Chapter 3 #2
We sat in silence for a moment, both pretending that whatever just happened hadn’t happened. The emergency lighting gave everything an underwater quality, and I focused on my coffee to avoid looking at him.
The lights flickered once, twice, then blazed back to life with shocking brightness. We both blinked in the sudden illumination.
“Power’s back,” I said brilliantly.
“I should go.” He stood in one fluid movement, all casual grace despite having spent the last hour sitting on a concrete floor.
He grabbed his still-dripping jacket from the hook, and I followed him to the back exit that led to the stairs to my apartment. He paused at the door, one hand on the handle, and turned back to me.
“Lock the door. Promise me.”
“I always lock my door.”
“Lina.” The way he said my name made it sound important. “Promise.”
“I promise,” I said, confused by his intensity. “Door locking will commence immediately.”
He studied my face for a moment longer, then nodded once. “Good night.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the rain that had definitely not let up even a little bit. I stood there watching him go until the darkness swallowed him completely.
I climbed the stairs to my apartment on unsteady legs, my back against the door once I’d locked it (as promised). My heart hammered against my ribs with more violence than the rain against my windows. I could still feel the ghost of his breath on my lips, the phantom heat of his almost-kiss.
This was insane. I was being insane. He’d helped me with a door. Made sure I got inside safely. That was just basic human decency, not... whatever my body thought it was.
I headed for the shower, peeling off my soaked dress with relief.
The hot water should have helped calm my scattered thoughts, but it only made things worse.
Now all I could think about was how his shirt had clung to his chest, outlining muscles that belonged on magazine covers.
How his hands had looked fixing my door, competent and sure.
“Get it together, Winters,” I told my reflection as I toweled off. But my reflection looked back with flushed cheeks and bright eyes that suggested getting it together was not on tonight’s agenda.
I put on my softest nightgown and climbed into bed with a book, determined to be normal. To read about fictional people having fictional problems that didn’t involve mysterious men who almost kissed me in emergency lighting.
The words blurred on the page. I realized I’d read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word.
Fine. I’d count sheep. Boring, traditional sheep that definitely didn’t have storm-gray eyes or lean in so close I could count their eyelashes.
My skin felt too sensitive, hyperaware of everywhere the soft cotton touched. My body hummed with energy that had nowhere to go, every nerve ending still firing from our almost-moment in the green-tinted darkness.
I closed my eyes and immediately I was back behind the counter with him.
But this time, there was no thunder to interrupt.
This time, when he leaned in, he didn’t stop.
His mouth would be warm against mine, tasting of coffee and rain.
His hands would tangle in my wet hair, pulling me closer until I was straddling his lap right there on the shop floor.
My breath hitched at the thought. I pictured myself moving against him, my soaked dress riding up, feeling how hard he was through his jeans. His hands would grip my hips, guiding my movements as I ground down against him. The space heater forgotten as we generated our own heat.
This was ridiculous. I was a grown woman who ran a successful business. I paid taxes. I had a retirement fund. I should not be this worked up over a man whose last name I didn’t even know.
But my hand was already sliding down, and my body had apparently decided to mutiny against my rational brain. I gave in to what I’d been fighting since he’d first walked into my shop two weeks ago.
My fingers found the wetness between my legs, already soaked from just thinking about him. I circled my clit slowly, imagining it was his fingers instead. He’d be so controlled at first, watching my face as he touched me, those gray eyes dark with want.
I slipped two fingers inside myself, gasping at the sensation. In my mind, it was him above me, finally losing that careful control. His cock would be huge, stretching me as he pushed inside. I’d wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he’d groan my name against my neck.
I increased my pace, my other hand coming up to squeeze my breast through the thin nightgown. I imagined his mouth there instead, sucking and biting while he fucked me into the mattress. No more careful distance. No more almost-touches. Just him claiming me completely.
My hips rocked against my hand as I pictured him getting rougher, more desperate. His hands gripping my thighs hard enough to bruise. The headboard slamming against the wall with each thrust. Him telling me I was his, only his, that he’d wanted this since the first moment he saw me.
When I came, it was his name on my lips, gasped into my pillow as pleasure crashed through me in waves that left me shaking.
“Matthias.”
The guilt arrived right on schedule, about thirty seconds after the aftershocks faded.
“Really, Lina?” I muttered at my ceiling. “This is what we’re doing now? Having a complete breakdown over a customer who probably just has a weird door-fixing hobby?”
But even as I tried to shame myself back to sanity, I was already thinking about tomorrow. Maybe I’d wear a dress again. One that wasn’t transparent when wet, obviously, but nice enough to catch his attention.
Maybe I’d need help reaching another book. Maybe I’d finally suggest coffee somewhere that wasn’t my shop. Maybe I’d find out if he had a last name, or a job, or literally any information beyond “reads thrillers” and “carries mysterious tools.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, moving away now. The rain had settled into a steady patter against my windows, almost soothing after the earlier violence.
My body felt loose and relaxed for the first time in two weeks. I pulled my comforter up to my chin, a stupid smile spreading across my face despite my best efforts to be rational about this whole situation.
Tomorrow I’d be brave. But tonight, I let myself drift off to sleep with the memory of almost-touches and green-tinted moments, the sound of rain mixing with dreams full of gray eyes and hands that knew how to fix broken things.
The storm passed overhead, and somewhere in the forest, a sound echoed that might have been wind through the trees.
Or might have been a howl.
But I was already deep in dreams, tomorrow’s possibilities more electric than any storm.