Chapter 4: Aftermath & Expansion
The water was scalding. It needled Joanna’s skin, turning it a furious pink, washing away the sweat and dried come but not the memory, not the deep, tender ache between her legs. Riley stood behind her, a solid, unmovable wall of muscle and intent, her hands braced on the tiles on either side of Joanna’s head.
Steam fogged the glass enclosure, cocooning them in a humid, private world. The scent of Riley’s cheap, pine-tar soap fought with the lingering perfume of sex.
“Still sore?” Riley’s voice was a low rumble against Joanna’s ear. Her breath was hot.
“Yes.” Joanna leaned back into her, letting her head rest against Riley’s shoulder. The water sluiced over her breasts, her stomach.
“Good.” Riley’s hands slid down from the tiles, over Joanna’s shoulders, her thumbs digging into the knots of tension. Then they kept going, over the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips. She grabbed Joanna’s ass, pulling her backwards, grinding her own hard cock against the cleft of Joanna’s cheeks. It was already thick, already demanding.
“You’re still loose from my cock,” Riley murmured, her lips against Joanna’s wet neck. One hand slipped between Joanna’s legs, cupping her from behind, fingers tracing the slick, swollen lips. “Let’s see how much more you can take.”
Joanna gasped as Riley’s middle finger found her entrance, still stretched and sensitive. It pushed in easily, a slick, familiar invasion. Riley groaned. “Fuck, you’re still so open.”
She added a second finger. Joanna’s knees weakened slightly, her hands slapping flat against the wet tiles for support. The stretch was a bright, sharp burn. Riley worked them in, deep, scissoring them open with a brutal, clinical efficiency. The pain was a clean wire, humming directly to her core, making her own cock twitch and harden against her stomach.
“That’s it,” Riley growled, biting down on the meat of Joanna’s shoulder, not enough to break skin but enough to brand. Her fingers curled, searching. “Take it. You wanted raw. This is raw. This is me opening you up because I fucking can.”
She found a spot inside that made Joanna cry out, a jolt of pure, undiluted pleasure that annihilated the burn. Riley hammered her fingers against it, her other arm wrapping around Joanna’s waist, holding her upright as her legs truly threatened to give out.
“Please,” Joanna heard herself beg, the word lost in the drumming water.
“Please what?” Riley’s voice was merciless. She withdrew her fingers, leaving Joanna empty and clenching around nothing. She spat into her palm, a crude, wet sound, and slicked her cock. “You have to say it.”
Joanna turned her head, her cheek pressed against the cool tile. She looked at Riley through the steam, at her rain-wet face, her hungry eyes. “Fuck me. Use me. I’m yours.”
It was all Riley needed. She shifted her hips, the blunt head of her cock nudging against Joanna’s violated entrance. She didn’t push. She waited, letting Joanna feel the pressure, the imminent breach.
Joanna pushed back.
Riley drove in.
It wasn’t the brutal, tearing slam of before. This was a slow, relentless conquest, an inch-by-inch reclaiming of territory. The stretch was monumental, breathtaking. Joanna could feel every vein, every ridge of Riley’s cock as it forged its path into her body. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, her breath fogging the tile in front of her face.
“God, yes,” Riley hissed, her forehead dropping between Joanna’s shoulder blades as she finally buried herself to the root. They were locked together, water cascading over their joined forms. Riley didn’t move. She just held there, trembling with the effort of stillness. “So fucking deep.”
Then she began to fuck her. It was a slow, grinding rhythm, each withdrawal almost complete, each thrust a deliberate, bottoming-out possession. The sound was obscenely wet, louder than the shower. Joanna matched her, meeting each push, her own cock slapping against her stomach with the motion.
Riley’s hand snaked around, her fist closing around Joanna’s length, slippery from soap and water. She stroked her in time with her thrusts, a rough, perfect counterpoint.
“You feel that?” Riley panted into her ear. “You feel how full you are? That’s me. All of me.”
“I feel it,” Joanna sobbed, the pleasure building into something terrifying, a wave about to crash. “Riley, I’m gonna…”
“Come,” Riley ordered, her voice cracking. “Come on my cock. Show me.”
