11. Emma
Emma
The pillow smells like him.
That is the first fact of the morning.
I lie still with my cheek pressed into the place Alex crushed beneath us last night and take stock of everything else. The sheets are twisted around my ankles, muscles I had forgotten existed ache when I move, and the side of my neck burns where it touches the pillowcase.
Apparently orgasms still knock me unconscious.
Some things survive ten years with humiliating loyalty. I press my face deeper into the pillow before I catch myself doing it. Cedar, skin, the faintest trace of sweat. Alex.
A few hours in the same hotel suite, and ten years of self-control folded like cheap plastic.
Wonderful.
I throw the pillow aside and get out of bed before I start replaying the reason my thighs ache.
The shower helps. The mirror does not. Steam clouds the mirror. I wipe a circle clear with the heel of my hand and inventory the damage.
Whisker burn reddens one side of my neck. A bruise sits beneath my ear, another lower near my collarbone. The bite at the curve of my shoulder protests when the towel drags across it, tender as a bruise on fruit.
I tilt my head. I dab concealer over the marks and watch deep red turn to smudged mauve. I’m not sure if it’s helping. My cream blouse has a high enough neckline to cover most of the damage if I button it nearly to my throat, and loose hair should hide the rest.
Assuming no one looks directly at me for too long. Which means I have no chance whatsoever.
The fabric drags across the bite at my shoulder when I pull the blouse on, and my body is helpful enough to supply the memory without being asked.
Alex above me.
His mouth on that exact spot.
The scrape of his teeth followed by his lips.
His hand between my thighs while I?—
I close my eyes.
“No.”
Breakfast waits on the table, spread beneath polished silver domes when I venture downstairs. Eggs, toast, cut fruit, coffee, and several pastries fill a table meant for six people.
Alex is nowhere in sight.
I can eat without wondering whether he remembers the sounds I made last night.
I take half a strawberry, one corner of toast, and pour coffee I gulp down gratefully.
The suite is too quiet. It gives me a moment to remember how his face changed afterwards.
One moment he was above me, looking at me as though there was nothing else in the world he wanted to see.
The next, he was standing beside the bed telling me to go to sleep as if what happened between us embarrassed him.
The humiliation returns in a hot wave. I wrap both hands around my coffee.
He wanted me until I came. Then he could not get away fast enough.
If I had somewhere to run and hide, I would.
The elevator opens.
Alex walks in shirtless.
Because the universe hates me today and wants to punish me in new creative ways.
Gray sweatpants ride low on his hips, and running shoes strike softly against the marble. Sweat darkens the waistband and shines across his chest. His hair is damp at the temples, the scar through his eyebrow catching the morning light.
He looks warm and exhausted and unfair.
My body forgets that I am furious with him.
Last night returns whole.
His weight between my thighs. His mouth beneath my ear. The rough drag of fabric as I lifted my hips against him, searching for the pressure he kept giving me until?—
My thighs close under the table, and pressure on the soreness makes me wet again.
Heat blooms low in my stomach.
Traitor.
Alex braces one hand against the counter, twists open a bottle of water, and drinks. His eyes stay on my neckline while his fingers dent the plastic.
The toast turns to paste in my dry mouth.
“Went for a run.” He says. That much is obvious I want to say.
“There’s food.” I tell him instead.
His eyes move to the table. “I can see that.”
“I meant—you should eat.”
One of his eyebrows rises. Obviously he should eat. That is generally the purpose of food.
“I need to call Sofia.”
“You have your phone.”
“I need privacy.”
His gaze travels around two floors of private hotel suite.
“In here?”
“Yes.”
Something almost like amusement passes across his face.
It makes me want to throw the toast at him.
Instead, I stand too quickly and clip the edge of the table with my hip.
“I’ll shower,” he says as I retreat. “Then I’ll drop you.”
“I have to charge my phone.” My phone is at ninety percent. I am already moving. “Before brunch.”
Liam has sent several messages.
The first is a picture from campus, his cap turned backward while Diego crowds into the frame holding a hot dog like a trophy. Another shows two pairs of cleats beside open textbooks.
Liam:
College is a scam. Why is there homework on game day?
The next photograph is Diego asleep across two chairs with a backpack over his face.
Liam:
Exhibit B.
A laugh escapes me.
My brother looks happy.
Ordinary.
Exactly the way an eighteen-year-old should look when his biggest complaint is homework interfering with baseball.
