Chapter 7: The Second Date
The digital clock on Abby’s nightstand flipped to 7:59 just as the soft knock sounded at her door. She uncurled herself from the bed, where she’d been pretending to scroll through her phone for the last twenty minutes, a fluttering in her stomach that felt annoyingly close to anticipation.
She opened the door.
Leo stood in the hallway, backlit by the fluorescents. He’d made an effort. His dark jeans were newer, without the usual frayed cuffs, and the hoodie was a deep charcoal grey instead of his habitual black. It was still a hoodie, but it looked clean, intentional. His hair was damp, combed back from a recent shower, and the shadows under his eyes seemed a little lighter. He held a six-pack of craft soda in one hand, his knuckles white around the plastic rings.
“Hey,” he said, the word a little rushed.
“Right on time,” Abby said, leaning against the doorframe. She was dressed for a night in: soft, faded grey sweatpants and a thin black tank top with no bra. The casual intimacy of it felt like a statement. She saw his eyes flicker down her body, a quick, hungry scan, before snapping back to her face. She smiled and hooked a finger in the waistband of his jeans, pulling him inside.
The door clicked shut, sealing them in the quiet, lamp-lit room. Chloe was conspicuously, blessedly absent, a neon sticky note on her desk reading ‘GONE HUNTING - DO NOT DISTURB :P’ confirming her promise.
Abby took the sodas from his stiff fingers and set them on her desk. Then she turned, slid her hands up his chest, and brought her mouth to his. It wasn’t the frantic, alleyway kiss from before. This one was slow, a deliberate exploration. She tasted mint on his tongue. He hesitated for a half-second, then his hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her jawline. The kiss deepened, warm and lazy, until they broke apart, breathing softly into the space between them.
“You look nice,” she murmured, her lips brushing his.
“You look… comfortable,” he managed, his voice rough.
“Come be comfortable with me.”
She led him to her bed, a larger twin than his, with a deep purple comforter. A laptop was open on a pillow, paused on the menu screen of some cult horror film. Abby climbed onto the bed, settling back against the headboard, and patted the space between her legs. “Sit. You’re the big spoon.”
Leo toed off his shoes and slid in behind her. His body was a line of heat against her back. He cautiously looped his arms around her waist, pulling her snug against him. She could feel the rapid thump of his heart through the layers of fabric. She hit play.
The movie was all synth score and shadow. They watched in silence for a while, Abby’s head resting on his shoulder. His scent—laundry soap, a faint trace of his deodorant, something inherently Leo—wrapped around her. It was peaceful. It was normal. It was so profoundly alien to her usual chaotic interactions that it felt radical.
On screen, a couple, tangled in cheap satin sheets, began kissing with escalating urgency. The actor’s hand slid down the actress’s side, disappearing under the covers.
Abby felt a shift in Leo’s breathing. A slight, unconscious tightening of his arms. A slow, simmering idea took root.
She let her head loll back, exposing the column of her throat to his lips. She gave a tiny, deliberate roll of her hips, grinding the soft curve of her ass back against him. The effect was immediate. He hardened against her, the pressure firm and unmistakable through both their clothes.
A low sound escaped him, almost a groan. One of his hands, which had been resting chastely on her stomach, drifted downward. His fingertips traced the hem of her tank top, then slipped beneath the soft cotton of her sweatpants. He palmed the flat plane of her lower abdomen, his touch hot.
“Abby,” he breathed into her neck, his lips moving against her skin.
“Mmm?” She arched back, pushing herself more firmly against his erection. She could feel the dampness starting between her own legs, a swift, answering pulse.
His other hand moved, sliding from her waist to her thigh, squeezing. His fingers inched lower, tracing the seam of her sweatpants along her inner thigh. The movie’s soundtrack swelled, the couple on screen now moving in rhythm.
Leo’s fingers found the damp spot, the thin fabric of her underwear soaked through. He pressed the heel of his hand against her, a firm, circling pressure that made her gasp.