The orgasm tore through her like a lightning strike. It was a convulsion, a surrender. Her release shot over Riley’s fist, milky strings swirling instantly in the shower stream, as her inner muscles clamped viciously down on Riley’s thrusting cock.
Riley cursed, a long, filthy stream of words lost to the water, and followed her over the edge, her own hips stuttering as she emptied herself deep inside Joanna with a final, shuddering grind.
They collapsed against the tiles, holding each other up, lungs heaving in the steam-filled air. Riley’s softening cock slipped out of her. Joanna felt a hot trickle run down the inside of her thigh, immediately washed away.
For a long time, they just stood there under the punishing heat.
Riley eventually moved first, reaching for the soap. She lathered her hands and began to wash Joanna’s back with a surprising, gentle thoroughness. She cleaned the bite mark on her shoulder, the faint bruises on her hips. It was a silent apology, an unspoken tenderness.
Joanna closed her eyes, leaning into the touch.
Later, wrapped in thick, grey towels, they sat on the edge of Riley’s unmade bed. The loft was quiet. The city outside was fully awake, but the sounds were distant, unimportant.
Riley lit a cigarette, offering one to Joanna. They smoked in silence, the smoke curling towards the high ceiling.
“Your phone buzzed again,” Riley said, not looking at her.
Joanna sighed, a long, slow exhale of smoke. “Marcus.”
“The million-dollar man.”
“Something like that.”
Riley tapped ash into a discarded soda can on the floor. “What’s he offering, exactly?”
“A three-picture deal. ‘The Return of Joanna Levin.’ High-end production. Tasteful, they say.” Joanna’s laugh was short, brittle. “As if anything we ever did was tasteful.”
“Tasteful pays worse,” Riley said, a practical note in her voice. She glanced at Joanna. “Why’d you really leave? Never got a straight answer.”
Joanna stared at the glowing tip of her cigarette. “I got tired of being a thing. A beautiful, fuckable thing. They’d light me perfectly, they’d get the angles right, they’d make me say the lines. But at the end of the day, I was just a prop. A very well-paid prop with a great dick.” She took a drag. “I wanted to be a person. Just once.”
Riley was quiet for a moment. “And now? You feel like a person?”
Joanna looked at her—at the sharp lines of her face, the guarded eyes, the fresh lovebite on her own neck reflected in the mirror across the room. “Right now,” she said, her voice soft, “I feel like I’m starring in my own goddamn tragedy. But at least it’s mine.”
Riley stubbed out her cigarette. She reached over, her calloused fingers brushing a damp strand of hair from Joanna’s face. The gesture was so unexpectedly gentle it made Joanna’s throat tighten.
“My old man,” Riley said, her voice low, “used to say the only things worth having are the things you fight for. The things that leave a mark.” Her thumb traced the bruise on Joanna’s collarbone. “He was a bastard, but he wasn’t always wrong.”
Joanna captured her hand, held it against her cheek. “Is that what this is? A fight?”
“Isn’t it?” Riley’s eyes held hers. “You’re fighting your past. I’m fighting… everything. Seems like we’re in the same trench.”
Before Joanna could answer, her phone buzzed again on the nightstand, vibrating against the wood. They both looked at it. The screen lit up: MARCUS.
Riley’s face hardened, the tenderness vanishing like smoke. She stood up, tightening her towel around her waist. “You should get that,” she said, her tone flat. “Million dollars waits for no one.”
She walked towards the kitchen, leaving Joanna alone with the buzzing phone and the quiet, sunlit ruins of the morning. The warmth from the shower was gone. The chill of the loft seeped back into her bones.
Joanna looked at the phone. She looked at the empty space where Riley had been. Then she reached out, picked up the phone, and swiped the call to voicemail. She didn’t need to hear the offer. The price was already clear.
She got up, her body still singing a dull ache, and followed the sound of Riley clattering pans in the kitchen. The fight, it seemed, wasn’t over. It was just changing shape.
The kitchen was a testament to function over form, all stained concrete and industrial shelving cluttered with engine parts and a single box of stale cereal. Riley stood at the counter, her back taut, hacking at an onion with more force than necessary. The rhythmic thwack of the knife was the only sound.
