7. Ellie #2
"Yeah. Here you are. In my bathroom. Uninvited.
Interrogating me about my medication while the clock runs on your little footage loop.
" I push off the counter, suddenly furious, but also two seconds away from letting the tears spill down my face.
"What do you want from me? A confession?
You want me to break down and tell you all the horrible things Todd's done so you can add them to your little file and cross-reference them against whatever database you've broken into this week? "
His expression doesn't change. "I want you to stop pretending you're fine when you're clearly falling apart."
"I'm not falling apart."
"Then why are your hands shaking?"
He's closer now than he was a second ago, and I don't remember either of us moving but the bathroom is only so big and there's nowhere to go that isn't toward him or against the sink. His eyes are too sharp even behind those contact lenses.
"Stop looking at me like that, Cyrus," I whisper.
"Looking at you like what?"
"Like you're trying to figure out my passcode."
"Maybe I am."
His hand comes up and his thumb traces the line of my jaw, tilting my face toward his.
His fingers are pleasantly cool against my skin and I hate how much I want to lean into the touch, how the simple fact of someone looking at me and actually seeing what's there instead of what Todd wants them to see makes me melt.
"You're an asshole," I tell him.
"Noted." His thumb drags across my lower lip and I bite it, not gently, and his expression shifts from analytical asshole to a man looking at the woman he's collared and recently fucked. "We have four minutes."
"Then stop wasting them."
I grab the front of his vest and pull him down and kiss him with all the fury I can't aim at Todd and all the fear I won't admit to and all the helpless, stupid wanting that's been building since he stood behind that chair and brushed my shoulder with his sleeve like it was the only comfort he could offer.
He kisses me back like he's thought about this since the appetizer course, one hand fisting in my hair and the other gripping the counter behind me. He cages me between his arms and the cold marble, but it's the first time tonight I've felt safe.
I bite his lip and he makes a sound that's almost a growl, low and utterly feral, and I want more of that sound. I want to peel back every layer of control he wears like armor until there's nothing left but his mouth on mine and his hands pulling me closer.
He lifts me onto the counter and the marble bites cold against my bare thighs where the dress rides up.
I wrap my legs around his waist and drag him between my legs.
His cock is hard, pressing against me through his trousers.
The noise I make in response to that realization is embarrassingly desperate but I'm past caring.
"This is a terrible idea," he says against my mouth while his hand slides up my inner thigh.
"All your ideas are terrible." I yank his belt open. "Your best one involved poisoning a man so you could steal his job."
"And it worked flawlessly." He pushes my underwear aside and sinks two fingers into me, and I bite my own wrist to keep from making a sound that would carry through the walls. "You're already wet."
"I've sat through a nightmare dinner with you standing behind me in a three-piece suit looking like that, so yes, I'm a mess. Shut up about it."
"You have a truly alarming set of turn-ons."
"Shut. the. fuck. up."
His fingers curve inside me and I arch against him, my head tipping back into the gold-framed mirror.
The crystal soap dispenser rattles against the counter.
He pulls his hand free and I hiss at the loss, but then he frees himself from those ridiculously pressed trousers and pushing into me in one long stroke that makes my vision blur.
I grab the lapels of his vest and yank him close enough to bite his ear, his neck, the hinge of his jaw, whatever part of him I can reach. He fucks me against the marble sink and his fingers dig in hard enough to leave bruises in place of the ones that are just beginning to fade.
The counter squeaks against the wall with every thrust and I'd care about the noise if I had any brain cells left to care with, but they've all migrated south and abandoned their posts.
His piercing drags against my g-spot and I have to sink my teeth into his shoulder through the fabric of his vest to keep myself from screaming.
"Fuck," he breathes against my hair, and the composure finally cracks. His hips stutter, his rhythm falters, and for a second, he's just Cyrus again.
Cyrus in a costume that shouldn't be hot but is, fucking me on my stepfather's bathroom sink.
Not exactly the way I thought this night would go.
"Hurry," I tell him, because I'm already there, my orgasm rolling through me and making my thighs clamp around him so hard he groans. "Cy, come on, we don't have time."
He does. I feel him pulse inside me, hot and deep, and his whole body goes rigid for a few counts before he exhales against my neck, chest heaving against mine.
For one blissful moment, neither of us moves. Just long enough for reality to reassemble itself around us. He's still inside me when I hear it.
"Eleanor!"
Todd's voice, muffled through the floor, calling from somewhere downstairs. I know that tone. It means I'm expected somewhere I'm not, and every second I don't appear is a second he keeps count of.
"Shit." I push at Cyrus's chest and he pulls out, both of us wincing. "I have to go."
He's already putting himself back together with hands that are slightly less steady than usual, tucking his shirt and straightening his vest. The transformation back into the invisible estate manager takes less than thirty seconds and it's almost frightening how completely he disappears behind it.
I reach out to brush his disheveled hair back into place, the one remnant of my Cyrus. He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it.
And here I thought I was beyond blushing after what we did.
I slide off the counter. My legs are unsteady and my underwear is a lost cause, so I pull them off entirely and shove them into his vest pocket because I don't have anywhere else to put them. His face when I do it is almost worth the nightmare of this entire evening.
"Keep those," I tell him. "A little souvenir."
His eyes have that spark of amusement in them as he watches me.
"Eleanor!" Todd's voice again, closer this time, and the amusement drains from my body as fast as it arrived.
"You'd better go," Cyrus says, but he has another look in his eye that's far from amusement. Like he's thinking about the list of things he can get away with doing to the man who interrupted us.
I check myself in the mirror, arranging my face into the pleasant, empty expression that Todd expects to see when I walk into a room.
Cyrus watches me do it, and I can tell from the set of his jaw that he's adding something else to the list.