Chapter 5: The Stranger's Apartment
The door clicked shut. The sound was a vault sealing.
Leo’s apartment was exactly as he’d promised: quiet. The roar of the market was gone, replaced by a sterile silence broken only by the low hum of a refrigerator. Sunlight poured through massive, factory-style windows, painting geometric shapes on the polished concrete floor. The space was a gallery of one: a huge leather couch, a low table cluttered with bottles, blank white walls. It smelled of lemony cleaner and, underneath, a faint, sweet hint of lavender candle. It didn’t feel lived in. It felt staged.
“Home sweet home,” he said, tossing his keys into a ceramic bowl on a ledge by the door. The clatter was startlingly loud. “Can I get you anything? Wine? Water?”
“Water,” I croaked. My mouth was dry. The high, feminine voice cracked on the word. I cleared my throat, a delicate sound. Standing in the center of all that open space, I felt more exposed than I had in the crowd. His eyes were on me, a tangible weight.
He moved to the kitchenette, a sliver of stainless steel against one wall. I watched his back, the shift of his shoulders under his t-shirt. My heart wasn’t just hammering; it was a frantic, caged thing fluttering against the rigid cage of Sabrina’s ribs. The push-up bra was an engineering marvel of pressure and lift, making every breath a conscious effort. I could feel the separate, heavy weight of each breast, the way they moved independent of my torso with even the slightest shift in balance. The dampness between my legs had not abated. The thin lace of the thong was a soaked, twisted string, a blatant and humiliating reminder of this body’s traitorous response.
He returned with two glasses of water, handing one to me. Our fingers brushed. Another conduction. A fresh pulse of wet heat bloomed inside me, a deep, internal clench that was shocking in its intensity. I took a gulp of water, the cold liquid a shock to my sharper, more sensitive taste buds. It tasted of minerals and plastic.
“So,” he said, not drinking. He just watched me. “Sabrina.”
He said the name like he was testing it. I was an imposter wearing it. I nodded, sipping again to avoid having to speak.
“You’re not much of a talker.” He stepped closer. The sunlight caught the dust motes dancing between us. “I like that.”
He was inside my personal space now. I could smell him—clean cotton, the ghost of coffee, a male musk beneath. My body responded before I could. A slight, instinctive tilt of the head. A parting of Sabrina’s plush, glossed lips. The signals this form broadcast were automatic, a language my mind didn’t speak but my new flesh was fluent in.
His hand came up, not to my wrist this time, but to my hip. His palm was warm, even through the thin material of the dress. It spanned the curve easily. His thumb stroked a slow arc over the bone.
My breath hitched. The sensation was not just touch. It was a key turning in a lock deep in my pelvis. The warm, liquid feeling intensified, a pooling surrender. The thoughts—Andrea, my own body, the terrifying swap—were still there, but they were muffled, drowned out by a static roar of physical need. It was a need I had never experienced. It wasn’t a want. It was a hollow, demanding ache, a vacuum pulling from the core of this new anatomy.
I looked up at him. He was so much taller. I had to crane Sabrina’s neck. The submissiveness of the gesture sent another jolt through me.
Forget it. Forget everything. Just feel something that makes sense.
I moved. It wasn’t a decision. It was a biological circuit completing.
I rose onto the balls of my feet—so small, so unstable in the little sandals—and reached up. My hands, so slight, framed his jaw. The stubble was rough against Sabrina’s smooth palms. I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him.
His lips were surprised for half a second, then they softened, then they devoured. He tasted of mint and the faint bitterness of espresso. My mouth, this new, overly sensitive mouth, was a map of unfamiliar textures—the soft inner flesh, the slickness of my own tongue, which felt thinner, more agile. His tongue met mine and the world tilted.
A low groan vibrated from his throat into mine. His hands left my hips and slid down, over the dramatic curve Sabrina’s ass, and gripped. He squeezed, pulling me hard against him. I felt the rigid line of his erection through our clothes, pressing against the soft juncture of my thighs.
The contact was electric, catastrophic.