For a moment, everything else falls away.
No Mark. No men asking questions. No security teams he does not know are following him. No sister bargaining with billionaires and lying about why she cannot come watch him play.
Just Liam.
I type back.
Me:
Tell Exhibit B he drools.
Sofia’s messages sit beneath his.
Sofia:
My hangover wants me dead. Alcohol is poison. I have been throwing up all night.
Then:
Sofia:
Still coming. Danny made reservations somewhere fancy, and I refuse to die before free food.
And, predictably:
Sofia:
ALSO STARVING.
I laugh again.
Me:
On my way soon. Leave the bread basket alone until I get there.
The reply arrives almost at once.
Sofia:
No promises.
The shower starts in Alex’s room. I put my phone down and return to the mirror.
The top button of my blouse takes two attempts because my fingers keep catching the tender skin near my collarbone. I leave it undone while I work on the next one.
The shower stops.
I know the exact moment Alex steps into the hallway.
I do not hear him.
I feel him.
My shoulders tighten before his reflection appears behind mine.
He is dressed now: dark trousers and a pale shirt open at the throat, his hair still damp.
Something hangs from his fingers.
My locket.
I stop breathing for half a second.
He looks at it rather than me.
“You left this with me.”
“Yes.”
His eyes lift to mine in the mirror.
“I thought you might want it back.”
I turn.
The chain hangs from his hand, the familiar pendant resting against his palm.
I have worn it for so many years that yesterday without it felt like walking around missing a piece of clothing.
I hold out my hand.
Alex looks at it.
Then at my hair.
“I’ll put it on.”
There is no reason that sentence should make my pulse jump.
“It has a clasp, Alex. I can manage.”
“I know.”
He does not hand it over.
For several seconds we stand there engaged in the stupidest battle we have ever fought.
That is saying something.
Finally, I turn my back to him.
“Fine.”
My hair has fallen over my shoulders to hide the marks. I gather it in both hands and lift it out of the way.
Silence.
Too much silence.
I look at him through the mirror.
Alex is staring at my neck.
The open top of my blouse has exposed more than I intended. The bruise beneath my ear. The darker mark near my collarbone. The faint crescent at my shoulder disappearing beneath cream fabric.
All his.
His expression changes.
Not pride or embarrassment, but something darker that makes his throat work as he looks at me.
For one foolish second, I consider letting my hair fall and ending this before either of us can make it worse, but Alex steps closer.
The chain slides around my neck, cool against my skin, while his hands stay steady behind me.
And I’m painfully aware of how little space there is between the mirror and his body, with mine playing anchor in between.
His throat works once, but his hands remain steady as he fastens the chain, right up until his fingers brush the skin beneath my ear.
Both of us freeze.
Then his knuckles graze the bruise.
My breath catches.
Alex’s gaze lifts to mine in the mirror, and for a moment neither of us pretends we are thinking about the necklace.
“Does it hurt?”
His voice is lower than before.
“A little.”
His eyes return to the mark.
“It’ll fade.”
“I suppose.”
He fastens the clasp, but he does not move away.
The locket settles against my chest, warm from his hand.
His fingers remain at the back of my neck.
One thumb moves.
Barely.
The pad of it traces the edge of the bruise beneath my ear.
A shiver runs down my spine.
Alex sees it and his hand stills. I can feel the heat of him behind me without a single part of our bodies touching, except his thumb against my skin.
Last night comes back all at once, his mouth, my legs locked around him, his hand between us, and the way he watched me come apart beneath him. But so does what came after, the way he turned cold and distant, and my stomach knots at the memory.
Alex’s thumb travels once more along the mark, so slowly I wonder if he realizes he is doing it.
His gaze meets mine in the mirror.
There is something naked in his face that disappears almost as soon as I see it. Want. Regret. Maybe both.
His fingers flex at the nape of my neck. For one breath, I think he is going to lower his mouth to the bruise, and my body reacts before common sense has a chance to intervene.
I tilt toward him, no more than a fraction, an invitation so small I could deny it under oath. Alex catches it anyway. His jaw tightens, his hand falls from my neck, and he steps back, taking all that warmth with him.
“There.”
The single word comes out controlled, as though I did not feel the tremor in his fingers when they left my skin.
I let my hair fall over my shoulders. “Thank you.”
He gives me one short nod, then turns and walks out.I remain in front of the mirror with my mother’s locket against my chest and Alex’s marks hidden beneath my hair.