Chapter 10: The Last Supper
The hotel suite was a silent monument to everything Jake thought she wanted. Polished marble floors reflected the sterile glow of recessed lighting. The air smelled of lemongrass and sterile linen, a far cry from the peach-scented ozone of the studio. Alice stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the neon grid of the city, her reflection a ghost superimposed over the chaos below.
She heard the keycard slot click, the hushed sigh of the door opening.
“Hey.”
Jake’s voice was softer than usual. He dropped his duffel by the entrance, didn’t move to touch her immediately. The tension wasn’t the good kind. It was the kind that held the shape of the things unsaid.
“Hey,” she replied, turning. He looked tired. Handsome, but drained. The easy charm was muted.
“Fancy spot,” he said, gesturing around the room. “You win the lottery?”
“Just felt like… something different.” The lie tasted bitter. Serena had booked it. A test, a temptation. See the kind of places this life can give you.
He walked to the minibar, opened it, took out a tiny bottle of whiskey. “You want one?”
“No.”
He cracked the bottle, drank it neat. “So,” he began, not looking at her. “You wanna talk about why you’ve been a ghost for a week? Or we just gonna skip to the part where we fuck about it?”
The bluntness startled her. It was his work persona, Kade’s unflinching directness, bleeding through. It shattered her fragile composure.
“I don’t know what to say, Jake.”
He finally looked at her. His green eyes were sharp, probing. “Try ‘I went back to that studio.’ Try ‘Serena’s in my head.’ Try anything.”
Her breath hitched. “How did you—”
“She texted me. ‘Your girl has curiosity. Be gentle.’ What the fuck does that mean, Alice?”
Panic, cold and slick, coiled in her gut. She walked toward him, needing to bridge the distance. “It doesn’t mean anything. I just… I watched. That’s all.”
“You watched.” He said the word like it was a contaminant. “And then what? You get wet? You get off on it?” His voice dropped, dangerous. “Did you touch yourself thinking about it? About me doing that to some other woman?”
Her silence was the confession.
He laughed, a short, hollow sound. “Of course you did. Everyone does. That’s the whole fucking point.” He put the empty bottle down. “So what now? You get a taste and you want more? You wanna be on the other side of the glass?”
She reached for him then, her hand on his chest. The solid warmth of him was an anchor. “I just want you. Right now. I just want this.” It was both truth and evasion.
He studied her face, looking for the lie. Then, with a weary sigh, he surrendered to the simpler physics of desire. His hands came up, cupping her face, and he kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, a punishment, a desperate reassurance. She kissed him back with equal fervor, clutching at his shirt, pulling him closer.
They tore at each other’s clothes in the clinical sunlight. Buttons scattered on marble. His belt buckle clanged. Her blouse sighed open. There was no finesse, only the frantic need to erase the space, the words, the studio, Serena—everything that wasn’t skin on skin.
He pushed her back towards the massive bed. She fell onto the cool duvet, and he was over her, his weight a familiar comfort. He kissed down her neck, her chest, took a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard until she gasped. His hand slid between her legs, finding her wet, always so wet for him. He drove two fingers inside her, curling them, and she cried out, back arching.
“You’re so fucking ready,” he muttered against her skin, his voice thick. “Even now. Even after all this.”
“Just fuck me, Jake,” she pleaded, past thought, past guilt. “Please.”
He didn’t need asking twice. He positioned himself, the thick, blunt head of his cock pressing against her entrance. He pushed in slowly, stretching her, filling her with a delicious, burning fullness that made her toes curl. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper.
He started to move, a deep, steady rhythm that shook the bed. Each thrust pushed a choked sound from her throat. She looked up, past his shoulder, and saw it—the entire ceiling was a mirror. She saw herself splayed beneath him, hair fanned out, face flushed with want. She saw his muscular back flexing, the sweat starting to gleam on his skin. The sight was depraved. It was thrilling.
“Look at you,” Jake growled, following her gaze. “Look at us.”
He rolled them over with a sudden heave. Now she was on top, straddling him. His hands gripped her hips, guiding her. She rose up, taking him almost out, then sank back down, taking him all the way to the hilt. A guttural moan tore from her lips. The angle was deeper, more intense. She braced her hands on his chest and began to ride him, setting a pace that was hers.
Her eyes were locked on the ceiling mirror. She watched her own body move, watched her breasts sway, watched the place where they joined disappear and reappear, glistening. She watched the wanton expression on her own face—lips parted, eyes half-closed in pleasure-pain. She was memorizing it. The way his hands looked possessive on her skin. The way her inner muscles fluttered around his shaft with each downward plunge. The raw, physical truth of it.
“Fuck, Alice,” he grunted, his thumbs digging into her hip bones. “You’re taking it so good. You’re so fucking tight.”
She leaned back, changing the angle, and gasped as he hit a spot deep inside that sent sparks behind her eyelids. “Right there,” she panted. “Oh God, right there.”
She fucked him with a desperate, driven intensity. This wasn’t just pleasure. It was an exorcism. Every drive of her hips was an attempt to fuck the doubt out of her system, to pound the image of Serena’s knowing smile into oblivion. Her skin was slick with sweat, the room filled with the sounds of their collision: skin slapping skin, their ragged breaths, the wet, rhythmic squelch of her body taking him.
“I’m gonna come,” she whimpered, the coil in her belly winding to a screaming tightness. “Jake, I’m gonna—”
“Do it,” he commanded, his own control fraying. “Come on my cock. Let me feel it.”
His words tipped her over. The orgasm erupted through her, violent and convulsing. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, her body clamping down on him in tight, rhythmic pulses. She saw her own face in the mirror contort in ecstasy, a stranger’s face lost in pure sensation.
Feeling her climax, he gave a final, powerful thrust and held her down, his own release shuddering through him. She felt the hot, deep pulse of him inside her, and the finality of it brought a sudden, sharp ache to her throat.
They collapsed together, a tangled mess of limbs, their breathing the only sound in the vast, quiet room. The mirrored ceiling now showed two spent bodies, glistening and still.
After a long time, he spoke into her hair. “That felt like goodbye.”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, a violent shudder against the wood. They both ignored it.
A minute later, hers buzzed in her discarded purse. Then again. And again.
Jake slowly pulled out of her, the loss a physical chill. He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back to her, a landscape of muscle and tension.
Alice rolled over, reached for her purse. The screen was lit with three sequential texts from an unknown number.
First: The room is paid for through tomorrow.
Second: Consider it a workshop. All the equipment you’ll need is in the closet.
Third: The offer is only good until sunrise.
She stared at the words. She felt Jake’s silence like a weight.
He stood up, walked to the bathroom without looking at her. The shower turned on.
Alice lay still, the ghost of him still inside her, the texts burning in her hand. She looked at the mirrored ceiling, now reflecting only her own hollow-eyed stare, and the empty, expensive room.