Chapter 3: The Next Morning
The morning light was a liar. It streamed through the grimy windows of the garage apartment, painting the dust motes gold and making the clutter look almost charming. Gage sat on the edge of the futon, a cold cup of black coffee forgotten in his hand. He’d been staring at the workbench for an hour. The carburetor was back in place, the tools arranged neatly. As if he could tidy up the memory, too.
He heard the stairs creak. A slow, tentative sound. His whole body went rigid.
The door opened, and she was there, backlit by the harsh morning sun. She looked wrecked. Her honey-brown hair was pulled into a messy knot, dark circles smudged under her wide eyes. She was wearing a simple sundress, something soft and floral that belonged in a church pew, not his grease-stained world. Her eyes found his, held.
“You look like hell,” he said, his voice gravel from disuse.
“I didn’t sleep.” She closed the door behind her, leaning against it. “I just… kept replaying it.”
“Yeah.” He looked back at the workbench. “Me too.”
“I thought you’d tell me to leave again.”
“I should.”
“But you won’t.”
It wasn’t a question. He finally looked at her, really looked. The defiance from the night before was gone, replaced by a raw, vulnerable exhaustion. She was scared. He could see it in the way her fingers pleated the fabric of her dress. It was the most real thing she’d shown him yet.
“No,” he admitted, the word tearing out of him. “I don’t think I can.”
She pushed off the door and crossed the room. She didn’t go to him. She went to the workbench, her hand hovering over the cleared spot where he’d lifted her. She traced the edge of the metal with a single fingertip. “You said it would burn my world down.”
“It will.”
“It already feels like it’s on fire.” She turned to face him, her hazel eyes glittering with unshed tears. “Everything else feels gray. Fake. This is the only real thing.”
He set the coffee cup down with a clatter. He stood, the movement stiff. He crossed the space between them, stopping close enough to feel the heat coming off her body, to see the pulse fluttering in her throat. He didn’t touch her.
“What do you want from me, Carly?”
“I want to stop thinking,” she whispered. “I want to know what happens after the kiss.”
He closed his eyes. A beaten man. “There’s no map for this. No good way.”
“I don’t need a good way. I just need it to be you.”
That was it. The final surrender. He reached for her, his hands finding her hips, pulling her gently from the bench. He guided her backward to the futon, its springs groaning in protest as they sat. The morning light fell across her lap, illuminating the delicate pattern of her dress.
He cupped her face, his thumb brushing away a tear that escaped. Then he kissed her. It was different from the night before—softer, deeper, a conversation without words. A goodbye to every pretense of resistance. She kissed him back with a desperate kind of relief, her hands fisting in the fabric of his t-shirt.
When he laid her back against the faded cushions, she went willingly, her body pliant. He leaned over her, studying her face—the flutter of her eyelids, the part of her lips. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the frantic beat in her throat.
His fingers went to the small buttons of her dress, working them slowly. One. Two. Three. He pushed the fabric aside, revealing the simple white cotton of her bra, the pale, untouched skin of her stomach. He laid his palm flat against it, feeling her muscles jump. She gasped.
“Okay?” he murmured against her skin.
She could only nod.
He unhooked her shorts, the button fly giving way with soft pops. He slid his hand inside, past the elastic of her panties. Her eyes flew open, locking with his, full of shock and a dawning, overwhelming sensation.
She was warm. Incredibly soft. And slick with a wanting she couldn’t possibly understand.
He watched her face as he touched her, a single finger exploring the delicate, hidden folds. Her breath hitched. Her lips formed a silent ‘oh’. He found the sensitive bud and circled it slowly, a gentle, relentless pressure.
“Gage…” It was a plea, a prayer.
“I know.” He kept his eyes on hers, learning her. The way her brows drew together in concentration, the flush that spread from her chest to her throat, the little jerk of her hips when he pressed just right. He added a second finger, sliding inside her carefully. The tight, hot clasp of her made him grit his teeth.