“Fuck, Leo,” she whispered, pushing her hips into his hand.
He kissed her neck, open-mouthed, his teeth grazing the tendon. “You’re so wet.” The words were ragged, full of awed hunger. His fingers hooked into the waistband of her sweats and underwear, pushing them down just enough.
The door burst open.
“Roomie, I forgot my fucking—” Chloe’s voice cut through the humid air like a knife.
Abby froze. Leo jerked his hands away as if burned, scrambling to pull her sweatpants back up. He sat rigid, his face flaming crimson.
Chloe stood in the doorway, a canvas bag dangling from her hand. Her eyes went wide, taking in the scene: Abby half-sprawled in Leo’s lap, his panicked expression, the conspicuous rearrangement of clothing, the paused movie on the laptop showing a very suggestive freeze-frame.
“Oh, shit! Sorry! God, sorry!” Chloe babbled, but she was already bustling into the room, not retreating. “My bad, my bad. I just need my charger and I am out.” She bee-lined for her desk, yanking a charger from the wall. She threw a glance over her shoulder, a wicked grin spreading. “Don’t let me stop you. Pretend I’m a ghost. A very nosy, apologetic ghost.”
Leo stared fixedly at the movie screen, his body tense with mortification. Abby, however, recovered faster. She twisted in Leo’s arms to face Chloe, not bothering to hide her irritation. “A little warning?”
“My dorm too, Holloway,” Chloe shot back, but she was still grinning. She shoved the charger in her bag. “Anyway, crisis averted. You can resume your… streaming.” She zipped the bag with finality. “Actually, you should come with. Party just sprang up at the Kappa Theta house. Sarah texted. It’s going to be epic. Hockey team’s supposed to be there.”
Abby felt Leo tense further behind her. She looked back at him, expecting to see the familiar retreat in his eyes, the quiet panic at the mention of a loud, crowded party.
“I don’t know, Chloe,” Abby said, her voice softening. “Leo’s not really a party guy.”
Leo was quiet for a moment. He looked from Abby to Chloe, then back to Abby. His jaw was set. The embarrassment seemed to harden into something else. When he spoke, his voice was low, but clear. “Do you want to go?”
Abby blinked. “I mean… it could be fun. But you don’t have to.”
“If you want to go,” he said, his arms tightening around her again, a possessive squeeze that sent a fresh thrill through her, “then let’s go.”
The new confidence in his tone was unmistakable. It wasn’t bravado. It was a decision.
Chloe whooped. “Yes! That’s the spirit! Okay, I’m heading over now to claim territory. You two… get ready.” She winked exaggeratedly and sailed out the door, closing it with a firm click.
The silence she left behind was charged. Abby turned fully in Leo’s lap, straddling him now, her knees on either side of his hips. She cupped his face. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said, and kissed her, hard. It was a kiss full of the frustration of interruption and the promise of what was to come. When they broke apart, he was breathing heavily. “But we’re not finishing that movie.”
Abby laughed, a bright, surprised sound. She climbed off him and stood beside the bed. Without ceremony, she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her sweatpants and pushed them down, stepping out of them. Then she grabbed the hem of her tank top and pulled it over her head, tossing it onto the desk.
She stood naked before him, in the warm lamplight. Every tattoo was on display—the dragon coiled around her ribs, the intricate geometric patterns on her thighs, the delicate script along her collarbone. Her skin was pale, her nipples tight from the cool air and his attention.
Leo’s mouth actually fell open. He just stared, his gaze a physical touch sweeping over her. His earlier confidence seemed to short-circuit, replaced by pure, unadulterated want.
“Eyes up here, Vance,” Abby said, her voice teasing. But she enjoyed it—the power of his complete absorption.
She turned and walked to her closet, leaving him with the view of her back, the dragon, the dip of her spine, the curve of her ass. She heard him swallow audibly. She riffled through the hanging clothes, finally pulling out a set of black lace. The bra was barely more than two triangles connected by a slender band, the panties a high-waisted thong. She put them on slowly, letting him watch each fastening, each adjustment.
