Chapter 1: Five Years of Wanting
The lavender scent in Nari’s old room was the same. It hit Nick the moment he stepped inside, a sweet, dusty punch to the gut that carried the weight of every secret they’d ever whispered in this space. The floral wallpaper was peeling near the window frame. A dog-eared copy of a fantasy novel she’d loved at sixteen lay spine-up on the nightstand. He didn’t wait for an invitation, his body moving on a memory older than his engagement. He sat on the edge of the familiar bed, the springs groaning their old song, and reached for her.
“C’mere,” he said, his voice low.
Nari went, letting him guide her onto his lap so her knees bracketed his hips. She was light, familiar. Her hands went automatically to his hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, breathing her in—laundry soap and that underlying sweetness that was just her. “I’ve missed this,” he muttered against her skin, the words vibrating into her. It was a stupid, inadequate thing to say. He’d missed her. All of her.
His hand slid down her side, over the soft cotton of her t-shirt, his thumb brushing the underside of her breast through the fabric. He felt her heartbeat against his lips. Then his other hand was cupping her between her legs, palm pressing firmly against her through her cotton shorts. She was already warm. He rubbed the heel of his hand against her, a slow, building pressure, and she gasped, her hips twitching forward.
“Nick…”
“I know,” he breathed. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her shorts and her underwear, tugging them down just enough. His fingers found her slick folds, soaked and hot. He traced her, a slow, deliberate exploration that had her trembling. When his thumb circled her clit, she jerked against him, a sharp, choked sound escaping her lips.
“God,” she whispered, her forehead dropping to his shoulder.
He worked her like that, his touch practiced and intense, remembering every sound, every hitch in her breath from years before. He watched her face in the lamplight, her eyes squeezed shut, her lips parted. He pushed two fingers inside her without warning, sinking deep into that incredible, familiar tightness. She cried out, her body arching back, her hands fisting in his shirt.
“Oh god, Nick.”
He groaned, his own cock aching painfully against the denim of his jeans. He curled his fingers inside her, finding that spot, rubbing it with a relentless rhythm. “You’re so fucking tight,” he gritted out, his forehead pressed to her collarbone. “Still so perfect for me.”
She was moaning, little broken sounds with each curl of his fingers. Her hips rolled, fucking herself on his hand, chasing the feeling. He added a third finger, stretching her, and the noise she made was pure desperation. “Please,” she panted, not even knowing what she was asking for.
He shifted, laying her back on the bed, her shorts and underwear tangled around her thighs. He stood, yanking his own shirt over his head, fumbling with his belt. His eyes never left her. She watched him, chest heaving, her skin flushed and beautiful in the low light. He shoved his jeans and boxers down, his cock springing free, hard and heavy.
He didn’t ask. He just climbed over her, settling between her spread legs. The head of his cock nudged against her soaked entrance. He looked down at her, into her dark eyes, seeing all the years of silence and missing and want reflected back at him. There was no engagement ring in this room. There was no Hayden. There was just this.
He pushed inside her in one long, relentless stroke.
She screamed, a raw, ragged sound that was swallowed by the quiet of the house. Her walls clamped around him, a silken, vicious tightness that made him see stars. He was buried to the hilt, his balls pressed against her ass. He stayed there, trembling, letting them both adjust to the sheer, overwhelming reality of it.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word shuddering out of him. “Nari.”
He started to move. Slow, deep pulls that dragged every nerve ending along with him. Then harder. Faster. The bed slammed against the wall with a rhythmic, protesting thud. He braced one hand beside her head, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise, holding her in place as he drove into her. The sounds were obscene—skin slapping against skin, their ragged breaths, the wet, sucking noise of their joining.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his pace turning punishing. “You feel how deep I am? This is where I belong. Right here.”
“Yes,” she sobbed, her legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him deeper. Her eyes were wide, locked on his. “Don’t stop. Don’t you fucking stop.”
