Chapter 2: Against the Wall
The cold stone bit into Jen’s bare back, a sharp counterpoint to the furnace of Cedric’s body driving into hers. Each thrust was a punctuation mark to a sentence he couldn’t speak. His hand was fisted in her hair, not gentle, not loving, but purposeful—a tight anchor that pulled her head back, exposing the line of her throat to the damp air. She gasped, the sound ripped from her, part pain, part surrender.
“Fuck,” she breathed, the word misting in the chill.
He didn’t answer. His breath was hot and ragged against her ear, his hips piston-like, every movement a deliberate act of obliteration. The rough fabric of his trousers chafed her inner thighs, a brutal reminder of the haste, the raw need. This wasn’t the fumbling, tender sex she knew he’d had with her. This was something else. Something born of ale-darkened tavern corners and the crushing silence of an empty bed.
She arched into him, meeting his violence with her own. Her nails scraped down the leather of his bracer. “Harder,” she hissed, a challenge and a permission. She wanted the numbness he was chasing to seep into her, too. To feel nothing but this—the slick, hot friction, the delicious sting in her scalp, the sheer physicality of being used.
He complied. A guttural sound tore from his chest, and he slammed her back into the wall. The impact jolted her teeth. His grip on her hair tightened, and a white-hot spark of pure, undiluted arousal shot through her. She cried out, not in protest, but in triumph. This is what she could pull from him. This untamed, broken thing. What had that other woman, that Kaylee, ever done with him? Probably just lay there. Probably just took it.
“You like that, you fucking savage?” Jen panted, turning her head enough to see his profile, clenched and shadowed in the torchlight. “You like pulling my hair? Bet you never dared with your precious wife.”
Cedric froze. Just for a heartbeat. But in that stillness, the entire world rushed back in—the drip of water, the distant roar of the hall, the ghost that lived between his ribs. His emerald eyes, when they met hers, were wide with a kind of horrified recognition.
Then, with a snarl, he moved again. Faster. Angrier. As if he could fuck the accusation out of her, out of himself. He released her hair only to grab her hip, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, holding her open for him as he plunged deeper. The wet, obscene sound of their joining echoed off the stone.
“Don’t,” he grunted, “talk about her.”
“Why?” Jen managed, her voice shaking with each driving impact. “She’s not here. I am. And you’re fucking me. Fucking me like you hate me. Is that it?” She reached between their bodies, her fingers finding the hard nub of her clit. She circled it roughly, the added sensation making her vision blur. “Come on. Do it. Use me. Forget her.”
He watched her hand work, his gaze dropping to where their bodies connected, to the lewd evidence of her arousal glistening on him. A muscle in his jaw ticked. He seemed fascinated and repulsed. He was a warrior, used to clean lines and declarations. This messy, vocal, demanding hunger was Jen’s territory.
“Say it,” she urged, her own climax coiling tight, spurred by his rough hands and the filthy talk. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
His control snapped. He bent her forward over a jutting stone ledge, his weight pressing her down. The new angle was deeper, overwhelming. He leaned over her, his mouth close to her ear, his voice a raw scrape. “I’m fucking your wet cunt,” he whispered, the crudeness alien on his tongue. “I’m fucking it ‘til you scream.”
That was all she needed. The release punched through her, a wave of shuddering convulsions that clenched around him, pulling a ragged groan from his chest. He hammered into her through her climax, chasing his own, his movements growing frantic, almost desperate.
When he came, it was with a choked-off sound that was more pain than pleasure, his body rigid against hers. He collapsed forward, his forehead pressed against the stone beside her head, his breath heaving.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant celebration. The torch sputtered.
Slowly, he pulled out. The air felt cold on Jen’s exposed skin. She pushed herself upright, wincing at the ache in her back, the tenderness between her legs. She leaned against the wall, watching him.
Cedric straightened his clothes with stiff, automatic motions. He wouldn’t look at her. The man who had just split her open was gone, replaced by the haunted stranger. He ran a hand through his dishevelled blonde hair, his gaze fixed on some point in the darkness beyond the torchlight.
“That was…” Jen started, adjusting her skirt, trying to inject her usual boldness. It fell flat.
“A mistake,” he finished, his voice hollow.
“Bullshit. You needed it. I needed it. No strings, remember?” She touched his arm. He flinched.
“Strings aren’t the problem,” he said, finally turning those piercing eyes on her. In them, she saw the real wreckage. Not just heartbreak, but a shattered self. He’d done things tonight he’d never done before, and he was horrified by his own capacity for them. She had been a willing accomplice in his unraveling.
He turned and began to walk away, his boots scraping on the wet stone.
“You’ll be back,” Jen called after him, less certain than she sounded.
Cedric didn’t answer. He just vanished into the deeper shadows of the corridor, leaving her alone with the lingering smell of sex and torch-smoke, and the unsettling knowledge that in trying to claim a piece of him, she might have only pushed him further into the past.
Somewhere, far off, a door closed with a solid, final thud. Or maybe it was just the crunch of gravel under a hesitant footstep, just outside the circle of light.