Chapter 1: The Elevator Ride
The elevator smelled like stale cigarette smoke and cheap perfume, a scent that clung to the back of your throat. Marshall leaned against the mirrored wall, the cold seeping through his thin t-shirt. The party upstairs had been too loud, too bright, a blunt-force trauma to the senses. He just wanted the quiet of his shitty apartment and his guitar.
Vanessa stood two feet away, studying the numbers above the door as they lit up and went dark. 18… 17… 16… Her heels were in her hand, dangling from her fingertips. The neon glow from Times Square bled through the elevator’s glass back wall, painting her honey-blonde hair in streaks of garish pink and electric blue.
The silence was a physical thing, thick and humming like the old elevator motor.
He could feel her heartbeat from here. Or maybe that was his own, pounding a guilty rhythm against his ribs.
“Chloe asked about you,” Vanessa said, not looking at him. Her voice was quiet, sanded down by vodka and exhaustion.
Marshall let out a short, dry laugh. “I bet she did.”
“She’s seeing someone. Some finance guy from her building.”
“Good for her.”
The elevator passed the tenth floor. The mirrored wall showed him her profile—the sharp line of her nose, the impossible softness of her mouth, the rapid flutter of a pulse in her throat. He saw his own reflection too: messy dark hair, tired eyes, the ink on his forearms a chaotic testament to every bad decision he’d ever made. They looked like strangers who’d just shared a tragedy.
“He sounds boring,” Vanessa murmured, finally turning her head. Her green eyes caught the light, sharp and too knowing. “He probably wears loafers without socks.”
“A monster,” Marshall agreed, his voice rough.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She was playing pretend, the way she always did. The loyal best friend. The good girl. He could see the cracks in the performance tonight, the strain around her mouth. He’d seen her watching him all night, from across the room, a glass of wine held to her lips like a shield.
The elevator jolted slightly. 8… 7…
“My stop’s next,” she said, looking at the numbers again.
“I know.”
The space between them shrank. It wasn’t a physical movement, but a shift in the air, a gathering of static. He could smell her perfume now, something clean and citrusy underneath the party smells. It was the only clean thing in this whole goddamn city.
She bit her lower lip, a quick, nervous gesture. “Is it wrong,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on the descending numbers, “if I come up with you?”
The question hung there, fragile and dangerous.
He didn’t answer. He just pushed off the wall.
In two steps he was on her. He didn’t touch her, not at first. He just caged her in, his palms flat against the cool mirror on either side of her head. Her eyes went wide, her breath catching in her throat. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the flush spreading down her neck to where her black dress dipped low.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice a low rasp.
She did. All the pretend melted away. What was left was raw, wanton, and terrified. It mirrored the chaos in his own gut.
He crashed his mouth onto hers.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a confession and an accusation. It was every sideways glance from the last six months, every stifled laugh, every time her hand had brushed his and she’d jerked it away like she’d been burned. Her lips were soft, parted in surprise, and he took full advantage, his tongue sweeping in, tasting the vodka and the faint, sweet hint of her lip gloss. She moaned, a broken little sound that vibrated through his whole body, and her hands came up to fist in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer.
His knee slid between her thighs, nudging them apart. The silky fabric of her dress whispered against his jeans. One hand left the mirror and tangled in her hair, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. The other slid down her side, over the curve of her hip, and under the hem of her dress.
Her skin was so fucking soft. Hot. He traced the lace edge of her underwear, his fingertips branding her through the thin material. She gasped against his mouth, her hips bucking forward, seeking pressure.
“Marshall,” she breathed, his name a prayer and a curse.
“Shut up,” he growled, but it was choked, desperate. He tore his mouth from hers to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down her jaw, her throat. He sucked at the pulse point there, feeling it hammer against his tongue. She was going to have a mark. He wanted her to have a mark. He wanted her to look at it tomorrow and remember this, remember him, and feel the same sick twist of guilt and longing currently tearing him apart.
His fingers hooked into the side of her panties, yanking them down her thighs. They snagged around her knees, a flimsy barrier. He didn’t bother removing them further. He just shoved the skirt of her dress up around her waist, exposing her to the cool air and the unforgiving mirrors.
“Look,” he commanded, his voice rough with need. He nudged her head to the side. Their reflections were a lewd, beautiful mess. Her dress was hiked up, her back arched against the glass, her legs trembling where they bracketed his. His own face was a mask of stark hunger, his pupils blown black. “Look at what you’re doing. What we’re doing.”
She whimpered, but her eyes stayed locked on their reflection, dark with a feral shame he felt in his own bones.