When she turned back to him, his jaw was clenched, his eyes dark. She approached the bed, leaned down, and kissed him deeply, her tongue sweeping into his mouth. “You like?” she whispered against his lips.
“You’re trying to kill me,” he rasped, his hands finding her hips, his fingers digging into the lace.
She smiled, a predatory flash of teeth, and went back to the closet. The dress she chose was a simple, brutal weapon. Sleeveless, backless, a tight column of black fabric that ended mid-thigh. It clung to every inch of her. She stepped into it, shimmying it up her body, and turned, presenting her back to him. “Zip me?”
His hands trembled slightly as he took the small zipper pull at the base of her spine. He drew it up slowly, the sound loud in the quiet room. His knuckles brushed the bare skin of her back, tracing the dragon’s tail. When the zipper reached the top, he didn’t move his hand. He spread his fingers wide, covering the space between her shoulder blades, holding her there.
Abby turned, seeing the raw hunger in his face. It was a look she’d seen before, but never directed at her with such singular, focused intensity. It wasn’t just lust. It was ownership, and a fierce, stunned reverence.
She stepped into a pair of high, sharp black heels, her height now nearly matching his. The transformation was complete. From soft, casual Abby to something forged in night and intention.
“Okay,” she said, smoothing the dress over her hips. She grabbed a small black bag and dropped her keys and phone inside. She looked at Leo, who still sat on the bed, looking utterly wrecked and wonderfully eager. “Let’s go to a party.”
The walk to the Kappa Theta house was a five-minute journey through the crisp night, their joined hands swinging between them. Leo’s palm was slightly damp, but his grip was firm, anchoring him to the reality of her sharp heels clicking on the pavement beside him. The noise found them first—a deep, subwoofer thump that vibrated up through the soles of their shoes, followed by the chaotic roar of a hundred voices trying to shout over the bass.
“So,” Leo said, raising his voice slightly as they approached the glowing, pulsing house. “Chloe seemed really… invested in the hockey team being there.”
Abby squeezed his hand, a quick pulse. “She’s between boyfriends. Again.” She shrugged, the motion elegant in the tight dress. “She has a type. Hockey players.Footballers. Basically any guy built like a refrigerator who can sweep her off her feet for a weekend.” Her tone was light, but it carried an edge of something older, more resigned.
“It’s a specific type,” Leo acknowledged.
“It’s a predictable one.” Abby’s gaze was fixed on the crowded doorway ahead. “She used to point them out to me all the time. Before you.” She glanced at him, a shy, fleeting look he rarely saw. “At parties like that one where we met. She’d say, ‘That one’s a linebacker, go get him, Abs.’ They tended to… latch onto me. And I’d latch back. It was easy. No talking required.” She took a breath, the confession hanging in the cold air. “It was a way to feel wanted for a night. To just turn everything else off. My dad’s gone. My mom and I are basically at war. It was… sanitary, in a fucked-up way.”
Leo stopped walking, turning to face her just outside the sphere of the porch light. The raw honesty of it sliced through the party’s distant frenzy. He didn’t offer pity. He just lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, his eyes holding hers. The gesture was so simple, so profoundly different from anything she’d just described, that her breath hitched.
Then the front door burst open, spilling light and sound and a laughing couple onto the lawn. The moment shattered. Abby’s mask of cool control slid back into place, but her fingers interlaced more tightly with his. “Come on,” she said, and pulled him into the furnace.
The interior was a crush of heat and bodies. The air was a solid thing, thick with beer sweat, cloying perfume, and the acrid tang of vaped nicotine. Strobe lights cut through the haze, freezing moments of grinding hips and sloshing red cups in jarring snapshots. Leo’s senses immediately overloaded, his grip on Abby’s hand becoming vital.