Joanna leaned against the doorway, the damp towel clinging to her hips. “You cook?”
“I eat.” Riley didn’t turn around. “This is what that looks like.” She scooped the diced onion into a pan already sputtering with oil. The aroma, sharp and immediate, cut through the loft’s other scents.
“Smells good.” Joanna ventured further into the room. The silence felt heavier now, a tangible thing between them. “I sent him to voicemail.”
Riley’s shoulders twitched, a minute shrug. “Your business.” She cracked eggs one-handed against the pan’s edge. “You want one or two?”
“Two.” Joanna watched the muscles move in Riley’s back, the play of light on her tattoos. The bite mark on her own shoulder throbbed. “It’s not my business. Not if this is… something.”
“Something.” Riley repeated the word like it was a foreign object, turning it over. She stirred the eggs, a slow, deliberate motion. “You’re a star who doesn’t want to be a star anymore. I’m a mechanic who fixes broken-down shit. That’s the something.” She slid the eggs onto a chipped plate and pushed it across the counter.
Joanna took the plate. The eggs were perfect, sunny-side up. “You see me as broken-down shit?”
Finally, Riley turned. Her eyes were the color of old motor oil, impossible to read. “I see you as complicated. And complicated things break in interesting ways.” She took a bite of her own eggs, chewing slowly. “Your agent’s not gonna stop. Money never does.”
“I know.” Joanna picked up a fork, poked at a yolk. It bled yellow. “He’ll come here if he has to. He knows my patterns.”
“And what are your patterns?” Riley asked, her voice dropping. She set her fork down. “You find someone like me, let them fuck you raw for a few days, and then go back to the lights?”
The question was a slap. It was also fair. Joanna put her fork down, her appetite gone. “That was the old pattern. The one that made me feel dead.” She looked up, holding Riley’s gaze. “Yesterday, on that couch, when you were inside me… I’ve never felt more alive. That terrifies me.”
Something shifted in Riley’s face. The hard edge softened, just for a second. She came around the counter, stopping close enough for Joanna to feel her body heat. She smelled of onions, soap, and that underlying scent of leather and skin. Her hand came up, not to strike, but to cradle Joanna’s jaw, her thumb stroking the high arch of her cheekbone.
“Terrifies me, too,” Riley admitted, the words rough, like they were being dragged from a deep place. Her other hand found Joanna’s waist, under the towel, fingers splaying over the newly-forming bruises on her hip. “I don’t do… this. I do one-night stands in the back of my shop. I don’t make eggs the next morning.”
Joanna leaned into the touch, her eyes closing. “What are we doing, then?”
Riley’s answer was to kiss her. It wasn’t like the others—hard and claiming. This was slow, a deep, searching exploration. A question. Joanna melted into it, her hands coming up to tangle in Riley’s short, damp hair. The towel at her hips loosened, pooling at her feet.
They broke apart, breathless. Riley looked down at her, naked again, vulnerable. “I’m not gentle,” she warned, her voice thick.
“I don’t want gentle,” Joanna whispered back.
Riley guided her backwards until the cool, stainless steel edge of the kitchen counter dug into the small of Joanna’s back. She leaned in, biting a trail down Joanna’s neck, sucking a new mark over the old one. Her hands gripped Joanna’s ass, lifting her, seating her on the hard surface. The metal was unforgivingly cold against her skin.
“Spread your legs,” Riley murmured against her breast, her tongue flicking a nipple.
Joanna obeyed, hooking her heels on the lower cabinet drawer. She was completely exposed, open to the chill of the loft and the heat of Riley’s gaze. Riley dropped to her knees on the hard floor, a supplicant before an altar.
She didn't tease. She leaned forward, her mouth finding Joanna’s cock first. She took her down in one smooth, engulfing motion, her throat working around the thick length. Joanna cried out, her head slamming back against the upper cabinet. The duality was staggering—the brutal, tender ache from their earlier fucking, and now this wet, hot, devastating suction.
Riley worked her with a focused, relentless rhythm, one hand wrapped around the base, the other reaching up to knead Joanna’s breast. Her eyes were open, watching Joanna come apart. She pulled off with a lewd pop, a string of spit connecting her lips to the glistening head.
