Chapter 8 #2
“Don’t act offended,” I say. “You should be flattered. To you, I’m just another trophy to put on your imaginary shelf, proof you can fuck your way into a world where you don’t belong.”
His eyes flash.
“Is this just sex to you,” he asks, stepping closer, “or do you actually give a damn beyond the adrenaline?”
The hallway feels narrower. My pulse is loud in my ears. The honest answer curls up somewhere behind my ribs and refuses to move.
So I reach for the cruel one instead.
“You’re a very pretty hobby, Nico,” I say. “That’s all.”
The instant it’s out, I taste the regret. Bitter on my tongue.
Something in his face shutters.
“You don’t know how to care about anything that isn’t gilded or dangerous,” he says. “Do you?”
“As if you would care about me if I wasn’t both.” My voice shakes, just once. I push past it. “I’m just your glittery toy.”
His mouth twists but I keep pushing.
“You’re just a little thrill I wanted to chase,” I hiss, because if we’re going to do this, we may as well burn it all.
“And you’re an empty trophy I wanted to claim,” he snaps back.
We’re too close. His breath hits my mouth when he speaks, hot and unsteady.
The argument drops in volume but thickens, electric, filling the narrow space between us. I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, the way his chest rises and falls too fast. My back presses against a cool wall. His body fills the rest.
“But I’m done chasing thrills,” I say, voice low, daring him to push me further.
His eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. “Too late,” he murmurs, stepping in until his chest brushes mine. “I’ve already claimed my trophy.”
The words hit like gasoline on fire.
My hand cracks across his cheek before I can think, hard enough to snap his head sideways, leave a red mark blooming on his jaw. The sound echoes off the tiles.
He doesn’t flinch. He laughs. Low, dangerous.
“Do it again,” he says, crowding closer, “and I’ll think you mean it.”
I should leave.
Instead, I fist the front of his hoodie and yank him down, crashing my mouth against his.
It’s violence dressed as kissing, teeth clashing, tongues fighting for dominance, his hands clamping my hips hard enough to bruise. I shove against his chest. He shoves back, pinning me to the wall. My coat falls open. His fingers rip at my shirt buttons. The storage door behind me rattles.
We stumble sideways, through the half-open door into darkness that smells of bleach and wet towels. Metal shelves clang as my shoulder hits one. Uniforms sway above us, plastic rustling. He kicks the door shut. The fluorescent buzzes to life overhead.
I tear at his hoodie zipper, nails scraping his collarbone. He growls something filthy against my throat and pushes my leggings to my knees, fingers rough between my thighs. No patience, no teasing. Just finding me wet and cursing under his breath.
“Already?” he says, smug, two fingers pushing inside roughly, curling just enough to make my knees buckle. “Knew you’d come begging for it, princess. So fucking wet for the help.”
“Fuck you,” I gasp, grinding down on his hand, thighs trembling, hating how my body betrays me, how much I need his fingers, his smug fucking voice, him.
My hands shove his sweats lower, palming his cock through cotton, thick, rigid, twitching under my grip.
“You love it. Poor Salzburg boy, finally gets his hands on something expensive.”
He laughs, low and filthy, ripping lace aside. His free hand fumbles his pocket, condom wrapper crinkling, teeth tearing foil, latex rolling down his length with a practiced snap that makes my mouth water. The interruption should kill it. It doesn’t. It makes my hips jerk forward, impatient.
“Expensive and easy,” he mutters, gripping my thigh, hiking it high around his hip. His eyes lock on mine, dark, possessive, triumphant, as the thick head of him nudges my entrance. “Let’s see how that pretty cunt takes champion’s cock.”
He thrusts up, sudden and brutal. My head snaps back against the shelf, clang, bottles rattling, my cry swallowed by rustling uniforms. He’s stretching me open, filling every aching inch until my nails gouge his shoulders through hoodie fabric.
“Fuck,” I hiss, “you think that’s impressive?”
His hips snap again, deeper, grinding against that spot that whites out my vision. “Keep talking shit,” he pants, breath scorching my jaw, “while I fuck you senseless on these shelves.”
I wrap my leg tighter, dragging him impossibly closer, pelvic bone slamming his.
Our mouths crash, messy, biting, tongues slick and warring.
I sink teeth into his lower lip, hard enough to taste copper.
He groans, wrecked, and retaliates by palming my breast, thumb rolling my nipple viciously through silk.
“Greedy little princess,” he snarls against my throat, one hand braced by my head, the other bruising my ass. “Always acting too good for it, but your pussy’s crying for more.”
