Chapter 14: Aftermath in the Dark
The heavy hotel door clicked shut, sealing you into the silent, gilded tomb of the suite. The city’s hum was gone, replaced by the too-loud ticking of a crystal clock on the mantel. Matteo didn’t turn on the main lights. He just stood there, his back to you, shoulders rising and falling with deep, measured breaths. The adrenaline from the rooftop was leaching away, leaving a strange, hollow tension in its wake.
He moved first, walking toward the en suite bathroom without a word. A soft click, and a low, golden light spilled out into the bedroom. Not an invitation. A trajectory.
You followed, your shoes silent on the plush carpet. The bathroom was a study in monochrome luxury—vast slabs of veined grey marble, chrome fixtures, a shower big enough for five. His cologne hung in the damp air, mixed with the faint, clean scent of hotel soap. A towel was crumpled on the floor. The sink’s faucet had a slow, persistent drip.
He was standing at the double vanity, gripping the edges of the cool stone, head bowed. In the mirror, you saw his face. The public mask was completely gone. What remained was a stark exhaustion, a raw-nerved intensity that made him look younger and infinitely more dangerous. His knuckles were white. A fine tremor ran through his hands.
“You’re shaking,” you said quietly, your voice sounding alien in the quiet.
“Adrenaline crash,” he muttered, not looking up. “Always happens. After a match. After…” He trailed off, finally lifting his gaze to meet yours in the mirror. His eyes were dark pools, unreadable. “Come here.”
It wasn’t a request. You walked to him. He turned, his body blocking your path, and guided you backward until the cold, unforgiving marble of the wall met your shoulder blades. He framed your face with his hands, his thumbs tracing your cheekbones. His touch was different now. Not claiming, but searching.
“I hurt you on the roof,” he stated. It wasn’t an apology.
“Yes.”
“I wanted to.” He said it with a chilling honesty. “I wanted you to feel something so sharp it would cut through all the bullshit. My bullshit. Their bullshit.” He leaned in, his forehead resting against yours. His breath was warm, his body radiating a heat that contrasted with the cold wall. “Did it work?”
You didn’t know how to answer. The physical sting was already a memory. The emotional laceration was still fresh. You just looked at him.
He let out a short, harsh breath. His hands slid down, over your shoulders, pushing the ruined blouse off you. It pooled at your feet. His fingers found the clasp of your skirt, released it. The fabric whispered down your legs. He knelt before you, his movements deliberate, almost solemn. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of your tights and the black lace beneath, peeling them down your thighs, past your knees, letting them fall around your ankles. The air was cool on your exposed skin.
He didn’t move to stand. He stayed on his knees, looking up at you, his hands resting on your hips. In the low light, he looked like a supplicant. But his eyes held the dominion of a conqueror.
“You taste like me,” he said, his voice a low rasp. “And I want to taste me on you.”
He pulled you forward gently, just an inch, until you were at the edge of his world. Then he buried his face between your thighs.
The contact was electric, a shocking contrast to the cold marble at your back. His mouth was hot, wet, devastatingly specific. His tongue, broad and flat at first, laved up the length of you, collecting the mingled evidence of your climax and his own. He groaned against you, a vibration that went straight to your core. The sound was one of deep, almost greedy satisfaction.
“Fuck,” he whispered, pulling back just enough to speak, his lips brushing your sensitive flesh. “You’re so fucking wet. And you taste like us.” He dove back in, his focus absolute.
This wasn’t the frantic claiming of the rooftop. This was something else. Possessive, yes, but also reverent. And explicitly filthy. He used his tongue like a weapon of exquisite pleasure, circling your clit with torturous precision before spearing deep inside you, drinking from you. He alternated between slow, sucking pulls and rapid, flickering strokes that made your knees buckle.
“Matteo—” you gasped, your fingers tangling in his dark, disheveled hair.
He ignored you, lost in his task. One of his hands came up to grip the back of your thigh, holding you open for him. The other hand slipped lower, a thumb finding the tight, forbidden knot of your asshole, pressing against it with just enough pressure to make you jolt.
“You take me everywhere, don’t you?” he murmured, his voice muffled against your skin. “Every part of you. My cock. My tongue. My come.” He punctuated each statement with a lick, a suck, a penetrating thrust of his tongue. “This sweet, dirty cunt is mine. Say it.”
You were panting, clinging to his hair, to his shoulders, anything for anchor. “It’s yours.”
“Louder.”
“It’s yours!” you cried out, the sound echoing off the marble.
He rewarded you by sucking your clit hard into his mouth, applying a steady, rhythmic pressure that sent you spiraling. The orgasm built not as a wave, but as a sudden, catastrophic detonation. It ripped through you, silencing you, turning your vision white. You shook, a silent scream trapped in your throat, your body bowing against the wall.
He stayed with you through every pulse, drinking you in, until the last tremor subsided. Only then did he slowly pull away. He rose, his own body trembling again, but now with a different tension. He looked wrecked. His mouth was glistening, his lips swollen. He kissed you, deep and slow, letting you taste yourself on him. The intimacy of it was more shocking than anything that had come before.
“Now you’re clean,” he whispered against your lips. “Now there’s only you. And me. And this room.”
He turned you gently, your front now against the cold wall. You heard the sound of his belt buckle, the zip of his trousers. His hands were on your hips, positioning you. The broad, blunt head of his cock nudged at your entrance, still slick from his mouth.
“Look in the mirror,” he commanded, his voice thick.
You forced your eyes open. The mirror was fogged at the edges from the shower’s residual steam, but the center was clear. You saw your own flushed, dazed reflection. You saw him behind you, his face a mask of agonized need, his body poised.
He pushed in, one slow, inexorable inch at a time, filling the aching hollow his tongue had just abandoned. You were exquisitely sensitive, every nerve alight. A low moan escaped you.
“Watch,” he gritted out, beginning to move. “Watch me fuck you. Watch how your body takes me. That’s the truth. That’s the only picture that matters.”
And you watched. You watched his hands, possessive on your hips. You watched the powerful flex of his abdomen as he drove into you, again and again, in a steady, deep rhythm that felt less like passion and more like a vital, physical confirmation of existence. The only sounds were the slap of skin, the drip of the faucet, his ragged breaths, your bitten-off cries.
His pace increased, becoming harder, more desperate. One hand snaked around your hip, his fingers finding that same aching bud, rubbing rough, perfect circles.
“Come again,” he demanded, his voice breaking. “Come with me inside you. I need to feel it.”
It was too much. The visual, the sensation, the overwhelming intensity of him. A second, sharper climax seized you, clamping down around him in rhythmic pulses. You cried out, your forehead pressed to the cool mirror, fogging it with your breath.
With a guttural shout, he followed. He plunged deep and stilled, his body rigid against yours. You felt the hot, intimate flood of his release, and the profound shudder that wracked his entire frame. He collapsed against you, his weight pressing you into the wall, his face buried in the curve of your neck. The tremors in his hands were now uncontrollable.
You stood there, joined, spent, listening to the metronome drip of the faucet counting the seconds towards an uncertain dawn. In the fogged mirror, your blurred reflections looked like ghosts, or survivors of the same quiet war.
His phone buzzed violently on the marble countertop, shattering the silence. Then buzzed again. And again. Team messages. Agent. Manager. The outside world, impatient, demanding its due.
He didn’t lift his head. His arms tightened around you, just for a second, in a bruising, almost desperate squeeze.
Then he let go.