Chapter 50: The Challenge: Round Two
The cold water was a shock, a brutal clarity. Channah stood under the spray, head bowed, her long red hair plastered dark against her shoulders and back. She heard the bedroom door open, then the bathroom door. She didn’t turn.
The shower curtain rasped on its rod. A draft of cooler air, then his heat behind her. His hands settled on her waist, his chest against her back. The water soaked his hair instantly, sending rivulets through the ink on his arms.
“This is miserable,” he said, his chin resting on her shoulder.
“Told you.”
He reached for the soap, worked it into a lather in his palms. His hands began to move over her, not with lust, but with a deliberate, almost clinical thoroughness. He washed her shoulders, her back, the curve of her spine. He soaped the heavy swell of her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples until they tightened into stiff peaks under the slick suds. He moved lower, over the soft plane of her stomach, through the copper curls between her legs, his fingers sliding through her folds, cleaning away the mixed evidence of their morning.
She let him. She leaned back into his solidness, her eyes closed. This, too, was a kind of possession. A claiming of her in the plain, unsexy light of a Brooklyn bathroom with terrible water pressure.
His hands paused. “Channah.”
“Hmm?”
“Look at me.”
She turned in the cramped space, the water sluicing between them. His face was streaming, his hair in his eyes. He looked like a shipwreck. He looked like home.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, the words simple and stark.
Her therapist’s mind offered a dozen rational responses. Her heart offered none. She kissed him, her mouth open under the spray, tasting clean skin and the faint, metallic hint of the water. His arms locked around her, pulling her tight against him. His cock, soft against her thigh, began to stir and thicken.
She broke the kiss, breathing hard. “Then don’t. Not yet.”
She got out of the shower, dripping on the mat, and left him there. She returned a moment later, a small, clear bottle in her hand. She stepped back in, the curtain falling closed behind her.
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice low.
“A shortcut,” she said. She poured a generous amount of slick, cool lube into her palm. She reached between them, fisting his now fully hard cock, coating him thoroughly. The smell of artificial coconut mixed with the steam. “We’re clean now. I want to feel it all. I want you to feel it all.”
She turned her back to him, bending at the waist, her hands flat on the tile wall. The water beat down on her neck and shoulders. She presented herself to him, the same offer as the night before, but here, in this blindingly ordinary light, it felt more vulnerable, more profound.
“No game this time,” she said, her voice echoing off the tiles. “Just fuck my ass, Ryan. Like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.”
He didn’t hesitate. He guided himself to her, the broad head of his cock pressing against her tight ring of muscle. With one hand on her hip, the other spreading her lube-slick cheek, he pushed.
It was a slower, more burning stretch than in the heat of the night. She was sober, awake, feeling every millimeter as he invaded her. She gasped, her forehead pressing to the cool wall. He kept pushing, a relentless, gradual pressure until he was fully sheathed inside her, his balls tight against her skin.
“God,” he choked out. “Fuck, Channah. It’s so tight.”
He began to move. Short, shallow thrusts at first, letting her adjust to the full, impossible stretch. Then deeper. His grip on her hip tightened, his other hand tangling in her wet hair, not pulling, just holding. The sound was obscene—a wet, rhythmic slap above the drumming water, flesh on flesh, the slick squelch of each deep penetration.
“Harder,” she demanded, her voice ragged. “Stop being fucking gentle.”
He obeyed. His thrusts became powerful, punishing pistons. He was driving into her with a force that shoved her forward, her palms squeaking on the tile. Each impact sent a jolt through her, a blend of pain and radiant, shocking pleasure. He fucked her ass with a single-minded intensity, as if he could rewrite the past twenty years through this one brutal, connected act.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his breath hot on her ear. “You feel how deep I am in you? This is where I’ve been living. In this dark, hot, perfect fucking place. In your head and in this ass.”
The vulgarity, the raw truth of it, unraveled her. The pressure was building, a coil of white-hot need in her belly. She reached between her own legs, her fingers finding her clit, swollen and throbbing. She rubbed furious, desperate circles as he hammered into her.
“I’m gonna come,” she warned, the words a high whine.
“Come,” he growled. “Come on my cock while I’m buried in your ass. Let me feel you choke me.”
Her orgasm detonated, a silent, seismic shock that locked her muscles. Her cunt clenched around nothing, her ass clenched viscously around him, a series of rhythmic, milking spasms that pulled a roar from his throat.
His control shattered. He fucked her through her climax, his pace becoming erratic, animal. With three final, brutal drives, he stilled, pressing her into the wall. She felt the hot, internal pulse of his release, flooding her, a claim that went deeper than skin.
They collapsed against the wall, shuddering, held up only by the friction of wet skin on tile and his weight pressing her into it. The water began to run cold.
Later, dressed in silence, the room held the quiet of an aftermath. He zipped his duffel. She tied the belt of her robe. The plane ticket lay on the dresser like an indictment.
At the door, he turned. He cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “The ring’s still there,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t have to stay in the box.”
She covered his hand with hers, held it there for a moment. Then she let go. “You have a plane to catch.”
He nodded, the acceptance in his eyes more painful than anger. He kissed her forehead, a benediction. Then he walked out, down the stairs, and out of the brownstone.
Channah didn’t watch from the window. She walked to her bedroom, to the rumpled, scent-soaked bed. She lay down on his side, her face in the pillow that still smelled of his skin. She didn’t cry. She just breathed.
On the nightstand, her phone buzzed. A text. She didn’t reach for it. The light from the screen glowed in the dim room, a tiny, persistent star in the gathered dark. It buzzed again. And then, a moment later, a third time.
Outside, a car door slammed. An engine started. The sound faded into the hum of the city, becoming one with it, and then gone.