Chapter 28: Raw Possession
The phone vibrated again, a frantic insect buzz against the marble. Maria didn’t move. She stayed curled on the floor, the polished wood imprinting a pattern on her cheek. The inch of open door showed a slice of the empty hallway, a taunt. He’d left it open. An invitation or an accident? It didn’t matter. The silence he left behind was a living thing, swollen with the scent of him and the ghost of Sasha’s perfume.
The buzzing stopped.
In the quiet, she heard the faint, ragged sound of her own breathing. Then, a footstep on the landing. Not the neighbor’s measured tread. This was heavy, urgent. It stopped just outside.
The door pushed open slowly, widening that slice of light.
Joe stood there again. He hadn’t even made it to the street. His keys were still in his hand. His face was a mask of torment, all the careful resignation she’d seen minutes before utterly incinerated. His chest heaved as if he’d sprinted a mile.
They stared at each other across the space of the hallway. The groceries, the bell pepper, the tangled yoga mat between them.
“I got to the curb,” he said, his voice shredded. “That’s it. The fucking curb.”
Maria uncurled, pushing herself up on trembling arms. She said nothing. Her heart was a frantic bird in her throat.
He threw his keys. They skittered across the floor, hitting the baseboard with a sharp crack. He crossed the space in two strides. There was no tenderness now, no hesitation. This was something older, more desperate. He grabbed her shoulders, his fingers biting into her skin, and spun her, pushing her back against the wall next to the framed yoga poses. The glass rattled in its frame.
His body slammed into hers, pinning her. He was trembling, a fine, constant vibration she felt through every point of contact. The warm wool of his sweater scratched her cheek. His breath was hot and ragged against her ear.
“I can’t fucking stay away,” he growled, the words clawing out of him. “I tried. I am trying. It’s like trying to not breathe.”
He buried his face in the crook of her neck. His teeth found the skin there, not a love bite, but a sharp, punishing anchor. She cried out, her hands flying up to grasp at his back, her fingers clutching the sweater.
“I smell her on you,” he muttered, inhaling deeply, his nose trailing up to her jaw. “That mint and leather. It’s in your hair.” His voice dropped to a raw, possessive snarl. “But underneath it, you still smell like mine. You taste like mine.”
His mouth crashed down on hers. This kiss was nothing like the hallway’s shocked reclamation. This was a claiming. It was wet, deep, and brutal, all tongue and teeth and seven years of fused history weaponized. She kissed him back with equal ferocity, a dam breaking inside her. All the resolve, the agreement, the careful therapy-speak about boundaries dissolved into the salt-and-need taste of him.
His hands slid down her arms, over her hips. They found the waistband of her leggings—the same ones Sasha had peeled down just an hour before. He didn’t bother with the fabric. He hooked his thumbs in and yanked, a harsh, tearing pull. The elastic strained but held. He swore, a guttural “fuck,” and pulled again, dragging them and her underwear down to her thighs in one ragged motion. The air was cool on her exposed skin.
“Joe—” she gasped, breaking the kiss.
“No,” he cut her off, his eyes blazing into hers. His pupils were vast, black pools. “No talking. No thinking. I need to come inside you every single time I see you. Every fucking time.” His hands were on her ass now, squeezing, lifting her. “I’ll get the pills. I’ll buy them tomorrow. I’ll do whatever you want. But I’m done. I’m done pretending I don’t own this pussy.”
The obscenity, spoken with such brutal, heartfelt certainty, sent a shockwave through her. It wasn’t a romantic declaration. It was a raw, ugly truth, stripped bare. Her body agreed before her mind could protest. A sharp, wet pulse answered him from between her legs.
He fumbled with his own jeans, his movements clumsy with urgency. The zpper rasped. He shoved the fabric down just enough, his cock springing free, already thick and leaking. He was so hard it looked painful.
He didn’t tease. He didn’t prepare her. He lifted her higher against the wall, her back scraping against the plaster, and lined himself up. The broad, slick head of him pressed against her entrance. He looked into her eyes, his own a storm of conflict and pure need.
“This is mine,” he breathed, almost a question, almost a prayer.
