Chapter 7: Exhibitionist's Revenge
Their breathing slowed, a tangled symphony in the quiet room. Ryan’s forehead stayed pressed to hers, their sweat cooling in the suite’s dry air. The city’s silent lights watched, indifferent.
He was the first to move, brushing a strand of damp red hair from her cheek. His touch was different now—tentative, almost shy. The possession had bled out of him, leaving a hollowed-out tenderness.
“Channah,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes. The ferocity was gone, replaced by a deep, swimming weariness. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say my name like it’s a prayer.” She shifted back, wincing slightly as she settled onto the floor. “I just swallowed your come. There’s no poetry here.”
He smiled, a faint, sad curl of his lips. “There’s always poetry. Especially here.” He stood, his knees cracking, and offered her a hand. She ignored it, pushing herself up. She walked naked to the bathroom, a queen in her own ruined castle, and closed the door.
Ryan listened to the shower start. He righted an overturned chair, picked up her stained blouse from the floor. He held it for a moment, then folded it neatly, as if it weren’t ruined. He poured two glasses of the now-tepid champagne. The bubbles were lazy, nearly gone.
When she emerged, she was wrapped in a white hotel robe, her hair damp and darkened to burgundy. She took the glass he offered, drank half in one go.
“You okay?” he asked.
“My ass aches,” she said bluntly, meeting his gaze. “My throat is raw. I feel fantastic.” A real smile, tired and genuine, touched her lips. “And terrified.”
He nodded. “Same.”
She walked to the window, her robe glowing in the city’s luminescence. “All those lights. All those people. And we’re up here, doing… this.” She turned to him. “What are we doing, Ryan?”
He joined her, standing close but not touching. “Catching up on lost time. Very, very literally.”
“It’s more than that.”
“I know.”
She sipped her champagne. “I have to be at a conference at the Drake at nine tomorrow. A panel on ethical transference.”
He barked a laugh, harsh and surprised. “Jesus.”
“I know.” She leaned her shoulder against the cold glass. “I keep trying to stitch my two lives together. The woman who gives that talk, and the woman who lets a man she hasn’t seen in twenty-odd years fuck her ass against a hotel window. They don’t fit.”
He placed his glass on the sill. He turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “They’re the same woman. That’s the terrifying part. They always were.”
His kiss this time was slow. A deep, searching exploration. She tasted of champagne and him. Her hands came up to cradle his face, her thumbs tracing the lines beside his eyes.
The gentle pace dissolved. Hunger, a simpler and more demanding language, reasserted itself. He pulled the belt of her robe, and it fell open. He pushed it back from her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. He backed her against the window. The cold glass shocked her skin, a gasp escaping her lips.
“They can’t see,” he murmured against her neck, his teeth grazing her pulse point. “The angle, the reflection… they see lights, maybe shapes. But they can’t see this.” His hand slid between her legs, finding her wet and swollen. “They can’t see how ready you still are.”
Her head fell back against the glass. “Prove it.”
He dropped to his knees. He hooked her left leg over his shoulder, opening her to the night. His mouth was relentless. He licked and sucked, his tongue plunging into her, then focusing on her clit with a precision that made her cry out, her fingers scrabbling against the smooth glass for purchase. She came quickly, a sharp, shuddering climax that made her knees buckle. He held her up, drinking from her until she was limp.
He rose, his own need a hard, pressing line against her thigh. He turned her around, her breasts and cheek pressed against the chilled window. The world sprawled beneath them, a dizzying chessboard of light.
He spit into his hand, a slick, warm sound. He rubbed it over her asshole, which was still loose and tender from before. He pressed two fingers inside, stretching her. She whimpered, a sound of pain and profound want.
“You remember,” he growled, his cock nudging against her.
“Yes.”
“You remember how it felt.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“It felt like you owned me.” Her voice was muffled against the glass. “It felt like truth.”
He pushed into her, a slow, burning invasion. The cry she let out was part relief, part agony. He sheathed himself fully, then stilled, buried to the hilt. They were both breathing in ragged gasps, their breath fogging the glass.
He began to move. Short, deep strokes that made her body jolt against the window with each thrust. The glass shuddered in its frame. He leaned over her, his chest against her back, his mouth by her ear.
“Let them see,” he hissed, his pace quickening. “Let every fucking light out there see your face. See you take it. See you come all over my cock while I fuck this perfect ass.”
His words, filthy and specific, triggered something in her. A second orgasm built, deeper this time, coiling from her center and radiating out until her entire body was taut as a wire. It broke with a force that stole her voice, a silent scream against the window as her muscles convulsed around him, milking him violently.
The sensation tore his own climax from him. He drove into her one last, brutal time, his hips stuttering as he came, a hot, pulsing flood inside her. He collapsed against her, his weight pinning her to the cold glass. They stayed like that, joined, spent, two silhouettes melting into the city’s glow.
When he finally pulled out, she sagged. He caught her, turning her and gathering her into his arms. He carried her to the bed, laying her down on the crumpled linen.
He returned from the bathroom with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned her with a tenderness that contradicted everything that had just happened. She watched him, her eyes heavy.
“Your turn,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
He understood. He lay back beside her. She slid down the bed, took his softening cock into her mouth. She cleaned him slowly, meticulously, her tongue gentle. There was no frenzy now, only a quiet, intimate reclamation. She tasted herself, and him, and the salt of their sweat. When she was done, she curled against his side, her head on his chest.
“We’ll have to talk,” she said into the silence.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his fingers tracing circles on her shoulder.
“I have my panel.”
“After.”
She nodded against him. Outside, a siren wailed, a distant and lonely sound. Inside, the only noise was the slow, synchronized beating of their hearts, tentative and furious, writing a new stanza in an old, unfinished poem.