Chapter 2: Drowning in What's Ours
The water was scalding, a sharp relief against the chill that had settled in his bones after leaving the library. Steam billowed, thick and opaque, filling the narrow alcove of Simone’s shower until the cracked tiles vanished into a warm, white haze. Elijah stood under the single, hissing stream, eyes closed, trying to burn away the scent of vanilla that clung to his memory like a phantom limb.
Then the glass door slid open, a cool draft cutting through the steam. He didn’t need to look. The gentle click of a shampoo bottle, the soft sigh as she stepped in behind him—he knew her rhythms by heart.
Her body pressed against his back, skin slick and warm. Her arms wrapped around his waist, hands flattening against his stomach. She rested her cheek between his shoulder blades.
“You’re thinking too loud out there,” Simone murmured, her voice muffled by the water and his skin. “I could hear it from the bedroom.”
He covered her hands with his, lacing their fingers. “Just tired.”
“Mhm.” She didn’t believe him. He felt the unspoken question in her silence, in the way her thumbs stroked small circles on his abdomen. She kissed his spine, a soft press of lips. Then her hands moved, sliding lower, fingertips tracing the trail of hair below his navel.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the hot water raced through him. He leaned his forehead against the cool tile.
“Let me help,” she whispered, her voice taking on a lower, more deliberate tone. It was an offer, a claiming, a solution.
Her hands found his cock, already half-hard from the heat and her proximity. She stroked him slowly, firmly, her grip perfect in its familiarity. He groaned, a sound lost in the drumming spray. This was their language, a physical dialect they’d perfected over two years. It was comfort. It was absolution.
But tonight, her touch felt like an interrogation. Every stroke asked a question his body was wired to answer, even as his mind spiraled elsewhere. He saw a curl of hair on dark wood. Heard a deep, unguarded laugh.
“Simone,” he breathed, the name a prayer and an apology.
“Shhh.” She turned him around, the movement graceful despite the confined space. Her braids were piled high on her head, a few stray tendrils plastered to her neck and temples. Water cascaded over the curves of her breasts, down the flat plane of her stomach. Her eyes, usually so sharp and assessing, were soft with desire and something else—a determined tenderness.
She pushed him back against the tile, the chill a shock against his shoulders. Her gaze held his as she dropped to her knees on the hard porcelain floor. The sight was an old, potent thrill. She took him in her mouth without hesitation, her lips stretching around his girth, her tongue flattening against the underside.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his head knocking back against the wall. Her mouth was hot, wet, exactly what he needed. She used her hands, cupping and squeezing his balls, working him with a practiced urgency that left no room for thought. Her moans vibrated through him, a hungry, greedy sound swallowed by the rush of water. He tangled his hands in her braids, not guiding, just holding on.
It was good. It was technically perfect, a masterpiece of shared history. He felt the tension coiling in his gut, the blind momentum toward release. But his mind was a split screen. One part was here, feeling the incredible pull of her throat, watching the water drip from her chin. The other part was in a dusty library nook, listening to a theory about mortar and blueprints.
He opened his eyes, looking down at her. Her eyes were closed in concentration, her beautiful face a mask of dedicated pleasure. She was giving him this. She was trying to fix something she couldn’t even name.
A surge of guilt, sharp as a blade, cut through the building pleasure. He couldn’t come like this, with her on her knees and his mind betraying her in the steam.
“Stop,” he grunted, his voice ragged.
She pulled off immediately, lips swollen and wet, confusion flashing across her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Not like this.” He hauled her up, his hands gripping her waist. “I need you. Now.”
Understanding, and a flicker of victory, replaced the confusion in her eyes. She hooked her leg around his hip, bracing one hand against the slick tile beside his head. With her other hand, she reached between them, guiding him inside her.
They both gasped as he slid in. She was already wet, hot, and tight. The fit was perfect, a comfortable, knowing clench around his cock. She began to move, a slow, deep roll of her hips that drew a guttural groan from his chest. Her nails dug into the meat of his shoulder.
