Chapter 1: Neon and Need
Puerto Rico. I’ve been here longer than I should have been. At the club I make the purchase for Xen. She’s been telling me what she can about King. I wait in the room. Xen walks into the room. She kisses my cheek to say hello. Shes become comfortable with me.
She walks to the bathroom and starts the shower. I sit in the chair across from the bed. Pouring a glass of whisky, I sip on it like i always do when . The whiskey burns, a soothing warmth spreading through my throat I relax. Relaxing, is something new to me.
After awhile Xen comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a towl. She walks over to me and hands me a brush then turns around and sits on the floor infront of me.
I have done this with Izzy hundred times. I think Xen thought i would hesitate.
I don’t.
I set my glass down on the side table beside me. I brush her hair then start to brush her hair carefully.
“You’ve done this before.” Xen says with a hint of surprise.
“I don’t move blind.” I say disconnected. Before i know it my fingers start working through her hair and I’m braiding it.
Xen turns to face me sitting on her knees and leg. I set the brush aside. She slides her hands up my thighs. I grab her wrist softly. “Xen.” I say softly.
Xen looks at me. “F. It’s been two months since you started buying me. It’s not everyday I get to choose who I want to have sex with.”
I swallow hard. Xen looks at me, her eyes searching for something in mine. “I just wanted information on King.”
Xen nods. “Okay and I gave it to you. You still bought me for two months straight.”
I look down, “I know, but I don’t know why.”
“You do, you just won’t admit it to yourself.” She says softly and stands up. She staddles my lap and leans in close. I instinctively put my hands on her hip and the nape of her neck. She looks up at me and I see the desperation. “Now just relax.” She says and leans in to kiss me, I lean in to meet her.
The kiss is long and slow.
The kiss is long and slow. It tasted of her mint toothpaste and the faint, lingering sweetness of the rum she drank downstairs. Her towel slipped, a pool of white terrycloth on the dark floor, and the heat of her skin against my clothed thighs was a shock. My hands tightened on her, one at the small of her back, the other tangling in the thick, dark braid I’d just finished.
She broke the kiss, her breath warm against my lips. “You think too much,” she whispered.
“It’s what I do.”
“Stop.” Her teeth grazed my bottom lip, a gentle threat. “Just be here.”
She moved against me, a deliberate, rolling shift of her hips, and a low groan escaped me before I could lock it down. Control was my currency, my armor. It was the only thing I had left. But here, with her, it felt like sand slipping through my fingers.
I stood up, lifting her with me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, her arms locking around my neck. I carried her the few steps to the wall of glass, the endless glitter of San Juan sprawling beneath us. I pressed her back against the warm pane. The city’s pulse vibrated through the glass, into her skin, into my hands.
“Eyes closed,” I said, my voice rough.
“I want to see you.”
“You can’t.” It wasn’t a request. It was the one non-negotiable rule. My anonymity was a wall as real as this glass. “Eyes closed, Xen. Or this stops.”
She studied my face for a heartbeat, her gaze searching for cracks. Then, with a slow exhale, she let her eyelids fall. “Okay.”
It was a surrender that gave me more power than force ever could. I kept her pinned against the window, one hand splayed on the glass beside her head, the other tracing the line of her jaw, down the column of her throat. She was utterly still, her breathing the only sign of life. The trust was disarming.
I kissed her again, deeper this time, my tongue sweeping into her mouth. She met me with a hunger that matched my own, a muffled sound catching in her throat. My hand left her jaw, skated down over the curve of her breast, her ribs, the dip of her waist. Her skin was impossibly smooth, a landscape of warm, living silk.
I took my time. I was methodical. I learned the hitch in her breath when my thumb circled a certain spot, the way her muscles fluttered under my palm when I bit gently at the tendon in her neck. Every reaction was data, a point of pressure to be filed away and used. She was trembling by the time my fingers finally slipped between her legs.
“F,” she gasped, her head tipping back against the glass with a soft thud.
“Quiet.” The word was a soft command. I watched her face, a masterpiece of sensation in the neon glow. Her brows were drawn, her lips parted, every ounce of her focus turned inward. On my touch. On my rules.
I worked her with a ruthless, controlled precision, my own need a tight coil in my gut. I held it there, compartmentalized. This was about her unraveling. About mapping the exact moment that composure shattered. Her hips began to move against my hand, a desperate, seeking rhythm. Her fingers dug into my shoulders, nails biting through the fabric of my shirt.
“Please.” The word was a broken thing.
I ignored it. I slowed my touch, drawing a ragged sob from her chest. “I decide when.”
I kissed her to swallow her protests, my hand moving again, faster now, the heel of my palm applying a perfect, steady pressure. Her body arched, rigid, and then the tension snapped. She cried out, the sound swallowed by my mouth, her whole form shuddering against me and the unyielding glass.
I held her there as the waves subsided, feeling her heartbeat hammer against mine. Her skin was dewed with sweat. I waited, patient, until her breathing began to even out.
Then, and only then, did I fumble with the buckle of my belt, the button of my jeans. Her eyes fluttered open, glazed.
“Closed,” I reminded her, my voice like gravel. She snapped them shut again, a quick, obedient reflex.
I entered her in one smooth, relentless stroke, my own control fraying at the edges at the feeling of her, hot and tight around me. Her gasp was sharp, her inner muscles clenching. I buried my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the scent of her sweat and perfume, and began to move.
This was different. This was not about her. It was a raw, driving need to claim, to forget, to feel something besides the cold calculation that usually ruled me. My hips set a punishing rhythm, each thrust slamming her back against the window. The glass was warm, almost body-temperature, a surreal contrast to the violence of the act.
She took it all, her legs hooked around me, her whispered pleas and encouragements a hot stream against my ear. She chanted my initial, the letter becoming a meaningless prayer. I chased my release with a single-minded focus, the neon lights below blurring into streaks of color.
My climax hit like a silent detonation, a white-hot wash that locked my muscles and emptied my mind of everything but sensation. For three full seconds, I was nobody. I was nothing but pure, animal feeling.
I stayed there, buried inside her, my forehead pressed to the glass beside her head, our ragged breaths fogging the pane. The city stared back, indifferent.
Slowly, the world resolved. The throb of distant music from the club below filtered up. The ache in my muscles registered. The sticky heat between us.
I pulled back and gently lowered her until her feet touched the floor. She wavered, unsteady. I held her elbows until she found her balance. Her eyes were still closed.
“You can open them,” I said.
She did. Her dark eyes were clear, fathomless, seeing too much. She reached up and traced the line of my jaw, her fingers coming away wet. I hadn’t realized I was sweating.
“So,” she said, her voice hoarse but a smile playing on her swollen lips. “That’s what it takes to break your control.”