Chapter Seventeen - Suzy #2
I drag him closer, nails raking his back.
He kisses me again, hard enough to bruise, one hand cradling my skull, the other guiding my hips until I’m flush against him. My legs tighten around his waist, the friction dizzying.
There’s nothing careful, nothing polite about the way we move—the way we claim and challenge, surrender and demand. The fight becomes the need, the need becomes the fight, and we both lose ourselves in the wild, exquisite mess of wanting and being wanted.
For a long, breathless moment, there’s only the two of us, clinging, burning, daring the world to look away. When he finally breaks the kiss, it’s only to press his forehead to mine, breath mingling, heart pounding.
“You’re mine,” he says again, but it sounds different now—less like a threat, more like a vow.
When it’s over, the kitchen is a wreck of silence. I’m still perched on the counter, knees apart, Leon standing between them, his body all heat and tension, hands gripping my thighs like he needs the anchor as much as I do.
My heart hammers wild against my ribs. Sweat cools on my skin, the marble is cold beneath me, and every inch of me feels too raw, too exposed, too alive.
I don’t remember when I started shaking—only that the tremors won’t stop, as if I’ve run too far, too fast, and I’m still waiting for the world to catch up.
Leon doesn’t move. His forehead rests against mine, breath mingling, eyes squeezed shut. I can feel him trembling too—his chest shuddering with each uneven inhale. There are no words.
No apologies, no explanations, no quick jokes to cover what we’ve done. For a long, suspended moment, we are nothing but the pulse of each other’s hearts, the sharp taste of sweat and salt and something close to relief.
The shame comes in a slow, burning wave with heat blooming across my cheeks, down my neck, settling low in my belly.
It tangles with the exhilaration, the sense of danger, the wild rush of having been wanted, claimed, seen. I don’t know if I’m proud or mortified. I only know that I am changed—flushed and aching and more awake than I’ve been in years.
When Leon finally pulls back, he doesn’t look away. His gaze is so intent, so hungry, I feel like he’s searching for something inside me he doesn’t quite trust himself to find.
His hands linger, gentle now, thumbs stroking absently over my bare skin.
The kitchen is filled with the frantic hush of our breathing, the distant clatter of staff pointedly staying far, far away.
For once, he isn’t saying I’m his or daring me to run.
He’s just looking, and the weight of it is almost too much.
I slide off the counter, landing unsteady, my dress twisted, hair tangled. My hands shake as I tug down the old T-shirt, trying to smooth myself into something resembling composure.
I avoid his eyes, afraid he’ll see every secret, every fracture, every bright and trembling want. I can still feel the press of his mouth on my skin, the ghost of his hands mapping out all the ways I’m vulnerable to him.
My legs threaten to give out. I stand tall anyway.
Leon stays silent, watching, as if memorizing every inch of me. The air between us vibrates with something unfinished, unsatisfied. This is a line neither of us can uncross, a secret written on skin and muscle and breath.
When I turn to leave, he doesn’t stop me. He only watches, his eyes sharp and unreadable. The message is clear as a blade: this isn’t finished. Not by a long shot.
I walk away, forcing my steps to stay slow and sure, head high even as my heart races, even as my body betrays me with the memory of what we just did.
I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me falter.
I tell myself I’m not running—I’m reclaiming myself, drawing a line in a world where I have so few to draw.
The truth follows me down the hall: I’m not sure who I’m protecting anymore. Him, or me.
In the privacy of my room, I let the mask fall away. I close the door, lock it behind me, and stumble to the bed, dropping into a heap of bare legs and wrinkled cotton. My body is still trembling, nerves alight, the evidence of Leon’s touch seared into my skin.
I press my hands to my face, trying to slow my breathing, to make sense of what just happened.
Flashes of the last hour play in my mind—the fight, the words, the feel of him pressed between my thighs, the wild, almost desperate way we clung to each other. The look in his eyes when I told him he didn’t own my smile.
The way he answered, not with threats or orders, but with something naked and honest, a need I recognized too well.
I don’t know if I won or lost. I don’t know if I’m more furious or more alive. All I know is that something between us has shifted. The old boundaries—the war, the rules, the pretense of indifference—are ashes now.
We’ve crossed into new territory, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t thrill and terrify me in equal measure.
I just lie there, letting the fire burn itself down to embers.
I wonder what comes next, if I’ll ever be able to meet his gaze in the hall, if the staff will ever look at me the same way again.
I think about running—really running—but the idea is hollow.
There’s nowhere to go, not really. Not with him in my blood, in my head, in every secret place I used to keep safe.
I ache everywhere, but it isn’t just from his hands.
It’s from the truth that, for all my protests, I wanted him just as badly as he wanted me.
That, in that moment, I was just as possessive, just as hungry to take and be taken.
That letting him have me—here, in the open, without shame or fear—was its own kind of victory.
I know I should be angry. I should hate him for the way he takes and takes, for how easily he tears me open.