Chapter 5: The Morning After
The house held its breath around two AM. Ellie swam up from a thin, troubled sleep, pulled not by a sound but by the absence of it. Then, the soft, definitive click of her door.
Her eyes adjusted to the slice of hallway light. Dex filled it, then shut it away, plunging them into a blue dark broken only by the digital clock on her nightstand. He was shirtless. The low glow traced the cut of his shoulders, the flat planes of his stomach. His jeans hung loose, unbuttoned. A fresh, plum-colored bruise bloomed over his right ribs, a stark contrast against his skin. Work.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. He just crossed the room, the old floorboards knowing his weight, and slid into her narrow bed. The frame groaned. The sheets were cheap, thin cotton, and she could feel every inch of him against her—the heat of his chest against her back, the rough denim of his open fly scraping the backs of her thighs, the hard press of his erection.
His hand, heavy and sure, found the curve of her hip. It held her there for a heartbeat, possessive, then slid lower, palm flattening against her belly, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of her panties. He didn’t fumble. He pressed the heel of his hand into the softness there, then slid his fingers through her folds.
She was already wet. The realization was a shock that stole her breath. Her body had betrayed her in her sleep, anticipating this.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he murmured against the back of her neck, his voice graveled with exhaustion and something darker. His breath was warm. His fingers moved with expert slowness, parting her, finding the swollen, sensitive core of her. A blunt, circling pressure that made her thighs tense.
A ragged gasp tore from her throat. She arched back into him, her spine curving, pressing her ass against the rigid length in his jeans. Her own hands came up, fingers finding the hard muscles of his forearm where it wrapped around her, nails digging in. Not to push him away. To anchor herself.
The house was a silent witness. Somewhere down the hall, her mother and his brother slept, oblivious. The only sounds were the slick, quiet slide of his fingers and their breathing, growing more ragged by the second.
“Been thinking about this since the shower,” he grunted, his mouth moving to her shoulder, teeth scraping skin. “About you standing there, all clean. I wanted to get you dirty again.”
His words were a rough, filthy incantation. She said nothing, couldn’t. Her whole world had narrowed to the circuit between his hand and her clit, a buzzing, escalating shock of pleasure that felt like panic. Like falling.
He shifted behind her, his other arm hooking under her neck, holding her in place. He worked his jeans down with one hand, shoving them past his hips. Then he was free, his cock thick and hot against the cleft of her ass. He rubbed the head of it through her slickness, groaning into her hair.
“Fuck, Ellie. Look at you. Soaked for me.”
“Don’t—” she started, but it was a weak protest, lost in a whimper as he pressed a finger inside her, then two. They filled her, stretching, his thumb keeping up that relentless, maddening circles on her clit.
“Don’t what?” he challenged, curling his fingers, finding a spot that made her cry out softly into the pillow. “Don’t fuck you? That’s not what your cunt is saying.”
He withdrew his fingers. She heard him spit into his palm, a crude, wet sound. Then he guided himself to her entrance, the blunt head pushing against her. He didn’t ask. He just entered her in one slow, devastating push, sheathing himself fully inside her with a low, animal groan.
She was tight. He was big. The stretch was a burning, exquisite fullness that stole the air from her lungs. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, both of them trembling.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. “You’re so fucking tight. Gonna make me come just like this.”
Then he moved. He set a slow, deep, punishing rhythm, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in. The bed rocked against the wall with a soft, rhythmic thud. Each thrust punched a soft sound from her—a gasp, a moan she tried to bite back. He hooked his arm under her knee, hitching her leg up, opening her wider, changing the angle. He hit deeper.
“That’s it,” he rasped, his pace quickening. The slapping sound of skin on skin, wet and lewd, filled the little room. “Take it. I know you want it. I saw it in your eyes at dinner. You wanted my hand under that pretty dress. You want this.”
She did. God help her, she did. The shame was a distant thing, drowned out by the raw, physical need he was stoking into a frenzy. Her own hips began meeting his thrusts, riding the wave of him. The coil in her belly pulled tighter, tighter.
“Dex,” she gasped, a plea for what, she didn’t know.
“Come on,” he growled, his hand slipping around her hip, fingers finding her clit again, rubbing in rough, perfect circles. “Come on my cock. Do it.”
It broke her. The orgasm ripped through her, a violent, silent convulsion that clamped around him, milking his length. She shook with it, her mouth open in a soundless scream, her vision whiting out at the edges.
The feeling of her pulsing around him was all it took. He cursed, a raw, filthy string of words, and slammed into her one last, brutal time, holding himself deep as he came. She felt the hot, wet spill of him inside her, the jerking pulses of his cock, his whole body going rigid against her back.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their harsh breathing, the smell of sex and sweat and him in the dark.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her. A trail of wet heat followed. He didn’t move away. His arm stayed heavy around her, his face buried in her hair.
The reality of what they’d just done descended like a cold sheet. She was lying in a tangle of thin sheets, filled with her step-uncle’s come, in her childhood bedroom. The digital clock blinked 2:47 AM.
He finally stirred, pressing a blunt, surprisingly soft kiss to the junction of her neck and shoulder. He shifted, pulling his jeans back up with a rustle, but he didn’t leave the bed.
“Two weeks starts tomorrow,” he said, his voice already thick with impending sleep. “Mom and Greg leave at nine.”
Then, within minutes, his breathing evened out into the deep, slow rhythm of sleep behind her. He was staying.
Ellie lay awake, feeling the ache between her legs, the dry, cool patch on the sheets where they’d leaked together. The silence of the house was no longer empty. It was waiting.