“That’s it,” she panted, her breath hot against his ear. “Just feel me, Eli. Just be here with me.”
He gripped her ass, fingers sinking into the soft flesh, holding her tight against him as she rode him. The slap of skin on skin, muffled by the water, echoed in the small space. He thrust up to meet her, driving deeper. She cried out, the sound raw and real, and for a moment, he was there. Fully there. The world narrowed to the push and pull, the steam, the taste of lavender on her skin as he buried his face in her neck.
“God, you feel so good,” he growled, the words torn from him. “Take it. Take all of me.”
“Yes,” she breathed, her rhythm fragmenting into urgent, jerking motions. “Fuck me. Just fuck me. Don’t think.”
He obeyed. He pinned her harder against the wall, his thrusts becoming frantic, piston-like. The pleasure built, a wave cresting from his balls up his spine. He was close, so close, chasing a release that felt like both a necessity and a defeat.
“Come for me,” she demanded, her voice cracking. “I wanna feel you come inside me, Eli. Fill me up.”
Her words, filthy and possessive, tipped him over the edge. With a ragged shout that was more anguish than ecstasy, he emptied into her, his body shuddering violently against hers. She clenched around him, milking his orgasm, her own release cresting in tight, pulsing waves that made her thighs tremble against his hips.
For a long minute, they stayed like that, clutched together under the relentless spray, breathing in ragged unison. The water began to cool.
Slowly, his senses returned. The ache in his shoulders from being pressed against the tile. The drip of water from the faucet. The slowing beat of his heart against hers.
She softened against him, her body going limp. He held her up, his arms wrapped around her waist. He felt drained, hollowed out. The temporary erasure was over.
Simone lifted her head from his shoulder. She searched his face, her eyes tracing his features as if reading a map. She saw the physical satisfaction there. But she was too smart, too attuned to him, not to see the other thing hiding behind his eyes.
She kissed him, soft and slow. It tasted like salt and lavender and an ending.
“You’re not here,” she whispered against his lips, the words so quiet they were almost lost in the drip of the showerhead.
He didn’t deny it. He just rested his forehead against hers, the steam thinning around them, the cracked tiles coming back into view.
He just rested his forehead against hers, the steam thinning around them, the cracked tiles coming back into view. The water turned lukewarm, then cool, a gradual shock to their heated skin. She was the first to move, peeling her body from his with a soft, wet sound.
She slid the door open and stepped out into the bathroom’s chill without a word. He watched the water sluice down the elegant curve of her back, over the cheeks of her ass still red from his grip, before she wrapped a towel around herself. The intimacy felt clinical now, observed.
Elijah turned off the spray. The sudden silence was louder than the water had been. He dried himself slowly, the rough cotton towel feeling like an abrasive against his oversensitive skin. The guilt was a cold, solid knot in his stomach, tightening with every breath.
He found her in the bedroom, already under the covers, facing the wall. The single desk lamp cast a gloomy half-light. Her braids were splayed across the pillow. He stood in the doorway, damp, feeling like a trespasser.
“Come to bed,” she said, her voice flat. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a procedure.
He slid in beside her, the sheets cool and unfamiliar. The scent of her lavender body wash was overwhelming. He stared at the ceiling, at a hairline crack in the plaster that seemed to branch like a decision tree. The silence stretched, elastic and suffocating.
“You good?” she finally asked, not turning.
“Yeah. Just… a lot on my mind.” The words were ash in his mouth.
She rolled over then, fast. Her eyes were sharp, all softness from the shower vaporized. “A lot on your mind,” she repeated, her voice low and dangerously even. “That’s it? That’s the line you’re going with?”
“Simone, it’s not a line. I’ve got midterms, the Dean’s list thing, the student union—”
“Stop.” She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist.“Just stop. Do you think I’m stupid? You’ve had midterms before. You’ve had pressure before.This is different. You’re different.” She took a sharp breath. “Are you cheating on me?”
The question hung in the lavender-scented air, brutal and bare. It was almost a relief to hear it spoken.
