Chapter 17: Walk of Shame
The click of the door was a soft, distant sound, barely registering through the fog of satiation and exhaustion. The thick glass toy, still humming with a low, internal pulse, was the only thing anchoring Garrett to consciousness. His limbs were liquid, his thoughts syrupy and slow. The world had narrowed to the warm, throbbing ache between his legs and the cool, hard pressure within.
A shadow fell over him.
His eyes, heavy-lidded, fluttered open.
Katy stood at the foot of the bed, still in the sleek, dark dress from her date. Her posture was unnervingly still. She was watching him, her head tilted, a familiar expression of sharp analysis on his own face. Her eyes—his piercing blue eyes—were not shocked. They were calculating. They tracked from the scattered, gleaming toys on the rumpled velvet, to the sheen of sweat on her body’s skin, to the place where the translucent glass disappeared inside the swollen, pink flesh.
Garrett froze. A cold dread flushed through the warmth of his afterglow, tightening his throat. He tried to move, to cover himself, but his muscles refused to obey, locked in a paralysis of sheer, mortified horror.
“Don’t,” she said, and his own voice, low and calm, stopped him more effectively than a shout.
She dropped her purse. It hit the thick rug with a dull thud. Her gaze—his gaze—remained fixed on him, and he saw the fabric of his trousers tighten over a growing bulge. The sight was a violation that stole his breath.
“You’ve been busy,” Katy murmured, stepping closer. Her fingers, his long, familiar fingers, trailed over the open case, brushing against the silicone and steel. She selected a sleek, black vibrator, its tip tapered to a fine point. Her thumb found a switch.
A low, aggressive buzz filled the space between them.
Garrett flinched. “Katy, wait—”
She didn’t. She moved with an unsettling grace, kneeling on the bed beside him. Before he could form another protest, she pressed the buzzing tip against the base of the glass toy, right where it met his—her—overstimulated flesh.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.
A violent, electric jolt shot through him, a convulsive shock that was half pain, half blinding pleasure. A strangled cry was torn from his throat, a high, feminine sound of utter surprise. His back arched off the mattress, his hands fisting in the comforter. The deep, internal ache he’d been nursing exploded into a white-hot inferno. The vibrations traveled up the glass, turning the solid object into a conduit of pure, neural chaos.
“Oh god,” he gasped, his vision spotting. “Stop… please…”
“Do you want me to?” Katy asked, her voice a casual, conversational drawl. She adjusted the angle, pressing harder. The buzz seemed to sink into his bones, rattling his teeth. It was too much. It was an assault. And yet, his body, this traitorous, foreign body, was responding, clenching around the intrusion, seeking more of the devastating friction.
Tears welled in his eyes, blurring the image of his own face looking down at him with cool, clinical interest. He was panting, short, ragged breaths that did nothing to feed the fire in his lungs. He was completely at her mercy, pinned not by force, but by the overwhelming sensory overload she was conducting with a flick of her thumb.
He was losing himself. Garrett, the person, was dissolving into a raw bundle of nerve endings, a vessel for this brutal, degrading ecstasy. The shame was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was being systematically incinerated by the heat building inside him again, faster and more ferociously than before.
His hips gave a helpless, involuntary buck, trying to escape the sensation or lean into it, he no longer knew. A broken sob escaped him.
Katy leaned down, her breath warm against his ear. “Let go,” she whispered in his voice. “It’s my body. I know what it can take.”
The permission, spoken with his own vocal cords, shattered the last of his resistance. The coil snapped.
His orgasm was a seizure, a silent, screaming rupture that left him blind and deaf. It was not pleasure; it was a system failure. Every muscle locked, his throat stretched in a soundless scream, his fingers clawing at the velvet. Waves of sensation, so intense they crossed into pain, racked through him, milking the last dregs of energy from his trembling form.
When it finally subsided, he collapsed, boneless and spent. The vibrator went silent. Katy pulled the glass toy free with a soft, slick sound that made him whimper.
He lay there, utterly destroyed, staring at the ceiling through a film of tears. The scent of sex and sweat was thick in the air. He felt used, hollowed out, and fundamentally remade.
Katy stood up, looking down at the wreck she had made of her own body. A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face. It was a expression Garrett had never worn.
“Good morning, Garrett,” she said.
The words, spoken in his own baritone, curled through the humid air and settled on his skin like a physical touch. He could only stare, his mind a blank, stunned slate. Every nerve ending in this foreign body felt scorched and oversensitive, the ache between his legs a deep, throbbing reminder of what had just been taken, what had just been done.
Katy—in him—merely straightened the cuff of his shirt, a mannerism so effortlessly his it was chilling. She surveyed the chaotic landscape of the bed, the scattered evidence of his exploration, with an air of detached appraisal.
“Get dressed when you’re ready,” she said, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. She turned and walked toward the bedroom door, his athletic frame moving with a familiar confidence that belonged in a mirror, not walking away from him. She paused at the threshold, glancing back over his shoulder.
A wry smile, his smile, twisted his features. “Meet me by the pool.” She gave a slight, knowing nod toward the bed. “Staying this pretty requires a lot of work, you know.”
Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving him alone in the profound silence. The only sounds were his own ragged breathing and the distant, muffled hum of the city far below. The plush velvet beneath him, once a symbol of luxury, now felt like a trapping. The lingering scent of sex and her perfume was cloying, suffocating.
He pushed himself up, his movements slow and uncoordinated, every shift sending a fresh wave of sensation through her—his—body. He looked down at the smooth, pale skin, the curves he had violated and that had been used to violate him. A shudder, deep and visceral, racked his frame. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet sinking into the deep pile of the rug. The walk to the en suite bathroom felt like a mile. He avoided the mirror, unable to face the stranger in the glass, and turned on the shower. The steam began to fog the chrome and glass, a welcome obscurity. He stood under the scalding water, letting it pound against the borrowed skin, trying to wash away the feeling of her hands, his hands, and the phantom vibrations that still echoed in his bones. It was no use. The hollowness remained, a new and permanent resident. He dried off with a towel that felt alien against his sensitized skin and pulled on his clothes from the previous night—jeans, a t-shirt—the familiar fabric a small, desperate anchor to a self that was rapidly receding. He found a pair of his own sunglasses on a console table and put them on, hiding his eyes, her eyes, from the world. The penthouse was silent as he walked through it, his footsteps echoing on the polished concrete floors. He pushed open the heavy glass door leading to the terrace. The late afternoon sun was blinding, reflecting off the turquoise surface of the infinity pool. And there she was. Lying on a lounger in his body, wearing only a pair of swim trunks, a tall glass of iced tea sweating on the table beside her. She looked completely at ease, powerful and relaxed in a way he had never felt in his own skin. She didn’t look at him as he approached, just stared out over the city skyline. He stood there, waiting, the gulf between them wider and deeper than the pool itself.