He unfastened his jeans with one impatient hand, the zipper loud in the silent box. He pushed the fabric down just enough to free himself, hard and aching. He was already wet at the tip, leaking for her. He guided himself, notching the head at her entrance. She was soaked, slick and ready, her body betraying every principle she thought she held.
He didn’t ask. There was no more asking.
He drove into her in one brutal, perfect thrust.
The sound she made was half-sob, half-scream, swallowed by his mouth as he kissed her again. She was tight, clenching around him like a fist, so fucking hot he saw stars. He buried himself to the hilt, his hips flush against hers, and stayed there for a second, shuddering, feeling her internal muscles flutter and grip him. The world narrowed to this: the smell of sex and her perfume, the taste of her, the sharp dig of her nails through his shirt into his back.
Then he began to move.
He set a punishing pace, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The elevator was filled with the sounds of it: the slick, wet slap of skin on skin, their ragged, mingled breaths, the soft thud of her body against the mirror with every thrust. He fucked her like he hated her, like he wanted to ruin her, because ruining her was the only way to keep her out of his poisoned system. It was anger and need and three years of loneliness since Chloe, all channeled into the snap of his hips.
“God, yes,” she chanted, her head thrown back, banging softly against the glass. “Yes, fuck, just like that.”
Her honesty destroyed him. He hooked one of her legs over his arm, lifting her, changing the angle. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, as he hit a deeper spot.
“You feel that?” he snarled in her ear, his breath hot. “You feel how fucking good this is? This is all it is. This is all it can ever be.”
It was a lie. They both knew it. This was a line, scorched into the earth and crossed. There was no going back.
Her orgasm hit her suddenly. Her whole body went rigid, her inner walls clamping down on him in a series of violent, sweet pulses. Her scream was muffled against his shoulder, her teeth sinking into the fabric of his shirt. The sight of her coming undone, the feel of it, the raw, shattered sound of her pleasure, tipped him over the edge.
With a guttural groan, he buried himself deep and let go. His release was brutal, wracking his body, emptying into her in hot, pulsing waves. He saw white behind his eyelids, his forehead falling against the cool mirror beside her head.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their desperate breathing, fogging the glass.
Slowly, the world came back. The faint hum of the motor. The distant wail of a siren seven stories below. The neon sign for a whiskey brand, flashing on and off across the street, painting their spent bodies in alternating red and white light.
He softened inside her. He pulled out, a messy, intimate withdrawal. He tucked himself away, zipped his jeans with fingers that felt numb.
Vanessa slid down the mirror, her legs barely holding her. She fumbled with her dress, pulling it down, then bent to yank her panties back up her trembling legs. She wouldn’t look at him.
The elevator dinged, soft and innocent. The doors slid open on her floor. The quiet hallway beyond was a stark, ordinary reality.
She hesitated, one hand on the door to keep it from closing. Her shoulders were tense. She finally glanced back at him, her eyes a wreck of mascara and conflicting emotions. She looked used. Beautiful. Ruined.
He said nothing. What was there to say?
She stepped out. The doors began to close, swallowing the sight of her walking away, barefoot, her heels still dangling from her hand.
When they shut, he was alone with his reflection again. A man in a mirrored box, surrounded by the ghost of her heat and his own stupidity. The numbers started moving again, descending toward the lobby he no longer wanted.
He slumped against the wall, closed his eyes, and laughed a single, harsh note that echoed in the empty space. He was so completely fucked.
He was so completely fucked.
The thought echoed in the empty chamber of the elevator. It wasn’t just the sex. It was the silence after. The look on her face. The fucking finality of those closing doors. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his sternum, as if he could push the ache back down where it came from.
The doors opened on the lobby. A couple staggered in, laughing, wrapped around each other. They paid him no mind. He was just a silhouette against the neon wash.
He should go home. He should walk out into the cool night, hail a cab, and go back to his apartment and his guitar and the familiar, safe numbness.
His feet moved before his brain caught up.
He hit the ‘Door Open’ button. The couple yelped as the doors jerked apart again. Marshall shouldered past them, muttering a “sorry” that sounded more like a threat, and strode across the marble lobby towards the stairwell door.
He took the stairs two at a time, his boots echoing in the concrete enclosure. The residual buzz from the whiskey was gone, burned away by pure, undiluted adrenaline. Seven flights. His lungs burned. Each step was a drumbeat: stupid, stupid, stupid.
He burst onto her floor. The hallway was silent, carpeted in a ugly beige that swallowed sound. He saw her, halfway down, fumbling with her keys at a dark blue door.
She heard him. She froze, her back rigid. She didn’t turn around.
“Vanessa.”
The name was torn out of him. It wasn’t a call. It was a command.
She slowly turned. Her face was pale, her lipstick smeared from his mouth and her teeth. She looked like a warzone. Her green eyes were wide, luminous with shock and a defiance that was already crumbling. She still held her shoes.
