Chapter 11: Honeyed Desires
The scent of citrus and vanilla hit Nelissa the moment the penthouse door sighed shut behind her, locking out the bland, fluorescent hallways of the university building. It was late afternoon, the city light through the vast windows a muted gold. The air held another note beneath the perfume: something warm, buttery, sweet. Pancakes.
She dropped her backpack by the entry, the thump too loud in the quiet space. Her body ached from a day of pretending to be small, her shoulders permanently hunched inside a baggy sweatshirt, her hair a curtain. Here, she could straighten. She followed the smell.
Lisa stood at the kitchen island, her back to the room. The view stole the air from Nelissa’s lungs. Lisa wore only black lace—a garter belt snapped to the tops of sheer stockings, the delicate straps cutting into the smooth skin of her thighs and the perfect swell of her ass. The city’s neon glow, just beginning to wake against the dusk, painted her in streaks of pink and blue.
She was drizzling honey from a spoon onto a stack of pancakes. The golden syrup fell in slow, viscous ribbons. Lisa’s movements were deliberately slow, hypnotic. She knew she was being watched. The atmosphere crackled with it.
Nelissa leaned against the doorway, her textbook forgotten in her bag. “Planning a very specific kind of breakfast for dinner?”
Lisa didn’t turn. “I was hungry for something sweet.” Her voice was a low purr. She set the spoon down with a soft clink on the marble. Then she turned, leaning back against the counter, and opened her stance.
The front of the garter belt was just a narrow triangle of lace, barely containing her. Her skin glowed in the kitchen’s soft light. A smirk played on her lips as she saw Nelissa’s gaze, dark and hungry, drink her in.
“But then,” Lisa continued, crooking a finger, “I got hungry for something else. Come here.”
Nelissa crossed the room in three long strides. The textbook in her hand—a heavy volume on corporate finance—thudded to the floor. It was the sound of that other life, the one waiting in Busan, being dismissed. Right now, there was only this kitchen, this woman, this ache.
She stopped inches from Lisa, their heat mingling. Lisa didn’t touch her. Instead, she hiked herself up onto the cold marble countertop, the granite shocking against her bare skin. She leaned back on her hands, her posture a blatant, gorgeous invitation. She spread her legs wide, letting Nelissa see everything—the dampness already darkening the lace, the delicate folds beneath.
“Come taste your real breakfast, babygirl,” Lisa whispered, the old endearment from the balcony now a molten brand.
A groan ripped from Nelissa’s throat. She didn’t hesitate. She stepped between Lisa’s thighs, her hands gripping the smooth granite on either side of Lisa’s hips. She lowered her head.
The scent here was richer, muskier than the vanilla. It was utterly Lisa. Nelissa nosed aside the scant lace, her mouth finding wet, swollen heat. She licked a long, slow stripe from Lisa’s entrance to her clit.
Lisa gasped, her head falling back. “Fuck. Yes.”
Nelissa dove in, feasting. She used her tongue like a weapon of worship, flicking and circling the hard bud before plunging deep into her channel, tasting her own residual spend from the morning mixed with Lisa’s fresh, slick arousal. It was salty, tangy, addictive. She lapped at her, drinking her down, her nose pressed against Lisa’s skin. The honey was still on her fingers; she reached up, smearing a dab of it around Lisa’s nipple before taking it into her mouth, sucking hard.
Lisa was writhing, her heels digging into the small of Nelissa’s back. “More. God, don’t stop.”
But Nelissa had other plans. The need was a coil pulled taut in her gut. She pulled back, her chin glistening. “Turn over,” she said, her voice rough.
Lisa’s eyes flashed with understanding, with want. She moved, clumsy with need, turning onto her hands and knees right there on the island. The stack of pancakes sat forgotten near her elbow, the bottle of honey beside it. The city sprawled behind her, a million indifferent lights.
Nelissa yanked her sweatpants and boxers down just enough to free her cock, already fully hard, flushed and leaking. She spat into her hand, slicking herself roughly. She positioned the head at Lisa’s entrance, which was dripping and eager.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” Nelissa grunted, not waiting for a reply. She drove into her in one relentless thrust.
Lisa screamed. The sound was raw, unfiltered, echoing off the hard surfaces of the kitchen. Her arms buckled, her cheek landing on the cold marble beside the pancakes. Nelissa gripped her hips, her fingers pressing bruises into the perfect skin, and set a brutal, piston-like rhythm. Each snap of her hips slammed Lisa forward, her breasts rubbing against the gritty texture of the counter.
“Is this what you wanted?” Nelissa demanded, her own breath coming in sharp bursts. “You wanted to be my fucking dinner?”
“Yes! Yes! Harder!” Lisa sobbed, the words mashed against the stone. One of her hands flailed, knocking over the honey bottle. The golden liquid spilled, pooling sticky and slow near her face. The scent of it mixed with sex and sweat.
