Chapter 2: The Table, the Tape, and the Tumble
The sound she made when he hit the table wasn't quite a gasp and wasn't quite a laugh—something in between, breathless and reckless. His weight pressed her down into the crinkling paper, and the table groaned beneath them, a cheap metal protest that neither of them acknowledged.
Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and yanked. He helped her, sort of, wrestling the fabric over his head one-armed while trying not to crush her ribs. It landed somewhere on the floor. She didn't see where. Didn't care.
Then her own shirt was gone, peeled away in a tangle of cotton and tape and the sharp rip of something tearing. His tape job. Ruined. Two hours of careful work undone in seconds.
"Shit," he muttered against her mouth. "Your ribs—"
"I don't care."
"You should—"
"Tim." She grabbed his face with both hands, forced him to look at her. "I don't care."
Something in his expression cracked open. The last thread of restraint, maybe. The last excuse he'd been holding onto.
He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing careful about it. His mouth was hot and demanding, his tongue sliding against hers while his hands roamed her bare back, mapping the curve of her spine, the dip of her waist, the sharp jut of her hip. She arched into him, and the pain in her ribs flared white-hot, and she ignored it completely.
His lips left hers, trailing down her jaw, her throat, the hollow of her collarbone. She tipped her head back against the table, staring up at the water-stained ceiling tiles, her breath coming in short, ragged pulls.
He kissed lower. Between her breasts. The valley of skin still marked with faint red lines from the tape he'd just torn away.
She felt his breath there, warm and uneven.
"Lucy."
Her name, not her last name. Not Chen, the way he usually said it, teasing and casual. Just Lucy, like it was something precious.
She didn't answer with words. She arched off the table, her fingers twisting in his hair.
"Tim. I need—" The words caught in her throat, too honest, too raw. "I need you now."
He didn't make her say it again.
He stood, and she heard the clink of his belt buckle, the zip of his jeans. The sound of fabric hitting the floor. Then his hands were on her leggings, peeling them down her legs, and she lifted her hips to help him even though it made her ribs scream.
The leggings joined the pile on the floor. Her skates were still on, ridiculous and heavy, and she almost laughed at the absurdity of it—but then he was over her again, and the laugh died in her throat.
Skin against skin. His chest pressed to hers, warm and solid, the coarse hair a friction she felt everywhere at once. He braced one hand on the table beside her head, and the other slid down between them, sure and deliberate.
Her breath hitched.
"Okay?" His voice was rough, barely a whisper.
"Okay."
He didn't rush. Even now, even with her nails digging into his shoulders and her legs wrapping around his waist, he moved slow. Measured. Like he was waiting for something.
She realized he was watching her face. Reading her. Checking.
The intimacy of it nearly undid her.
"Tim." Her voice cracked. "Stop being careful with me."
His crooked smile flickered, there and gone. "Not a chance."
But he stopped being careful anyway.
The table squeaked against the linoleum, a rhythmic complaint that matched the pace he set. Lucy's head fell back, her mouth open, no sound coming out. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere down the hall, the rink's old refrigerator hummed its eternal, indifferent note.
None of it mattered.
Nothing mattered except the weight of him, the stretch and burn and impossible fullness of him, the way he whispered her name like a prayer against her throat.
His hand found hers, fingers lacing together, palm to palm. She gripped him hard enough to bruise.
This was a mistake. She knew that. Could feel it in her bones, in the way her heart was racing ahead of her brain, in the voice screaming somewhere far away that this was dangerous, reckless, stupid.
His hips snapped forward, and the voice went silent.
She gasped, her free hand scrabbling at his back, nails raking down the curve of his spine. He groaned, low and guttural, and pressed his face into the crook of her neck.
The paper beneath her was shredded now, torn to pieces by their movement. Sweat slicked her skin. The ice packs on the counter had melted into small oceans of blue gel, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought about how much cleanup this would take.
Then his mouth found hers again, and she stopped thinking entirely.
He swallowed her sounds, her breath, her desperate little whimpers. Every thrust felt deeper than the last, hitting someplace she didn't know existed. Her legs tightened around him, drawing him closer, and he answered with a rough, broken sound that vibrated through her chest.
Time dissolved. Minutes, hours—she had no idea. Just the rhythm of his body, the heat coiling low in her belly, the pressure building behind her eyes.
"Lucy." His voice was a wreck. "Lucy, I'm—"
"I know." She pulled him closer, her lips at his ear. "I know."
He buried his face in her hair and let go.
She followed a heartbeat later, her body bowing off the table, a cry trapped in her throat. The fluorescent lights blurred above her, and for one endless moment, she felt nothing but him—solid and real and shaking in her arms.
Then the world reassembled itself. Slowly. Piece by piece.
The buzzing lights. The smell of antiseptic and something else, something human. The crinkle of shredded paper beneath her back.
Tim didn't move. His face was still buried in her hair, his breath hot and uneven against her scalp. His hand was still tangled with hers, fingers loosening now, but not letting go.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
She laughed. It hurt her ribs. She didn't stop.
"Yeah," she managed. "That about covers it."
He lifted his head, and his eyes were soft in a way she'd never seen before. Not teasing. Not guarded. Just... open.
"You're gonna have a hell of a bruise tomorrow," he said.
"Worth it."
He pressed his forehead to hers, and they stayed like that, breathing together, while the rink hummed its empty, indifferent song around them.
Somewhere in the building, a door creaked open.
Then footsteps.
Tim froze. Lucy's heart slammed back into her chest.
"Tim?" A voice echoed down the hallway. Deep. Familiar. Cold.
His father.
Tim's jaw tightened. He looked at Lucy, and she saw it in his eyes—the shift, the shuttering, the quick, brutal calculus of what happened next.
"Shit," he breathed.
The footsteps grew louder.