Chloe found them by the makeshift bar—a plank on two kegs. She was already bright-eyed, a red cup in hand, talking animatedly to a broad-shouldered guy in a letterman jacket. She waved them over. “You made it! Leo, this is Mike. Mike, this is Leo, who is very taken, so don’t get any ideas.”
Mike laughed, a loud, booming sound, and clapped Leo on the shoulder with a force that rattled his teeth. “Welcome to the jungle, man!” He turned his attention, and his considerable frame, back to Chloe.
Abby leaned into Leo, her mouth at his ear. Her breath was hot, her words a direct line through the noise. “See? Latching.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She took his other hand and placed it low on her stomach, pulling him flush against her back. Then she started to move. It wasn’t dancing so much as a deliberate, sinuous erosion of the space between them. She rolled her hips in a slow circle, her ass grinding against the hard line of his cock straining his jeans. The thin fabric of her dress did nothing to hide the heat of her.
Leo’s brain short-circuited. The crowd, the noise, the overwhelming stimuli—it all funneled down to the points of contact: her body moving against his, his hand splayed across her stomach, the scent of her vanilla cutting through the beer-stench. He let his head drop, burying his face in the crook of her neck where her hair was shortest. He inhaled her.
Her hand came up and back, sliding into his hair, gripping. She guided his head, turning it so his lips met the skin below her ear. “They’re all watching,” she breathed, her voice a dark thread in his ear. “They all think they know what I am. But you’re the only one who knows what I feel like.”
Her words were a bolt of pure possession. He bit down gently on the lobe of her ear, earning a sharp gasp. His hand on her stomach slid lower, fingertips digging into the lace at the apex of her thighs. He could feel the damp heat already seeping through. She pushed back against his hand, a silent, urgent demand.
She turned in his arms then, facing him. Her eyes were black pools in the stuttering light, her lipstick slightly smeared from his mouth. She grabbed the front of his hoodie and pulled him down, kissing him with a ferocity that tasted like ownership and need. Her tongue plunged into his mouth, and he met it with his own, his hands grabbing her ass, lifting her slightly onto her toes.
When she broke the kiss, they were both panting. “Bathroom,” she said, the word a command. “Now.”
She took his hand and cut through the crowd, a small, determined force. People parted for her, eyes tracking the dark flash of her dress and the focused intensity on her face. She found a hallway, darker, marginally quieter. The first door was locked, thumping with its own rhythm. The second door, a painted-over pine, had a broken latch.
She shouldered it open and pulled him inside, locking it with a twist of the button on the knob. It was a half-bath, claustrophobic, lit by a single bare bulb. The smell of cheap pine cleaner and mildew was overwhelming. A dripping faucet punctuated the muffled bass from the other side of the wall.
Abby didn’t hesitate. She pushed him back against the locked door. The impact knocked the air from his lungs. She dropped to her knees on the cracked linoleum, her hands going straight to his belt.
“Abby—” he started, but the buckle was already open, the button of his jeans popped.
She yanked his jeans and boxers down to his thighs in one brutal motion. His cock sprang free, fully hard, the tip already gleaming. She looked up at him, her expression feral. “I need to taste you.” Then she took him into her mouth, swallowing him deep without ceremony.
Leo’s head slammed back against the door with a dull thud. The wet, feverish heat of her mouth was a shock that traveled straight to his spine. She didn’t tease. She bobbed her head, taking him deep into her throat, her nose pressing into the rough hair at his base. A guttural moan tore from him, lost in the party’s din. Her tongue worked the sensitive underside, her lips tight, creating a filthy, slick friction.
He tangled his hands in her white-blonde hair, not guiding, just holding on. His hips jerked involuntarily. “God, your mouth… fuck…”
She hummed in response, the vibration around his cock making his knees buckle. She pulled off with a wet pop, her lips swollen and slick. “I want you inside me,” she panted, her hands pushing her dress up around her waist. The black lace thong was a soaked, transparent scrap. She hooked her thumbs in the sides and ripped it apart, the delicate lace tearing with a sound like a sigh.
