CHAPTER 5
Jameson
Geneva, Switzerland
One Year Ago
None of this was expected.
Not the dress on the floor, the warmth of her skin against mine, or the way she kissed me with complete certainty, as if choosing me required no further consideration.
I’d been with women before. Sometimes because the situation required it. More recently, because the moment pointed in that direction and following through seemed easier than questioning why I felt nothing.
Those encounters had felt procedural, almost like completing a step in a sequence.
This was different. It wasn’t procedural.
It was chosen.
Her lips remained against mine as her fingers found my jacket. She pushed it from my shoulders without breaking the kiss, watching me closely when it fell somewhere behind us.
I understood what she was doing.
Tracking my reaction and making sure the answer remained yes.
My hands found her thighs. Her breath caught as I lifted her, and her legs wrapped around me with an ease that made the motion feel practiced even though nothing about this felt familiar.
I carried her across the room.
Geneva’s lights spilled through the windows, scattering broken reflections across the floor as I sat on the edge of the bed. She settled onto my lap, her knees bracketing my hips.
For a moment, she simply breathed.
Her fingers moved over my shoulders and down my chest, pausing as if she were learning where everything fit.
I was still half dressed while she was in front of me, completely bare.
I was still half dressed while she was in front of me, completely bare.
Seeing her like that made the remaining distance feel intolerable.
I removed my vest and shirt.
I lifted my hand and rested my thumb beneath her lower lip.
Her breath caught, and her mouth parted slightly.
I leaned in and kissed her again.
This time, the kiss slowed. Neither of us rushed.
My hands moved along her sides, sliding over the curve of her hips before settling beneath them. I lifted her slightly, adjusting her against me as she rolled her hips forward, seeking.
“God,” she breathed.
I lowered my mouth to her neck while my hand moved between her thighs.
Her breath broke into a gasp.
She was already slick beneath my fingers.
A low sound slipped from my chest before I could stop it. I followed the rhythm of her breathing, adjusting to every change in pressure, every tightening of her thighs, every shift that told me what worked.
She lowered her forehead to my shoulder.
“I want to feel you fall apart for me,” I whispered.
She nodded against me and held on.
So I kept going.
Slowly at first, then with more certainty as her breathing changed. Her body tightened, trembled, and finally broke apart beneath my touch in a way that looked almost like surprise.
I held her through every tremor and the lingering aftershocks that followed.
When she lifted her head, her eyes searched mine.
Checking again.
Then her hand slid down between us.
Her palm wrapped around my length. “I want you.”
My lungs stopped cooperating for a second.
Then my brain reached the part I should have accounted for before we ever left the bar.
I caught her wrist gently, stopping her without pulling her away.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” I admitted quietly.
She held my gaze. “I have an implant.”
For a moment, I hesitated.
Not because I wanted to stop, but because I hadn’t planned far enough ahead, and I always planned far enough ahead.
I needed to recalibrate.
Her fingers brushed my cheek. “I was tested recently. If you're clean too, and you want to keep going.”
The decision required almost no thought.
“I’m clean.”
She watched my face for another second before she nodded.
Then she slid my pants further down my hips and freed me fully. Her movements were deliberate as she shifted above me and slowly lowered herself onto me.
The sensation pulled a sound from my throat that I didn’t recognize.
She stopped, not fully, just enough to look at me.
“I’m fine,” I said, though fine wasn’t remotely accurate.
Her mouth curved.
Then her hips began to rise and fall slowly, completely in control of the pace.
I placed my hands at her waist and followed her rhythm.
Each movement stripped away another layer of control. My hands moved along her thighs and back as her breathing grew heavier.
She tilted her head forward slightly, and her hair brushed across my shoulder.
She looked like she knew exactly what she was taking from me.
The worst part was that I wanted her to take it.
“Look at me,” I said.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
I wanted to watch her lose control. I wanted proof that this was affecting her as much as it was dismantling me.
Her breathing broke apart as her body tightened around me.
The sensation pulled me over the edge right behind her.
The release moved through me with a force that felt almost violent.
For several seconds, I couldn’t track anything beyond her weight against me and the sound of both of us trying to breathe.
***
Time lost sequence after that.
At some point, she leaned forward and kissed me again.
Then something shifted.
Her hands tightened against my shoulders as mine moved to her waist. The change passed between us without explanation, clear enough that neither of us needed one.
I rolled us over and settled between her thighs before the thought had fully formed.
I entered her again.
Her voice broke into a cry.
My hands found her hips as I moved against her in a steady tempo. She arched beneath me, and her breathing grew louder as I lowered my mouth to her nipple.
Her body tightened again.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
I didn’t.
The instruction narrowed everything to her breathing, her grip on me, and the movement of her hips meeting mine.
Nothing outside the bed mattered.
Our rhythm turned frantic just before she broke apart a second time.
I followed immediately after.
The force of it pulled a sound from my throat that I couldn’t suppress.
When it ended, our foreheads rested together, both of us breathing hard.
For once, I didn’t analyze the silence.
***
The third time came later.
She moved slowly over me with deliberate care, like she was trying to remember every detail of the moment.
Neither of us spoke.
The pace became slower and quieter.
Her hands lingered as if she were memorizing me, but her attention kept slipping away. Toward the windows. The dark floor. The place where her dress had fallen.
Like she was already measuring the distance to the door.
I noticed.
I didn’t ask.
Asking would have changed the terms of whatever this was, and I still didn’t know what those terms were.
So I kept my hands on her and let the moment continue, even with the cost of its ending already taking shape.
***
I must have fallen asleep.
That alone should have unsettled me. I didn’t sleep deeply in unfamiliar rooms, not with an unsecured door and someone beside me whose name I didn’t know.
But when I woke, pale morning light had replaced the storm.
The space beside me was empty.
Her dress was gone.
She left nothing behind.
No name. No number. No proof she’d been there beyond the slight indentation in the mattress and the fact that my body still remembered the weight of hers.