He didn’t. He fucked her with a desperation that bordered on violence, a lifetime of pent-up obligation and quiet rage finding its only possible outlet. This wasn’t sweet. This wasn’t gentle. This was claiming and being claimed. It was sweat-slicked skin and growled obscenities and the brutal, beautiful truth of their bodies saying everything their mouths couldn’t.
Her climax hit her suddenly. Her body bowed off the bed, a silent scream on her lips as she clamped around him, a pulsing, milking vise that tore his own orgasm from him. He came with a raw shout, pumping into her, emptying himself in deep, spurting jets, his vision graying at the edges.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing her into the mattress, both of them slick and heaving. The room was silent except for their gasping breaths and the distant hum of the house. The old puzzle on the shelf was just shapes. The books were just paper. This, the wet mess between them, the pounding of his heart against hers—this was the only real thing.
Minutes passed. His softening cock slipped out of her, followed by a trickle of their combined release. He rolled to the side, gathering her against him. She curled into his chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his skin.
Her voice was small, wrecked. “Hayden calls you at ten.”
He flinched. The real world, cold and structural, seeping back in through the cracks. “I know.”
She didn’t ask him to stay. She never did. That was the worst part.
He felt the slight, familiar tremor that started in her limbs then, the faint, cold sweat breaking out on her skin. The hormonal crash, her body’s treacherous betrayal after any extreme. He pulled the worn comforter over them both, tucking it around her shoulders. He kissed her forehead, a gesture so instinctive it bypassed all thought.
“I’m here,” he whispered, holding her as the shivers began in earnest. “I’m right here.”
Outside, a car door slammed. A dog barked. The world kept turning. He held her, watching the shadows from the lamp play across the peeling flowers on the wall, and waited for the clock to strike ten.
He held her, watching the shadows from the lamp play across the peeling flowers on the wall, and waited for the clock to strike ten.
The shivering subsided, leaving her soft and pliant against him. Her breathing evened out. Nick traced the line of her spine, the reality of what he had to do curdling in his gut. Leaving. Again. The silence between them wasn’t comfortable; it was charged, a live wire about to snap.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Nari murmured, her voice thick.
“I’m not thinking,” he lied. He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at her. Her hair was a dark spill across the pillow. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. A possessive, ugly heat flared in his chest. Mine. But she wasn’t. The thought was a spark to gasoline.
His hand, which had been gentle, fisted in the front of her t-shirt. “This,” he said, his voice low and rough. “This fucking shirt.” He didn’t want reminders of the time apart, of the ordinary days he didn’t get to see. With a sharp yank, the thin cotton tore from collar to hem. She gasped, her eyes flying open, but she didn’t stop him.
He ripped the fabric away, then made quick, frantic work of her shorts, shoving them and her underwear down her legs. It wasn’t seduction. It was eradication. He needed her naked, now, with the scent of him all over her skin. He stood, pulling her off the bed. She stumbled against him, her body bare and perfect.
“Nick, what—”
He didn’t answer. He just hooked an arm under her thighs and lifted her, carrying her the few steps to the small, wooden study desk shoved under the window. Homework from a lifetime ago. He swept a stack of old journals and a ceramic pencil cup to the floor with a crash. The sound was violently loud in the quiet room.
He set her down on the cool wood. “Scoot back,” he commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument.
She obeyed, her eyes wide and dark, watching him. She leaned back on her hands, her breasts lifted, her legs dangling over the edge. He stepped between them, pushing them apart, his hands rough on her inner thighs. He was already hard again, aching.
“I’m okay,” she whispered, seeing the conflict, the fury in his face. “I swear.”
He gripped himself, guiding his cock to her entrance. He pushed in, a single, brutal thrust that seated him to the root. She cried out, her head falling back, her legs wrapping around his waist to take him deeper. He fucked her there, on the desk, with a frantic, driving rhythm. Each snap of his hips drove her back against the wood, the old furniture creaking in protest. He leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her, consuming the sounds she made with his mouth.
