Chapter 2: The Wet Stairwell
The echo of his footsteps died somewhere in the sterile hallway, but the roar in Eva’s ears only grew louder. She sat on the elevator floor, the cold metal seeping through her skirt, clutching her ruined blouse. Humiliation was a slow, cold drip down her spine. Then it ignited.
“Fuck that,” she whispered to the empty, humming box.
She surged to her feet, tugging the torn edges of silk together into a knot at her chest. It was hopeless, but it was something. The doors opened on her floor. She ignored them, stabbing the button for the tenth floor again.
It was empty, his corridor. All muted gray carpet and silent, locked doors. At the far end, the red EXIT sign glowed like a beacon.
She pushed through the heavy door into the stairwell. The air was cooler, smelling of damp concrete and rust. The click of her heels on the metal steps was a rapid, angry percussion chasing his descent. She heard him below, a slower, heavier tread.
“Blackwood!”
His footsteps stopped.
She took the flights two at a time, the railing cold and gritty under her palm. She found him on the landing between the tenth and eleventh floors, standing before a broken windowpane. A fine, cold mist of rain sprayed inward, glittering in the harsh fluorescent light. He had one hand braced against the wall, his head bowed. The perfect lines of his back were tense, a coiled spring in a ruined shirt.
He didn’t turn. “Go back to your apartment, Eva.”
“You don’t get to dismiss me.” Her breath came in clouds. “You don’t get to walk away from that and just… shut down.”
“What would you prefer?” He spun then, and the look on his face stole the air from her lungs. It was pure, undiluted torment. The hunger from the elevator was still there, but it was warring with something darker, something like self-loathing. “An apology? A review? You want me to say I lost my mind for a minute in a broken box? Fine. I lost my mind. Now leave.”
“No.”
She took the final step onto the landing, entering his space. The mist coated her skin, her lashes. “You started this. You looked at me like that. You kissed me back.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “It was a mistake.”
“Did it feel like a mistake?” She pushed into him, her hands flat on his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart beneath her palms. “When you had your mouth on me, when you were hard against me—did that feel like a fucking mistake, Julian?”
His control snapped. It wasn’t a slow unraveling; it was a guillotine drop.
A raw, guttural sound tore from his throat. His hands came up, cupping her face, his thumbs digging into her jawline. “You have no idea what you’re playing with.”
“Then show me.”
This kiss was different. The elevator had been fire and franticness. This was a conquest. His mouth was savage, punishing, his tongue plunging deep as if he could consume the very challenge she offered. She met him with equal ferocity, biting his lip, tasting the copper tang of blood. It was a battle without rules, a silent screaming argument fought with lips and teeth and grasping hands.
He walked her backward until her spine hit the cold cinderblock wall. The impact jarred a gasp from her that he swallowed. One of his hands slid down, over the knot of her blouse, wrenching it loose. The sodden silk gave way. His palm was rough, hot as it covered her breast, his thumb circling her nipple with a ruthless, precision friction that made her knees buckle.
“You followed me,” he growled against her mouth, his other hand hiking up her skirt. “You chased me into this shithole stairwell. You want this? You sure?”
“Stop talking.” She fumbled with his belt, her fingers clumsy with urgency. The buckle opened, the button of his trousers gave way, and she shoved the fabric down over his hips. His cock sprang free, thick and hard, the head already slick. She wrapped her hand around him, a tight, claiming stroke. “Just fuck me. Before you chicken out again.”
His eyes flashed with something dangerous. “You think I’m scared of you?”
“I think you’re scared of this.”
He didn’t answer with words. He grabbed her under the thighs and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. The cold, painted metal of the stair railing bit into the backs of her legs. He pushed her skirt up to her waist, tore her flimsy underwear aside with a brutal rip of fabric. The damp, cool air kissed her exposed skin, followed an instant later by the blazing heat of him as he nudged at her entrance.
She was wet, ready, her body aching and open. But he waited, his gaze locked on hers, his breath ragged. The pulse in his throat hammered. In that suspended second, she saw it all—the war, the want, the terrifying vulnerability.
“Julian,” she breathed, a plea and a command.
He drove into her with one deep, punishing thrust.
She cried out, a sharp, echoing sound that bounced off the concrete walls. He filled her completely, a stretch so intense it bordered on pain, buried to the hilt. He went still, his forehead pressed to hers, his body trembling with the effort of holding back.
“Jesus,” he whispered, voice shattered.
Then he moved.
It was fucking, pure and simple. Primal and raw. He withdrew and slammed back into her, setting a relentless, driving rhythm. The railing groaned in time with their bodies. Each thrust jolted her against the unyielding metal, a counterpoint of pleasure and dull ache. She locked her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck, holding on as he pounded into her.
“Is this what you wanted?” he gritted out, his face a mask of agonized ecstasy. “This? In a filthy stairwell?”
“Yes,” she gasped, meeting each thrust with a roll of her hips. “God, yes. Just like that. Don’t you dare stop.”
He swore, a filthy, beautiful stream of obscenities. He shifted his angle, and on the next deep plunge, he hit a spot inside her that unraveled everything. White light flashed behind her eyes. Her climax ripped through her without warning, a violent, shocking wave that clenched around him, milking him, pulling a ragged shout from his chest.
He came with a final, brutal thrust, his body shuddering, his release hot and deep inside her. He collapsed against her, his weight pressing her into the wall, his face buried in the wet tangles of her hair.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their struggling breath, the distant sigh of rain, and the dying echo of what they’d done.
Slowly, he softened inside her. Gently, he lowered her until her feet found the gritty concrete floor. Her legs nearly gave way. He held her up, his hands on her arms, but he wouldn’t look at her.
He straightened his clothing with mechanical efficiency, turning away to fasten his trousers. She leaned against the wall, pulling her skirt down, feeling the warm, aching throb between her legs, the cold stickiness on her thighs.
He finally turned, his expression already shuttering, the walls reassembling brick by brick. But he couldn’t hide the flush on his skin, the wildness still lingering in his eyes.
“The parking spot,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s still yours.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. Is that all this was? A transaction? A violent negotiation over a square of asphalt?
He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, miraculously still hanging from his shoulders. He pulled out a pristine, folded white handkerchief. He didn’t hand it to her. He stepped close again, and with a clinical gentleness that was more devastating than any roughness, he wiped a smear of rain—or sweat—from her cheekbone. His touch lingered for a fraction of a second.
Then he turned and walked down the stairs, his footsteps echoing until they faded into nothing.
Eva slid down the wall to sit on the cold landing, his handkerchief clutched in her hand. She brought it to her face. It smelled of him, of cedar and sex and rain.
Outside, the city glittered, indifferent. She had won the parking spot.
And she had never felt more utterly defeated, or more terrifyingly alive.