She answered by wrapping her legs around his waist, locking her ankles at the small of his back. She pulled him in.
He drove into her with a single, deep, unforgiving thrust. There was no gentle stretch. He filled her completely, a familiar, devastating fullness that made her vision blur. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound that echoed in the hallway.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. “God, Maria. Fuck.”
He began to move. There was no rhythm at first, just a series of frantic, deep plunges. Each one jolted her against the wall. Each one chased away the ghostly sensation of Sasha’s clever fingers, replacing it with the overwhelming, undeniable reality of him. His possession. Her surrender.
Her nails dug into the fabric of his sweater, then scraped down his back, seeking skin. She found it, raking over the muscle and bone beneath. He hissed, driving into her harder.
“Say it,” he grunted, his breath coming in hot bursts against her neck. His hips pistoned. The sound of their bodies meeting was obscenely loud in the quiet apartment. Skin slapping against skin, wet and rhythmic.
“Say what?” she moaned, her head rolling back against the wall.
“That it’s mine. That this fucking cunt is mine.” His voice was ragged, filth pouring from him like a confession. “Even with her smell in the room. Even when you block my number. It remembers me. It weeps for me. Tell me.”
He angled a thrust that hit a spot so deep and perfect her toes curled. A sob wrenched from her chest. “It’s yours,” she gasped, the words torn from her. “Jesus, Joe, it’s always been yours.”
That was the key. His control shattered. His movements became ruthless, a hard, driving pace that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with exorcism. He was fucking the other woman out of her, fucking away the months of separation, trying to weld them back together through sheer, brutal friction.
The frame next to her head rattled with every thrust. She was utterly helpless, pinned, taken, used exactly as she needed to be used. The intellectual part of her, the yoga instructor who believed in balance and growth, watched from a distant corner, appalled. The rest of her was nothing but sensation—the burn in her thighs, the delicious, stretching fullness, the coarse weave of his sweater abrading her nipples through her thin top.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice thick and choked. “I can’t… I’m not gonna last. I need to fill you up. I need to mark what’s mine.”
“Do it,” she urged, biting his shoulder. “Do it, Joe. Come inside me.”
With a raw, guttural shout that was half agony, half relief, he shoved into her one last, searing time and held there. She felt the hot, pulsing rush deep inside her, a flood of warmth that seemed to go on and on. His whole body locked, trembling violently, his face buried hard in her neck. A long, broken groan vibrated through him into her.
Slowly, the tension bled out of him. His weight sagged against her, still pinning her to the wall. His breathing was a wreck. Hers wasn’t much better. They stayed like that, joined, sweating, the air thick with the smell of sex and regret.
After a long minute, he carefully let her legs unwind. Her feet touched the floor, but her legs felt boneless. He slipped out of her, and she felt the immediate, warm trickle of his release down her inner thigh. The reality of it, the risk and the intimacy, was a cold shock.
He kept his arms around her, holding her up as she trembled. He didn’t let her go. He just held her, his face still hidden against her.
“I’ll get the pills tomorrow,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “First thing.”
Maria closed her eyes. She saw the yellow tulips on the counter. She saw Sasha’s knowing smile. She nodded against him, a lie already coiling in her gut. She’d been on the pill for years. She’d never stopped. He’d just never asked.
“Okay,” she whispered back.
He finally leaned back, his eyes searching her face. The fury was gone, replaced by a deep, exhausted bewilderment. He smoothed her hair back from her damp forehead with a tenderness that contradicted everything that had just happened. “I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted, the words soft and lost.
“I know.” She touched his cheek. “Me either.”
He bent and carefully pulled her leggings and underwear back up over her hips, a strangely intimate gesture. He tucked himself away and zipped his jeans. They stood in the wreckage of their hallway, their history, their agreement.
The phone on the kitchen counter began to vibrate again. A long, insistent buzz. Then another. And another. Someone was calling.
Joe’s eyes flicked toward the sound, then back to her. A question hung in the air.
Maria didn’t move. She just looked at the man who was her past, her addiction, and now, unmistakably, her present again. The future was a dark, blank wall.
The phone finally stopped buzzing.
A new text alert chimed, a bright, innocent sound.
Neither of them went to check it.