Nelissa leaned over her, blanketing Lisa’s body with her own, fucking into her from this new, deeper angle. She could feel every clench, every tremor. She reached around, her hand slippery with honey from the counter, and found Lisa’s clit. She rubbed tight, frantic circles.
“Come on,” Nelissa snarled into her ear. “Come all over my cock. Do it.”
The combined assault was too much. Lisa’s body went rigid, then shattered. A guttural, broken cry was torn from her as her orgasm ripped through her, violent and consuming. Her inner walls clamped down on Nelissa in a series of fierce, rhythmic pulses, a velvet fist squeezing the base of her cock.
The sensation, the visual of Lisa collapsing in a sticky mess of honey and batter, the animal sounds she was making—it detonated Nelissa’s control. With a final, deep grind, she came, her own shout joining Lisa’s. She pulsed inside her, a hot, endless rush, claiming the trembling heat for what felt like an eternity.
They collapsed together onto the cool marble, a tangled, sweating, sticky heap. Nelissa’s weight pressed Lisa into the counter. The honey was under her forearm, gluey and warm. For long minutes, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant hum of the city.
Eventually, Nelissa softened and slipped out. A mix of their release dribbled down Lisa’s inner thigh, joining the honey. Lisa made a weak, protesting sound as Nelissa moved away.
“Stay,” Lisa mumbled, her face still pressed to the stone.
“We’re a mess,” Nelissa said softly, her hands gently rubbing Lisa’s back.
“I don’t care.”
But Nelissa did. Carefully, she helped Lisa sit up. Lisa looked wrecked and beautiful, honey smeared on her cheek, her hair sticking to her forehead, her mascanda blurred. Nelissa led her to the large kitchen sink, turning on the warm water. She wet a soft cloth and began to clean her, starting with her face, moving down her neck, over her breasts, between her legs. The act was tender, methodical, a silent counterpoint to the raw fury of minutes before.
Lisa watched her, her dark eyes unreadable. “You’re good at that,” she said quietly. “The after.”
Nelissa rinsed the cloth. “The after matters.”
“Does it?” Lisa stepped closer, the water from the faucet spraying lightly on her stomach. “Sometimes the during is so big, the after feels like falling.”
Nelissa understood. The high of possession, the eclipse of everything else, then the slow return to a reality where secrets and deadlines existed. She was falling now, the ground looming.
She finished cleaning Lisa, then handed her a towel. While Lisa dried off, Nelissa cleaned the counter, wiping up the honey and batter, a domestic chore that felt profoundly intimate. She made two fresh plates of the surviving pancakes.
They ate at the island, naked. The silence was comfortable, laden with shared physical memory. Halfway through her food, Lisa put her fork down.
“My manager called again today. During rehearsal.”
Nelissa’s gut tightened. “And?”
“They’ve finalized the Japan promo tour. It’s three weeks. I leave Monday after next.”
Monday after next. The words were stones dropping into the still water of the evening. Nelissa calculated instantly. That was twelve days away. It would eat a huge chunk of the remaining time they had.
“Three weeks is long,” Nelissa said, aiming for neutral and missing.
“It is.” Lisa pushed her plate away. “They… they asked if I was seeing someone. The rumors from the club are still bubbling. They have a strategy to quash them. A staged dinner with that actor, the one from the vampire drama.”
Nelissa felt the pancake turn to cement in her stomach. She saw it instantly: the sleek PR photos, the headlines about K-pop’s It Girl and Hallyu’s Heartthrob. A perfect, heterosexual, fame-boosting narrative.
“That sounds… efficient,” Nelissa forced out.
Lisa reached across the counter, taking Nelissa’s hand. Her grip was fierce. “I said I’d think about it. But I won’t do it. I told them my private life is private.”
The declaration should have been a relief. It felt like a weight. Lisa was choosing a hidden, complicated thing with an expiration date over a clean, public fiction that would benefit her career. It was a gift Nelissa couldn’t possibly deserve, and one that would make the inevitable end even more catastrophic.
“Lisa…” Nelissa began, the confession about her grandfather, about Busan, about her entire fabricated life, rising like bile in her throat.
Lisa stood up, coming around the island. She stood before Nelissa, naked and defiant. “Don’t. Not tonight.” She slid onto Nelissa’s lap, straddling her, wrapping her arms around her neck. “I have you for tonight. For the next twelve nights before I fly. That’s what I’m choosing to think about.”
She kissed her, a deep, searching kiss that tasted of syrup and desperation. Nelissa held her, feeling the frantic beat of Lisa’s heart against her own. She buried her face in Lisa’s neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, now clean of honey but forever marked in her memory with it.
The clock on the oven glowed green in the dim kitchen. Time, once an abstract countdown, now had a concrete, cruel shape: a departing flight. Nelissa held Lisa tighter, committing the feel of her to memory, knowing that each moment of happiness from now on would be borrowed, and the debt was coming due with a vengeance she could already taste, bitter as regret at the back of her tongue.