“What are you doing, Marshall?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He closed the distance between them, his steps deliberate. He stopped a foot away, crowding her space again. He could see the rapid flutter in her throat.
“It looks like you’re making a catastrophic mistake.” Her voice trembled.
“Too late for that.” He reached past her, his hand covering hers on the key. Her skin was cold. He turned the key, heard the deadbolt click. He pushed the door open.
The apartment was dark, smelling of lemony cleaner and her. Lavender, maybe. He didn’t wait for an invitation. He stepped inside, pulling her in with him. The door swung shut, plunging them into near darkness, save for the ambient light from the city bleeding around the edges of a single window.
“You don’t get to do that,” she said in the dark, her voice stronger now, angrier. “You don’t get to fuck me in an elevator like I’m nothing and then follow me home like you have a claim.”
He found her shoulders in the dark, his grip firm. “You felt like nothing?” His voice was low, dangerous. “That’s not the sound you made. That wasn’t the way you clenched around me. Don’t fucking lie to me now.”
“It was a mistake!” she hissed, trying to pull away. He didn’t let her.
“It was the most honest thing that’s happened to me in three years.”
He kissed her again. This time it was different. It wasn’t an attack; it was a collision. A messy, desperate meeting of mouths that tasted like salt and regret and an irresistible, damnable need. She fought it for half a second, her hands flat against his chest, then her fingers were curling into his shirt, pulling him closer, and she was kissing him back with a furious, equal hunger.
They stumbled backwards, a chaotic tangle of limbs, until the backs of her knees hit the edge of a couch. She fell onto it, pulling him down on top of her. The cushions sighed, expelling trapped air.
There were no mirrors here. Just touch. Just feeling. His hands were everywhere, relearning her in the dark. He yanked the thin straps of her dress down her arms, baring her to the waist. He took a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, biting down just enough to make her arch and cry out. His other hand pushed her dress up, past her hips, and found her center again, already wet and swollen from before. He plunged two fingers inside her, curling them, and she sobbed, her hips lifting off the couch to meet his thrusting hand.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he growled against her skin. “Again. Already. Is this for me, Vanessa? Or for the mistake?”
“Shut up,” she moaned, her head thrashing side to side on the cushion. “Just shut up and fuck me. That’s all you’re good for, right?”
He ripped his fingers out of her, unbuckled his belt, tore his jeans down. He didn’t bother with her panties this time; he just tore the flimsy lace aside with a sharp tug that made her gasp. He positioned himself at her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against her slick heat.
He paused. In the dark, he could barely see her face, just the faint gleam of her eyes watching him.
“This isn’t just fucking,” he said, the words raw and unfamiliar. He hated them. He meant them.
He drove into her.
The couch creaked violently beneath them. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back, locking him in. The angle was deeper, more consuming. He set a relentless, grinding rhythm, each stroke a slow, deliberate claiming. It was less angry than in the elevator, more terrifyingly intimate. He could feel every tiny quiver of her body, hear every hitched breath and muffled whimper directly in his ear.
He slid a hand between them, his thumb finding her clit, circling it with rough, precise pressure. She shattered almost immediately, her orgasm ripping through her with a choked, guttural scream. Her inner muscles milked him, a series of frantic, fluttering pulses that dragged his own release from him. He came with a broken groan, spilling into her, his body sagging against hers as the waves of pleasure slowly, reluctantly, subsided.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing, the distant hum of the city, the smell of sex thickening the dark air.
He rolled off her, onto his back on the unfamiliar couch. The ceiling was a vague gray shadow.
Her voice came from beside him, small and wrecked. “Chloe is my best friend.”
“I know.”
“She’ll never forgive me.”
“I know that, too.”
A streetlight outside flickered, casting a brief, jaundiced light across the room. He saw a framed photo on a bookshelf. Two girls, arms around each other, smiling on a beach. Chloe and Vanessa. He looked away.
Vanessa sat up, pulling the ruins of her dress over her breasts. She found a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, lit one with shaking hands. The tip glowed red in the dark.
“You should go,” she said, exhaling smoke. It wasn’t cruel. It was exhausted.
He stood, pulling his jeans up, fastening his belt. The metal buckle was loud. He felt hollowed out, scraped clean. He found his way to the door by memory and touch.
His hand was on the knob.
“Marshall.”
He stopped.
“Was it worth it?” she asked. The question hung in the smoky dark.
He didn’t turn around. He opened the door, letting the hallway light cut a yellow wedge into the room, exposing the messy couch, their discarded clothes, the shame they now shared.
“Ask me tomorrow,” he said, and stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him.
HE FOLLOWS HER.