Chapter Sixteen Razor
chapter sixteen
Razor
I’d never had a day like that in my life.
Lazy. Filthy.
Soft in a way that should’ve put fear in my bones.
We barely left the bed.
Vulnerability clawed at my ribs. That tight, quiet need for him not to leave. For this not to end. For him to stay exactly where he was now: stretched under me, skin warm, fingers drifting across my back as if mapping out a body he already knew. It was bliss.
And it was fucking dangerous.
Most of Saturday blurred. Half-dressed cuddling that should have felt wrong but didn’t, talking shit about nothing, me scrounging in the kitchen for whatever could pass as food.
And when he’d said he should go, when the flat had sunk into that humid July darkness and everything felt too intimate, too still…
I’d grabbed his wrist and tugged him back into the sheets.
“Stay.”
Same word he’d once thrown at me. Only I reckon I meant it more.
And he smiled that quiet, wrecking smile and curled back into me.
We slept.
Or slept until the sun cut straight through the apartment at five a.m., because I’d forgotten to shut the blinds.
The light didn’t warm anything. It stripped it bare.
Picked out the mess of us in sharp, unforgiving detail.
Sweat-damp sheets, his hair flattened against the pillow, the way he was still turned towards me even in sleep.
So, naturally, I fucked him again.
Not frantic. Not gentle either. Hungrier. Needier. As if I could grind the feeling out of my system if I moved hard enough. I drove into him until he came with a broken shudder, digging his fingers into my shoulders, and when I pulled out, I spilt over his chest and cleaned him with my tongue.
Filthy. Thoughtless. Exactly what I was good at.
“I really have to go home at some point today.” Tristan didn’t sound convinced. Especially not while crushed beneath me, breath warm against my shoulder, roaming his hands over my back with no urgency to leave.
His touch still lit me up. Sharp and sudden. As if he’d wired me straight into something live.
That part… that part unsettled me.
“Like to see you try.” I dropped my weight fully onto him, boxing him in and burying my face into his neck, breathing him in.
“Are you restraining me?”
“If I have to.”
“Then you’re underestimating me.”
“Am I?” I lifted to catch his lips with mine, already planning to lose myself in his mouth again.
“Mmm,” he hummed against my invasion.
“Tough guy, huh?” I shifted my weight, pressing him down until his breath hitched. Not hurting him. Never that. Just reminding him where he was.
I would’ve let him up.
Eventually.
But then he tickled me.
Right along my ribs, under my arms, and laughed, bright and unguarded. I reacted the only way I knew how, by grabbing his wrists and pinning them above his head.
“You don’t play fair.”
He smiled up at me. “Fairness is a myth.”
“Says the law expert.”
“Exactly. If anyone knows how unbalanced justice is, it’s me.”
“Hm.” I let him go. Rolled onto my side. Kissed the corner of his mouth as if that was enough. As if I hadn’t already crossed something I didn’t know how to step back from. “Fine, if you wanna go, go.” I kissed his neck. Didn’t linger. Pretended I could, though. Pretended I was allowed to.
“I didn’t say I wanted to.”
I met his gaze. And for a second, I smiled.
But it was too much. So I turned away, checked the clock, needing the distance. “Still early, though.” I rolled back to face him. “You want breakfast before you go?”
“What do you have?”
“I can order whatever.” I reached for my phone, opened Deliveroo. Bought myself something normal to do. “What do you usually eat?”
“Fruit. Yoghurt. Smoothie.” He propped himself on an elbow.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Nothing normal, no?”
“What, like Frosties?”
I huffed a laugh. I’d fed him fistfuls of those straight from the packet most of yesterday, along with cold Greek shit from the fridge because neither of us could be fucked to cook. And nor did I have a lot in. I wasn’t some domestic god and nor did I spend this much time here.
I pressed a kiss to his shoulder, softer than I had intended. “Go take a shower. I’ll order whatever fruit-abuse you people call breakfast.”
“Careful, or I’ll think you want to impress me.”
I kicked him off the bed before that thought could take root. “Towels are in there.”
He sauntered, bare and smug, across the room, shutting the bathroom door behind him.
I sat back against the wall, thumb between my teeth, scrolling through Co-op like some sad bastard planning a brunch date.
Ordered half the fruit aisle, a sack of yoghurt, and whatever else looked clean enough he might actually eat.
I tossed the phone aside and stood, dragging on grey joggers.
I crossed to the living area, grabbed my cigarettes from the coffee table, then paused.
The burner sat beside the ashtray. Face down. Battery warm.
