It wasn’t the sharp, revenge-fueled peak she’d intended. It was a slow, deep unraveling, a wave that pulled her under from the inside out. She cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound, and felt him follow, his own release a shuddering collapse against her back.
They lay there, tangled and spent, as the room grew brighter. The golden light now felt forgiving. He shifted off her, onto his side, tracing the bite mark on her shoulder with a lazy finger.
“Dominic texted you,” Oliver said after a while, his tone back to its casual lightness. “Your phone buzzed on the floor. Like, four times.”
Brooke closed her eyes. The real world, with its loyal boyfriend and its rehearsals and its ordinary expectations, was a cold claw reaching into the warmth of the bed. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t answer it.” He propped his head on his hand. “But you should probably tell him you fell asleep studying. Or that you got an early private with Cathy. He’ll believe that. He believes everything.”
The casual cruelty was back, but it felt hollow now, a performance for an audience of one. She rolled onto her back, looking at him. The dawn light sculpted his face, making him look younger, less like the carefully constructed monument to fame he was.
“Why do you do that?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Do what?”
“Push everyone away. Make everything into a… a transaction.”
He looked at her, really looked at her, his green eyes guarded. “It’s cleaner.” He sat up, the sheets pooling at his waist. “You should go. You have that contemporary piece with the chair today. Can’t be sore.”
It was a dismissal, but a gentle one. She sat up, pulling the sheet around herself, suddenly modest. The emotion of the last hour felt too large for the quiet room. She stood, gathering her clothes from the floor—jeans, a thin sweater, the practical, cotton underwear that felt laughably mundane now.
She dressed in silence. He watched her from the bed, his face unreadable.
At the door, she paused, her hand on the cool metal knob. She didn’t look back. “You’re not just Liam’s Boy, you know.”
A beat of silence.
“I know,” he said, but his voice was so quiet she almost didn’t hear it.
Out in the cool hallway of his building, the door clicking shut behind her, she leaned against the wall. Her body ached in a dozen new ways. Her mind was a scrambled mess. She took out her phone. Four texts from Dominic.
‘Miss you. Coffee later?’
‘Hope practice goes well.’
‘<3’
‘You okay?’
She typed a reply, her fingers numb.
‘Sorry! Crash-landed after the late studio session. So tired. Coffee sounds perfect. See you at 4?’
She sent it, the lie settling in her stomach like a stone.
Down on the street, the morning was bright and ordinary. People walked dogs, bought coffee, headed to work. She hailed a cab, the motion automatic. As the car pulled away from the curb, she looked up at the building, at the floor she knew was his. The window was empty, the curtains still glowing gold.
She touched the bite mark on her neck, hidden beneath her sweater. It throbbed, a secret, painful anchor to a world where she was neither ordinary nor special, but just another lost thing clinging to another lost thing, waiting for the music to start again.