“No,” he said, the word forceful and immediate. He met her gaze, willing her to see the truth in it. “I have never cheated on you. I am not cheating on you now. I swear to God, Simone.”
She searched his face, her own a mask of conflicted hurt. She saw the conviction, the directness.She believed him. And that somehow made it worse. Her shoulders sank a little, but the tension didn’t leave her jaw.
“Okay,” she said quietly. She laid back down, turning again to face the wall, putting her back to him. “You might not be fucking someone else.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow. “But your loyalty… your head, your heart… it’s not all here anymore. It feels like it’s changing. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
The accuracy of it was a punch to his gut. He’d tucked a stranger’s hair into a book. He’d replayed a laugh in his mind while inside his girlfriend. He reached for her shoulder. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I’ll show up more. I promise.”
She didn’t shake off his touch, but she didn’t lean into it either.She said nothing. She just pulled the sheet higher, a silent, absolute barrier.
He left his hand on her shoulder for a moment longer before withdrawing it. The room was utterly still. He listened to her breathing, waiting for it to even out into sleep, but it remained a shallow, awake rhythm. The crack in the ceiling seemed to pulse in the dim light. His promise echoed in the silence, a hollow vow already absorbed by the dark.
His promise echoed in the silence, a hollow vow already absorbed by the dark. He lay rigid beside her, listening to the deliberate evenness of her breath, knowing she was feigning sleep. The crack in the ceiling blurred as his eyes refused to close. Hours passed in the thin light from the streetlamp outside, each one a slow erosion of the man he believed himself to be.
Dawn arrived as a gray seepage around the edges of the blinds. Eli stirred from a fitful doze, his mouth cottony, a stiff ache in his neck. The other side of the bed was empty, the sheets cool.
He heard the clatter of a travel mug in the kitchenette, the definitive zip of a backpack. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he saw her. Simone was already dressed in dark jeans and a crisp, butter-colored blouse, her long braids coiled into a severe, beautiful bun at her nape. She moved with a focused economy, slotting notebooks into her bag, her profile sharp in the weak light.
“Morning,” he said, his voice gravelly with disuse.
She glanced over, her expression neutral, as if surveying a piece of furniture. “Morning.” She returned to checking the contents of her pencil case.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold on his bare feet. The scent of her lavender shampoo from last night still haunted the room. “What’s your schedule looking like today?”
“Same as every other day,” she said without looking up. “Class from nine till three. Lab from four till seven. Then study group.” She clicked her pen once, a sharp, punctuating sound, and slid it into the bag.
“Right.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “You wanna grab dinner after? Maybe we could actually talk.”
She finally paused, her hand on the strap of her backpack. She looked at him, and her eyes were clear, composed, and utterly remote. “I’ll let you know,” she said, the phrase a polite dismissal. She walked over to the bed, leaned down, and pressed a dry, close-mouthed kiss to his cheek. It was a transaction. “I’ve got to run. Don’t forget your key on the way out.”
Then she was gone. The door clicked shut behind her with a sound of terrible finality. The silence she left in her wake was louder than any argument. Eli sat on the edge of the bed, the ghost of her kiss cooling on his skin. The room, still dim, felt like a museum of a relationship that had, in the night, become a historical artifact.
He dressed mechanically in yesterday’s clothes, which carried the stale, conflicted scent of the library and sex. The key felt heavy in his hand as he locked her door. The hallway was bright, buzzing with the morning energy of other students, a jarring contrast to the tomb his thoughts had become. His phone weighed a thousand pounds in his pocket. He didn’t check it.
He walked across campus toward his own dorm, the morning sun doing nothing to warm the chill in his bones. Every laugh from a passing group, every couple holding hands, felt like a personal indictment. He kept seeing the strand of curly hair tucked in his textbook, a stupid, secretive act that now felt like a betrayal. He needed air that didn’t smell like lavender or vanilla. He needed to not be inside his own head.
Cutting through the student union, he aimed for the quad’s far side, where the older, sprawling oak trees offered some shadow. His mind was a tangled loop of Simone’s turned back, Aaliyah’s laughter, and the crushing weight of his own indecision. He was so lost in it he almost didn’t see her.