It was desperate. It was dirty. It was the only truth he had.
When he felt her begin to tighten around him, nearing that edge, he pulled out abruptly. She whimpered at the sudden emptiness.
“Turn over,” he said, his breath ragged.
“What?”
“Turn the fuck over, Nari. On your knees. We’re trying something new.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed her face, but she moved, turning awkwardly on the narrow desk until she was on her hands and knees, her back to him, her perfect ass presented to him. He ran a hand over the curve of it, possessive, then guided himself back to her soaked, willing heat.
He entered her from behind in one relentless push.
The scream she let out was sharp, raw, and full of real pain. Her whole body went rigid, her back arching. “Oh god! Stop, Nick, stop! It’s too much!”
He froze, buried inside her, feeling her inner muscles clenching in a spasm of unfamiliar stretch and burn. “Shhh,” he growled, though he didn’t withdraw. He placed a firm, steadying hand on the small of her back. “Breathe. Just breathe. It’s your first time like this. It’ll feel good. Just let it.”
She was trembling, her forehead pressed to the wood. “It hurts.”
“I know.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded feral. “It’s supposed to. Now take it.” He began to move again, shallow at first, letting her adjust to the new, deeper angle. “You take every fucking inch of me.”
He built the pace slowly, each thrust a measured conquest. The pain in her cries gradually melted into a broken, overwhelmed pleasure. She pushed back against him, meeting his strokes, her sobs turning to moans. The obscene, wet sounds of their joining filled the room. He watched himself disappear into her, over and over, the sight driving him to a mindless brink.
“You were mean to me,” he grunted, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. “Before. With that quiet look. Like you’d already let me go.”
“I haven’t,” she choked out.
“You’re being mean right now.” He slowed, drawing his thrusts out into an agonizing, torturous crawl. He pulled almost all the way out, then slid back in with a maddening slowness that made her whimper. “Punishment.”
He spread her wider, his thumbs pressing her open so he could see everything, watch the stretch and glisten. He took her like that, achingly slow, each movement a deliberate, cruel lesson. It was more intimate than the frantic fucking, more devastating. This was violation with total control.
“Feel that,” he whispered, pounding into her once, deep, before returning to the slow, grinding torture. “Feel how deep I can go when you’re open for me. This is what you get. This is what you earn for making me love you when I can’t fucking have you.”
She was sobbing openly now, tears mixing with the sweat on the desk. Her body was a live wire of sensation, strung tight between pain and a pleasure so profound it bordered on agony. “Nick… please…”
“Please what?”
“I don’t know. Just don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He maintained that punishing, glacial pace until her pleas became a mantra, until her body was shaking with a need so total it consumed them both. Only then did he let go, his own control shattering. He slammed into her, fast and hard and final, his roar muffled against her shoulder as he came, pumping his release deep inside her.
They collapsed together onto the hard surface, a tangle of exhausted limbs. The desk was sticky beneath them. The room smelled of sex and salt and lavender.
In the silence, the electronic chirp of his phone alarm shattered the air. Ten o’clock. Hayden.
Nari flinched as if struck.
He didn’t move for a long moment, his weight still heavy on her. Then, with a gritted exhale that felt like it tore something vital from his chest, he pulled out of her. The loss was physical, a cold amputation.
He stood, his body already curating itself back into the man who belonged to someone else. He found his clothes in a heap on the floor.
She didn’t turn over. She stayed on the desk, curled in on herself, the aftermath of her condition already starting—a fine, involuntary tremor in her hands. He dressed mechanically, each piece of clothing a layer of armor. He looked at her, a silhouette of wrecked beauty in the dim light.
He should say something. Something that mattered.
All he did was walk to the door. He paused, his hand on the knob, but didn’t look back.
The last thing he heard as he pulled the door shut was the first, quiet, hitching sob she couldn’t swallow down.