Chapter 3: Steam and Submission
The silence after her confession about the flight was a living thing. It coiled between them on the damp sheets, thick and choking. Ryan felt it in his gut, a cold, heavy stone. He just held her tighter, as if his arms could negate geography, as if pressure alone could fuse them into a single entity that wouldn’t have to board separate planes.
He must have drifted off, the exhaustion of years of longing and hours of frantic exertion pulling him under. He awoke to fingers tracing the lines of a tattoo on his bicep. Moonlight had shifted across the floor. Channah was awake, watching him in the near-dark.
“Can’t sleep?” he whispered, his voice sleep-roughened.
“Don’t want to,” she said simply. Then she slid from the bed, a pale, lush silhouette. She took his hand. “Come on.”
He followed, naked, through the dim room. She led him into the bathroom and closed the door before flicking on the light. The single bulb buzzed, flickering once, casting a sickly yellow glow. The mirror was still streaked from earlier. The air was cool.
Without a word, she turned the shower taps. Water roared to life, hitting the porcelain tub with a violent splash. Steam began to rise, first in wisps, then in thick, billowing clouds. She tested the water with her hand, then stepped in, pulling him in after her.
The heat was immediate, a shocking embrace after the room’s chill. Water sluiced over his shoulders, plastering his long hair to his skin. She stood facing him, the droplets catching on her eyelashes, beading on her lips, streaming over her breasts and the fiery triangle of hair below. The steam enveloped them, a private fog.
She reached for a small, ridged hotel soap. Her eyes never left his as she worked it between her hands, building a lather. The scent of cheap lavender filled the cubicle, clashing with the musk of their spent bodies. She dropped the soap. It clattered at their feet.
“Remember,” she said, her voice almost lost in the drumming water, “I told you not to waste the morning?”
Her soapy hands found his cock. It was soft, spent, but her touch was insistently expert. She stroked him, her slick palms sliding over his skin, working him with a slow, building rhythm. The water poured over her wrists, diluting the lather but not her intention. He grew hard in her hands, a swift and obedient response. Her thumbs rubbed over the head, spreading the precome that had already begun to bead there.
“That’s it,” she murmured, a therapist coaxing a revelation. “There he is.”
When he was fully erect, she turned her back to him. Bracing her hands against the slick tiles, she arched her spine, presenting herself. The water cascaded down the deep curve of her back, over the full mounds of her ass. She looked over her shoulder, steam curling around her face. “Now. In the shower. I want to feel the heat outside and you inside.”
He spat into his palm, the water making it a futile gesture but the intent was clear. He guided himself to her entrance, not the one he’d taken twice already, but the tighter, forbidden one. The head of his cock pressed against the resistant knot of muscle.
“Do it,” she urged, her voice low and rough. “Fucking wreck me, Ryan. Before I have to go.”
He pushed. The heat of the water was nothing compared to the clenching, impossible heat that welcomed him, inch by brutal inch. She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the shower’s roar. Her hands slipped on the tiles, and he caught her hips, holding her steady as he sank the rest of the way in, buried to the hilt. They were locked together, a frantic joinery under the punishing spray.
He began to move. There was no finesse, only a driving, urgent need. Each withdrawal was a battle against her body’s fierce grip, each thrust a re-conquest. The slap of his flesh against hers was audible, a wet, rhythmic percussion undercutting the water’s white noise. Steam fogged the glass door, sealing them in a world of heat and slickness and pain-soaked pleasure.
“God, yes,” she chanted, pushing back against him. “It’s so deep. You’re so deep.” Her words dissolved into moans. One of her hands left the wall, snaking between her own legs. He could see her fingers working her clit in frantic circles, her touch obscured by the water and the angle.
The sight undid him. He fucked her harder, his own breath coming in ragged grunts. His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her hips. “You’re taking it,” he growled, the words ripped from him. “Taking my cock like you dreamed about. This what you wanted? This filthy, wet ass-fuck?”
“Yes!” she screamed, her body bowing. “I’m coming! I’m coming on your cock in my ass!”
Her inner muscles clenched around him in violent, pulsing waves. It was a raw, milking contraction that pulled his own orgasm from him with brutal force. He came with a shout, thrusting deep as he spilled into her, his vision tunneling to the sight of her red hair, dark and wet against her back, and the relentless pour of the water over them.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, leaning against the tiles, joined and heaving. The water began to cool. He softened, slipped out of her. She turned, her face flushed, eyes glazed. She didn’t speak. Instead, she sank to her knees in the tub, the water now tepid around them. She took him into her mouth again, not to arouse, but to clean him. Her tongue was tender, sweeping over his sensitive skin, tasting the mingled evidence of their coupling. It was an act of startling intimacy, more vulnerable than anything that had come before.
She rose, water streaming from her. They washed each other then, silently, with a tenderness that felt like grief. She soaped the tattoos on his arms, her fingers tracing the old ink as if reading his history. He washed the long length of her hair, working the lavender scent into her scalp.
They stepped out, dripping, and used the thin, worn towels. The mirror was fully fogged now, hiding their reflections. The room was quiet save for the drip from the showerhead.
Back in the bedroom, the grey light of dawn seeped around the edges of the curtains. The tangled sheets, the empty bottles, the scattered clothes—it all looked like the aftermath of a storm. They dressed without speaking, the mundane act of pulling on jeans and zipping sweaters a jarring return to reality.
He finally broke the silence. “What time is your shuttle?”
“Noon.” She wouldn’t look at him, busy gathering her things from various surfaces: a hair tie from the nightstand, a earring from the floor.
He checked his watch. “It’s seven.” Five hours. A lifetime. A heartbeat.
She finally met his gaze. Her eyes were clear, professional almost. The therapist was back, armoring the woman. “We could get breakfast,” she said, but it sounded hollow.
Ryan crossed the room, took her face in his hands. He kissed her, not with lust, but with a desperate, final punctuation. “Or,” he said against her lips, “we could not.”