A moan, high and wanton and entirely foreign, tore from my throat. It was Sabrina’s voice, but fueled by a desperation that was all my own tangled terror and need. I rocked against him, grinding the soaked, aching center of myself against the denim of his jeans. The friction was maddening, a sharp pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. The thin lace of the thong cut into me, a brutal counterpoint. Every nerve in that region was screaming, mapping a geography of sensation I had no reference for.
His mouth moved to my neck, his teeth grazing the tendon there. “You’re eager,” he breathed against my damp skin. His hands kneaded my ass, each lift and squeeze making my breasts, confined and lifted by the bra, sway heavily. I felt their full, separate weight with each movement, a pendulum swing of flesh that was both alien and profoundly arousing.
“I just…” I gasped, my mind scrambling for words, for a lie, for anything. “I need…”
I didn’t know what I needed. To escape the prison of my own confusion. To feel solid. To be devoured so completely that Justin Zygurski ceased to exist.
He understood my incoherence as invitation. One hand slid around to my lower back, holding me firmly against his hardness. The other came up, fingers skimming the side of my breast, just outside the lace cup of the bra. My whole body arched into the touch, a spasm of pure biological feedback. The nipple, tightly furled beneath the layers, hardened into a painful peak, screaming for contact.
“Okay,” he murmured, his voice thick. “Okay, Sabrina.”
He walked me backward, his mouth locked on mine. My smaller feet stumbled. The world was a blur of white wall and glaring window. The back of my calves hit the edge of the leather couch. It was cool and slick.
He broke the kiss, his denim eyes dark, pupils blown wide. He looked at me—really looked—at the heaving chest, the flushed skin, the parted, wet lips. He saw the want. He didn’t see the screaming man inside.
“Lose the dress,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
My hands, trembling, went to the thin straps of the sundress. I pushed them down over my shoulders. The fabric slithered over the swollen curves of my breasts, caught for a moment on the hard nipples, then fell in a pool at my feet. I stood before him in just the absurd, lace-caged bra and the soaked, wretched thong. The cool air of the apartment kissed my exposed skin, raising goosebumps. I felt a thousand times more naked than I ever had as Justin. This was a different kind of exposure. Total.
He let out a slow breath. “Christ.” His gaze was a physical scan. Over the tattoos swirling over my ribs, down the rail-thin stomach, across the wide flare of my hips, following the lines of the thong that disappeared between my thighs. I wanted to cover myself. I also wanted him to look forever.
He reached out, hooking a finger under the front strap of the bra, between my breasts. He gave a gentle tug. “This too.”
The logical part of my mind, the part that was still Justin, finally found its voice. It was a small, shrill scream.
What are you doing? Andrea is out there with your body! You have to find her! You have to fix this! This is a stranger!
But the body’s voice was a roar. The ache between my legs was a primal drumbeat. The feel of his eyes on my skin was a drug. I was drowning in sensory data, and the only lifeline was more sensation.
My hands went behind my back. I fumbled with the clasp. My fingers, clumsy with adrenaline, found the hook and eye. I hesitated, a final, silent sob of protest.
Then I let go.
The bra loosened. I slid the straps down my arms and let it fall. The release of pressure was immediate, a relief so profound it was dizzying. Then the weight. My breasts settled, full and heavy, their movement now unconstrained. The cool air touched my nipples directly, a shocking, exquisite sensitivity. I couldn’t stop myself. My arms crossed over my chest, a feeble, automatic shield.
Leo gently pulled them down. “Don’t,” he said, his voice soft but absolute. He looked his fill. “You’re fucking stunning.”
He leaned in, closing the last inch of space, and his mouth covered mine again. At the same time, his hand cupped my bare breast. His palm was hot, rough. He kneaded, his thumb circling the tight peak. The sensation shattered me. It wasn’t localized. It echoed straight down my spine, a live wire connecting to the throbbing core of me. I cried out into his mouth.
I was gone. Justin was a whisper, a ghost fading in the light.
There was only this heat, this grinding need, this beautiful, terrifying animal of a body, and the man who was about to wreck me.