I hadn’t checked it once yesterday. Or last night. Or at dawn when I had him writhing under me. And a thick pulse of reality thudded in my chest. Cormac didn’t like unanswered messages. And missing a Saturday night at the club? That wasn’t nothing.
A flash of unease, obligation, and the first crack in the escape we’d made together, split the edge of the morning.
Nothing I could do now, so I stepped out onto the balcony and lit up.
Let the smoke settle, the shake under my ribs coming from having tasted something good and knowing I couldn’t keep it.
When I stubbed the cigarette out and came back in, I started the coffee. Partly because Tristan looked like someone who treated coffee as morning scripture. Mostly because I wasn’t ready to flip the burner and see which version of my life was waiting for me when he left.
The bathroom door opened, and I looked up through my lashes, unable not to watch him.
As if trained to find him in any room. He emerged, towel slung low around his waist, another one dragged through his hair, sunlight catching him full-on.
Gold skin. Soft edges. Fresh heat rising from the shower. My chest twisted.
He was far too pretty.
Too beautiful for a place like this.
Too perfect for me.
When he reached for the clothes I’d hung over the chair yesterday, trying to rescue the suit from becoming a complete crease massacre, he glanced over.
I tore my gaze away, back to the coffee, pretending I could do this.
He then dressed, crossed the room to lean beside me against the counter, and I handed him a mug.
He took it, sipped, smiled. Clean and put-together, making me ache and bristle at the same time.
So I stepped in close, buried my face in his neck, inhaling the scent of my shower gel on his skin.
My mark. My grime beneath his polish. It did something ugly inside me.
Self-loathing and hunger twisted together.
Making me want to drag him closer and ruin him all over again.
I kissed his neck, his jaw, his mouth. And he dropped the coffee to wrap both arms around me.
“Kinda like you in a suit.” I nuzzled into his throat.
“Kinda like you in grey joggers.”
I snorted. “Standard prison wear suits me, yeah?”
“Well, I got a thing for you in them.” Tristan kissed me. Soft. Sweet. Too much.
I kissed him back, lifted him onto the counter and stepped between his legs, deepening the kiss, undoing his shirt buttons. I didn’t know what spell he’d put on me, but I couldn’t get enough. Wanted him under me. Around me. All the fucking time.
I yanked his shirt free, sliding my palms over new-washed skin, when a loud, violent bang rattled the door.
“Fuck—” I jerked back hard. “Shit. Bollocks.” Heart punching my ribs, I shoved a hand through my hair and forced my erection down, tugging my joggers lower to hide it. “That’ll be the delivery.”
I went over to the door, and I should’ve checked the peephole. Should’ve fucking thought. But between the comedown, the heat of him, and the burner’s shadow at my back, I didn’t.
I opened it.
“Thank fuck.” Keeley burst in, pushing Maisie’s buggy through the gap before I could stop her.
“Was hoping you’d be awake. Went to Mum’s first, but she’s flat out.
Reckon she drank all of Londis. Stinks in there.
Couldn’t leave Maisie with her.” She shoved the buggy over my toes and swept into the apartment, breathless. “And wait ’til you see this, Rich!”
Heat slammed into my throat, and I looked past her, straight to the kitchen.
Tristan had slid off the counter, stepping back, buttoning his shirt with quick, nervous fingers. His eyes met mine. Worried. Knowing.
“Kee,” I barked, sharper than I meant to.
“What?” She crouched by the buggy, unfastening the straps before hoisting a gurgling Maisie out. “Look, Rich! Watch!” She was practically vibrating as she set the baby down on the floorboards. “Go on, princess, show Uncle Richie what you can do now.”
Maisie squealed, slapping her little palms on wood as she crawled straight across the floor towards the kitchen. Keeley beamed, following her progress, until the baby reached the edge of the room and stopped, gaze catching on the tall, well-dressed man standing frozen beside the fridge.
Keeley blinked, then looked back at me. “Oh.” She glanced between Tristan and my bare chest. “You having a meeting or summink?”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
Keeley wasn’t stupid. And nothing about this was fucking explainable. Because the life that ruined me and the one that made me feel human had just collided in my kitchen with a buggy and a baby crawling towards my one good thing.
“Uh…” I kicked the door shut behind me too hard. “Yeah. Meeting’s finished.”
Tristan blinked. Swallowed. Fuck, I felt like the worst kind of cunt.
“I know it’s like a hundred degrees out there, bro,” Keeley hoisted Maisie onto her hip, eyeing me up and down, “but you should wear a top for business meetings. Looks more professional.”