“Taste yourself,” Riley commanded, her voice guttural. She swiped her thumb through the precome beading at the tip and smeared it across Joanna’s lower lip.
Joanna licked it off, the salt-bitter taste of her own arousal flooding her senses. Riley’s eyes darkened. She surged up, kissing her again, sharing the taste. Then her hand slid down, through Joanna’s slick folds, past her swollen cock, finding her entrance again. Two fingers pushed in, easy now, still loose from the shower.
“Still so fucking open for me,” Riley breathed into her mouth, her fingers curling, scissoring. “You’re ruined for anyone else. You know that?”
“Yes,” Joanna gasped, the words torn from her. Her hips bucked against Riley’s hand.
Riley withdrew her fingers. She fumbled with her own towel, letting it fall. Her cock, hard and angry-red, stood against her stomach. She spat into her palm, slicking herself, then positioned the head at Joanna’s soaked entrance. She leaned her weight into Joanna, pinning her against the cabinets, her hands bracing on the counter on either side of Joanna’s hips.
“Look at me,” Riley said, and Joanna forced her eyes open. Riley’s face was a mask of fierce, unguarded need. “Watch me take you.”
She pushed in. It was a steady, conquering invasion, stretching her full once more. The cold metal against her back, the heat of Riley filling her front—it was a study in extremes. Riley buried herself to the hilt, then stopped, letting Joanna feel the unbearable completeness of it.
“Fuck,” Riley groaned, her composure cracking. She began to move, a deep, rolling grind of her hips. Each thrust rocked Joanna’s body against the cabinets, rattling the dishes inside. The noise was obscenely loud in the quiet loft.
Joanna wrapped her legs around Riley’s waist, pulling her deeper. She was already close, the coil winding tight in her gut. Riley’s pace increased, becoming harder, more desperate. Her breath came in ragged pants against Joanna’s neck.
“Come on my cock,” Riley urged, her voice breaking. “I wanna feel you lose it. I wanna feel you clamp down on me while I’m fucking you on this goddamn counter.”
The vulgarity, the sheer raw demand of it, was the final trigger. Joanna’s orgasm hit her like a physical blow, a silent, screaming wave that tightened every muscle. Her release spilled between their pressed stomachs, hot and sudden. The violent clenching of her inner muscles was enough for Riley. With a choked-off shout, Riley drove in one last, shuddering time and came, her own climax pulsing deep inside Joanna’s body.
They slumped together, a tangled, sweat-slick mess on the kitchen counter. Riley’s forehead rested against Joanna’s collarbone, her breath hot on Joanna’s skin. Joanna could feel Riley’s heart hammering against her own chest.
A phone buzzed, vibrating against the stainless steel somewhere beneath Joanna’s thigh. Not hers. Riley’s.
Riley didn’t move for a long moment. Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world, she pulled out. The sudden emptiness was a cold shock. She grabbed her phone from the counter, glanced at the screen, and her face closed down completely.
“Shop,” she said, her voice flat and distant. “Transmission job. Can’t blow it off.”
She stepped back, leaving Joanna cold and exposed on the counter. She didn’t look at her as she grabbed her clothes from the floor and began pulling them on with a mechanical efficiency. The connection, so visceral seconds ago, had been severed.
“I’ll be back by seven,” Riley stated, not a question, not an invitation. Just a fact. She yanked her boots on, not bothering to lace them properly.
Joanna watched, numb, as Riley walked to the door. She paused, her hand on the knob, shoulders tense. She didn’t turn around.
“Lock the door if you leave,” she said, and then she was gone.
The silence after the door shut was absolute. Joanna sat on the cold counter, the smells of sex and scorched eggs hanging in the air. She looked down at the faint, milky smear across her stomach, at the new bruises forming on her inner thighs.
From the floor, where her towel lay in a damp heap, her own phone began to ring. The screen glowed with the name MARCUS.
She didn’t move to answer it. She just stared at the loft door, listening to the fading echo of Riley’s boots on the stairwell, feeling the profound, aching hollow where Riley had just been. The fight had changed shape again. It had gone quiet, and left her alone in the aftermath.