She stood, turned, and bent over the porcelain sink, her hands braced on the cold, damp rim. The mirror above reflected her flushed face, her dark eyes locked on his behind her. The backless dress fell away, revealing the full, magnificent tapestry of her dragon tattoo, the knobs of her spine, the perfect curves of her ass. She looked over her shoulder, raw need etched into her features. “Now, Leo. Fuck me. I don’t care who hears.”
He was on her in an instant. He guided himself to her entrance, his hand shaking. She was dripping, impossibly wet and hot. He pushed into her with one long, relentless thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
A sharp cry escaped her, echoing off the tile. He clamped a hand over her mouth, his other hand splaying across her lower back, pinning her in place. She was tight, a silken, scorching vise around him. He held still for a heartbeat, savoring the feel of her internal muscles fluttering around his shaft.
Then he pulled out almost all the way and drove back in.
He set a punishing pace, his hips slamming against her ass with a solid, meaty sound that fought with the drip of the faucet. Each thrust rocked her forward into the sink. Her muted cries vibrated against his palm. The mirror fogged with their breath.
“Is this what you wanted?” he grunted, the words coming in harsh bursts. “In a filthy bathroom? With me?”
She nodded frantically against his hand, her eyes squeezed shut. He removed his hand from her mouth and gripped her hip instead, his fingers leaving pale marks on her skin. She whimpered, the sound raw and real. “Yes! Fuck, yes! Harder!”
He obeyed, his control unraveling. The world condensed to this: the smell of her sweat and sex, the slick sound of their bodies joining, the porcelain cool under her hands, the animal noise of his own breathing. He felt the tight coil of his orgasm building, a tsunami gathering in his gut.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice ragged.
“Inside me,” she demanded, arching her back deeper. “Do it. Fill me up.”
Her permission shattered the last of his restraint. With a final, deep plunge, he stilled, buried utterly within her. His orgasm ripped through him, a blinding, silent convulsion that locked his joints. Pulse after pulse of hot release emptied into her, his body shuddering violently against hers.
He slumped over her, forehead against her tattooed shoulder, gasping. She was panting beneath him, her own body trembling with unmet tension. He kissed the damp skin of her shoulder, then slowly, carefully, pulled out. The sight of his own spend trickling down her inner thigh was viscerally shocking.
He turned her around. Her makeup was a wreck, her expression dazed and hungry. He sank back to his knees on the dirty floor. He put his hands on the backs of her thighs and pulled her to his mouth.
He lapped at her, cleaning his own mess, then zeroed in on her clit. She cried out, her hands flying to his hair, gripping hard. He ate her with a single-minded focus, using his tongue and lips until her legs shook and a broken, sobbing climax wracked her body, her knees buckling as she rode his face.
They slumped together on the floor, a tangled heap of sweat-slicked limbs and ruined clothes, their breathing the loudest thing in the tiny, stinking room. The party’s bass was a distant, irrelevant heartbeat.
After a minute, Abby stirred. She found her torn underwear, looked at it, and let it drop into a small wastebasket. She smoothed her dress down, the fabric now clinging differently. She looked at Leo, who was clumsily pulling his jeans up. A slow, supremely satisfied grin spread across her face. She reached out, wiped a smudge of her lipstick from the corner of his mouth with her thumb.
“Let’s go dance,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He took her offered hand, and they left the bathroom, stepping back into the roaring chaos hand-in-hand. They moved to the edge of the dance floor, their bodies thrumming with a secret, sticky truth. Chloe spotted them from across the room, draped over Mike the hockey player’s arm. She raised her cup in a salute, her eyebrows waggling.
Leo leaned close to Abby’s ear, his voice a quiet rumble under the music. “Do you still need to feel wanted?”
Abby turned, her eyes softer than he’d ever seen them. She placed his hand back on her hip, over the dress, and began to sway with him, a slow, private movement in the crowded sea. “Not like that,” she said simply. “Not anymore.”