Aaliyah was sitting on a low stone wall, a sketchbook open on her lap, one knee drawn up. Sunlight dappled through the leaves overhead, catching the gold in her long, loose curls. She was biting her lower lip in concentration, a charcoal stick moving in quick, sure strokes. For a moment, he just watched, arrested by the easy solitude of her. Then she looked up.
Her eyes met his, and a slow, recognizing smile spread across her face. It wasn’t the wide, laughing grin from the library. This was softer, more knowing, as if she’d been expecting him. She closed the sketchbook.
“Eli.” She said his name like it was a simple statement of fact. “You look like you’ve been wrestling with philosophy all night.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Something like that.”
“The mortar holding?” she asked, her tone light but her gaze steady and direct.
He didn’t answer. He just walked over and sat on the wall beside her, not too close. The stone was warm from the sun. He stared at his hands. “I think I’m fucking everything up.”
She didn’t offer empty consolation. She simply waited, the sound of distant chatter and a bird in the tree above filling the space.
“I made a promise last night,” he said, the words coming out flat. “And I meant it when I said it. But meaning it and… being able to live inside it feel like two different countries right now.”
Aaliyah watched a squirrel scramble up the trunk of the oak. “Promises are about the future,” she said finally. “But you have to build them with who you are right now. Not who you were yesterday.” She turned her head toward him. “Who are you right now, Eli?”
The question was terrifying in its simplicity. He looked at her—really looked. At the intelligence in her eyes, the unguarded curiosity, the lack of any expectation. He thought of Simone’s structured schedule, her precise bun, her “I’ll let you know.” He thought of the cold, perfect tile of the shower.
A current, dangerous and electric, jumped the gap between them on the sun-warmed stone. It had been there in the library, humming beneath their words. Now, stripped of pretense and saturated with his confusion, it surged into the open. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips parted, just slightly.
Without a word, she slid off the wall. She stood before him for a heartbeat, the sketchbook clutched to her chest like a shield. Then she tilted her head toward a path that led away from the main walkways, deeper into a secluded grove of trees behind the old biology building. A question. An invitation.He followed.
The grove was quiet, a pocket of forgotten campus shaded by thick pines. The air smelled of damp earth and pine needles. She led him to a sheltered spot where a fallen log was covered in moss. She set her sketchbook down on it.
Then she turned to face him.They were alone. The world beyond the trees faded to a muffled rumor.
“You asked who I am,” he said, his voice rough.
“I did.”
He closed the distance between them. His hand came up, his fingers brushing a curl away from her temple, tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was unbearably intimate. Her skin was warm. She didn’t flinch. She watched him, her breath coming a little quicker.
“I’m someone who wants to kiss you,” he whispered, the admission leaving him in a rush. “And I know that makes me the villain in someone else’s story.”
“Maybe,” she breathed, her eyes searching his. “Or maybe it just makes you honest.”
It was all the permission he needed, all the permission he would ever get. He bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
The kiss was not soft. It was a collision. It was the release of a week’s worth of coiled tension, a month’s worth of stolen glances. Her lips were soft but hungry, opening for him immediately. She made a small, desperate sound in the back of her throat and her hands came up to fist in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. The sketchbook tumbled, forgotten, to the mossy ground.
He backed her against the broad trunk of a pine, the bark rough through her thin t-shirt. His tongue slid against hers, tasting of coffee and a sharp, wild sweetness. It was nothing like the familiar, comforting kisses he knew. This was a discovery. Her body melted into his, all soft curves and eager pressure. He could feel the swell of her breasts against his chest, the dig of her hip bones into his thighs.
“Fuck, Aaliyah,” he groaned against her mouth, his hands sliding down her back to grip the generous curve of her ass, hauling her tight against him. He was already painfully hard.
“Yeah,” she panted, breaking the kiss to trail her mouth along his jaw, her teeth scraping his stubble. “No more thinking. Just this.”