“Shut up and fuck me properly,” I bite back, rolling my hips to take him deeper, clenching around him deliberately. “Or are you saving yourself for the podium again?”
His rhythm stutters, turns punishing.
“Can’t fuck and race at the same time, huh?”
He growls, hips slamming forward so hard my teeth click. “That what you think, trophy girl?”
“Yes,” I lie through gritted teeth, raking my nails down his spine hard enough to leave red trails, feeling the shudder rip through his body. “Prove me, fuck, wrong.”
He makes an animal sound, half growl, half curse, and spins me around so fast my palms slap cold metal shelves, the sting shooting up my arms. Uniforms sway in front of my face, plastic crinkling like mocking whispers.
His chest slams against my back, sweat-slick skin through thin fabric, one hand fisting my hair at the roots and yanking my head back.
The other shoves my thighs apart, rough fingers digging into soft flesh.
No warning. He slams back inside me, brutal, balls-deep, the angle savage.
My knees buckle. The shelf catches my weight.
Each thrust rattles the entire unit, bottles clanking, metal groaning, detergent jugs wobbling like they might crash down on us.
His hips slap mine so hard it burns, pubic bone grinding my ass, the wet smack obscene in the tight space.
I’m not his to take. I shove back, hips snapping, ass grinding against his pelvis, stealing control.
My spine arches. I circle my hips filthy-slow, dragging him deeper, feeling every thick inch stretch me open.
He stutters, grip loosening on my waist, hands slamming to the shelves on either side of me instead, bracing, yielding. Letting me fuck him.
“Fuck,” he rasps, wrecked, forehead dropping to my shoulder blade. “Perfect. Riding this perfect ass while you fuck me back like you own it.”
It’s pure animal, shelf edges carving crescents into my palms, detergent fumes burning my sinuses, his breath scorching my neck like a brand.
Sweat drips between my shoulder blades. His tongue follows every drop on my neck.
My thighs quake, slick running down my inner knee.
The coil in my core snaps. I come screaming his name, vicious and shattered, walls clamping his cock like a fist, gushing around him.
“There,” he snarls triumphantly, feeling me milk him, hips stuttering as he chases it. “Knew this greedy cunt would break first. Take it.”
Two more savage thrusts, hips slamming so hard my teeth rattle, then he shatters, groaning my name like a prayer and a curse, cock pulsing hot inside the latex.
But as he pounds through the last brutal waves, grinding deep, his mouth finds my neck, not biting, kissing.
Open-mouthed, reverent. Breath hitching.
“So fucking good,” he whispers, wrecked, lips dragging softly across my pulse. “Don’t shut me out again.”
I twist just enough, lips brushing his ear, voice gone hoarse and tender against my will. “Don’t make me.”
Three gasping heartbeats, still locked together, dripping sweat, chests heaving, chemical stink thick as the afterglow. His forehead brushes my shoulder. My fingers spasm against torn metal.
For a moment, we just hang there, locked together, hearts trying to punch their way out of our chests.
Then his weight eases. He slips out of me, steps back, one hand braced on the shelf, the other still on my hip like he’s reluctant to let go.
I push his hand off and tug my leggings back up with fingers that don’t feel like they belong to me.
The elastic bites my waist. My skirt falls crookedly around my thighs.
When I smooth my coat, my sleeve comes away with a gray dust streak, and the sharp chemical reek of detergent clings to my hair.
It feels like evidence. Proof this doesn’t belong in any of the lives I’m supposed to live.
He drags the condom off, ties it, bins it, then wrestles his sweats up, breathing still ragged. For a second, it looks like he might lean against the door and slide down it. Instead, he straightens, scrubs a hand over his face, and looks at me.
“élise—”
“No.” I don’t turn around. I keep my palms flat on the cold metal of the shelf, shoulders squared. “We don’t… talk after, remember?”
He huffs out a humorless breath. “We never talk before, either. You just appear, set everything on fire, and vanish.”
I turn then, slowly. His hair is a mess, his hoodie skewed, jaw already darkening where my hand landed. He looks wrecked and unfairly beautiful.
“You can’t just keep disappearing when I—” He stops, jaw working, eyes flicking away like the words are too much. “When I actually try with you.”
The hollow inside my chest pulses. I aim for it.
“This is all it is, Nico.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “You knew that.”
It should sound cruel and clean. It doesn’t. The last word cracks, just a little, like thin ice under weight.
His eyes snap back to mine.
“Coward,” he says quietly.
Heat flares in my cheeks. “Excuse me?”