He kissed her then, swallowing her whimpers, mapping the interior of her mouth with his tongue in the same rhythm his fingers set below. She was unraveling beneath him, her body arching off the futon, her hands clutching at his shoulders, his hair. A high, thin sound escaped her, and she broke the kiss, burying her face in his neck as her whole body tensed, trembled, and then shook apart. He felt the pulses around his fingers, silent and profound.
He held her through it, his lips against her temple, until the last tremor subsided. She went boneless against the cushions, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
Slowly, he withdrew his hand. He stood, his own body aching with need. He didn’t break the silence. He just peeled her dress and shorts the rest of the way off, then removed her bra and panties. She let him, her eyes heavy-lidded, watching him with a new, intimate knowledge. In the golden light, she was breathtaking. All pale skin and gentle curves, a landscape he was now responsible for.
He stripped off his own clothes, watching her eyes widen as she took him in—the hard lines of his body, the clear evidence of his want for her. He knelt on the futon, parting her legs with his hands. He lowered his head.
“Wh—what are you doing?” Her voice was thin, frayed.
“Teaching you something else.”
His mouth on her was deliberate, intimate. She cried out, her hands flying to his hair, not to push him away but to hold on. He licked and tasted the salt-sweetness of her, the tang of her release, learning what made her gasp, what made her legs tense. Her hips lifted off the cushion, seeking. He held her down with a firm hand on her stomach, taking his time, until she was mewling, begging wordlessly, and then coming again with a sharp, broken sob.
He moved up her body, his skin sliding against hers. He settled between her thighs, the head of his cock nudging against her warmth. Her eyes were wild, glazed.
He braced himself on his forearms, caging her in. “This is the last chance,” he breathed, his voice strained to breaking. “This changes everything. Tell me to stop.”
She didn’t speak. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back. Her hands framed his face, pulling him down until their foreheads touched. Her answer was in her eyes, in the slight, confident tilt of her hips.
He pushed inside.
She was so tight. A stifled gasp escaped her, her body stiffening. He froze, sweat beading on his brow. “Breathe,” he whispered. “Just breathe, Carly.”
She exhaled in a shudder, and her muscles reluctantly, incrementally, relaxed. He sank deeper, a slow, devastating invasion, until he was fully sheathed, buried in a heat so profound it felt like truth. They were both breathing raggedly, joined in a way that felt terrifyingly permanent.
He began to move. Short, careful strokes at first. Her whimper turned into a moan. He watched her face, every flicker of discomfort dissolving into pure, unadulterated sensation. Her nails scored his back. He picked up the rhythm, one hand sliding under her hip to angle her better, finding a pace that made her eyes lose focus.
The futon springs squeaked in time with their movement. The morning sun climbed higher, blazing a stripe across their tangled legs. There was no thought, only feel. The clutch of her body, the slick slide of skin, the ragged symphony of their breathing. She chanted his name, a soft, broken litany.
He felt the coil in his gut tighten, a warning. “Look at me,” he demanded.
Her hazy eyes found his.
“Come with me,” he gritted out.
It was a command she instinctively obeyed. Her internal muscles clenched around him in a sudden, fierce rhythm, pulling his own release from him in a hot, blinding rush. He drove into her one last, deep time, groaning her name into the skin of her shoulder as the world dissolved into white noise and fracturing light.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing slowing. The smell of sex and sun-warmed dust. The weight of him on her, of her legs still locked around him.
Slowly, regretfully, he withdrew and collapsed beside her. She immediately turned onto her side, curling into him, her head on his chest. Her fingers traced idle patterns over his heartbeat.
The compressor didn’t kick on. The world outside didn’t intrude. The only thing that existed was the stickiness between her thighs, the sore ache in her body, and the absolute, irrevocable knowledge that nothing would ever be the same.
She finally spoke, her voice small against his skin. “So that’s ‘after’.”
He stared at the water-stained ceiling. “Yeah.”
“It doesn’t feel like ruin.”
He didn’t answer. He just held her tighter, because he knew the truth she didn’t: ruin wasn’t a feeling. It was a fact. And it was waiting for them just outside that door, in the shape of a quiet town and a family Bible on a nightstand, patiently biding its time.