Her hands dropped to the button of his jeans, her fingers fumbling. He helped her, shoving them down over his hips along with his boxers just enough. The cool air was a shock against his exposed cock. She wrapped her hand around him, her grip sure and tight, and stroked him once, twice, a slick, filthy pull that made his knees buckle.
“You’re so fucking hard for me,” she murmured, her breath hot against his neck. She looked down, watching her hand work him. “You want this? You want to be inside me?”
“Christ, yes,” he hissed, his own hands frantic now, pushing up her shirt, palming her breast through her bra, his thumb finding her nipple and rubbing it to a stiff peak.“Right now. I need it.”
She pushed at his shoulders, spinning them so his back was against the tree. “Then take it,” she said, her voice low and challenging. She shoved her own jeans and panties down just past her thighs, the fabric catching on her knees. She didn’t bother taking them off. Grabbing his wrist, she guided his hand between her legs. “Feel how wet I am for you. I’ve been thinking about this.”
He slid his fingers through her folds. She was soaked, hot and slick. A primal growl tore from his chest. He drove two fingers inside her, and her head fell back, a raw, choked cry escaping her lips. Her inner muscles clenched around his fingers, greedy and tight.
“Enough,” she gasped, pushing his hand away. She hooked her leg around his hip, her balance precarious. He held her up, one arm banded around her waist, the other guiding himself to her entrance. For a second, they paused, the broad head of his cock pressed against her, both of them trembling with the sheer, illicit reality of it.
He looked into her eyes, dark and blown wide with lust. There was no tenderness here, no borrowed intimacy. This was hunger, pure and simple.
He thrust up into her, burying himself to the hilt in one brutal, claiming stroke.
The sound she made was pure, undiluted sex—a guttural “oh, god” that was swallowed by the trees. She was unbelievably tight, a searing, velvety heat that clenched around him like a fist. He held her there, impaled, both of them gasping, adjusting to the shocking, perfect fit.
“Move,” she begged, her nails digging into his shoulders. “Please, Eli, fuck me. Hard.”
He obeyed. He pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in, setting a ruthless, pounding rhythm. The tree bark scraped his back through his shirt. Her t-shirt was rucked up, her bra pushed aside, one breast free and bouncing with each desperate thrust. He took her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, and she cried out, the sound echoing in the quiet grove.
There were no words now, just panting breaths, the slick, wet sounds of their coupling, the rustle of disturbed leaves. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, every drive of his hips an attempt to obliterate the guilt, the confusion, the hollow promises. This was sensation, raw and obliterating. Her cunt gripped him, milking him, pulling him deeper.
“Right there, god, right there,” she chanted, her hips meeting his with equal force. Her cheek was pressed against the rough bark beside his head, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “Don’t stop. I’m gonna come. Make me come.”
He shifted his angle, grinding up into her on each thrust, hitting a spot that made her shriek. Her whole body tightened, her inner walls fluttering around him in frantic, rhythmic pulses. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and silent for a moment before a long, shattered moan tore from her lungs. She convulsed in his arms, her cunt clenching and releasing around his cock in waves of dizzying intensity.
The feel of her coming undone around him shattered his last shred of control. With a raw, broken shout, he drove into her one last, deep time and came. His orgasm was a white-hot explosion, a rush of blinding release that felt less like pleasure and more like a physical purge. He pulsed inside her, his hips jerking erratically as he emptied himself, his forehead dropping to her shoulder.
They stayed like that, locked together, breathing in ragged, ragged gasps. The reality of what they’d done descended slowly, like dust settling after a collapse. He was still inside her. Their clothes were a tangled mess around their thighs. He was acutely aware of the damp heat between them, the sticky proof on his skin.
Slowly, gently, he lowered her until her feet found the ground. She wobbled, and he steadied her, his hands on her waist. They separated, the wet sound obscene in the quiet. He turned away slightly to pull his clothes back into order, his movements clumsy. She did the same, not looking at him.
The silence stretched, thick and awkward now, threaded through with the scent of sex and pine. He picked up her sketchbook from the moss and handed it to her. Their fingers brushed.