Chapter 4
Chapter Four - Ivy
The backroom didn’t really need to be cleaned.
She ran a tight shop—sterile, organized, every surface already spotless after the last appointment.
But Ivy found herself wiping down the same stainless steel counter twice, then three times, dragging the cloth over it with unnecessary precision, her movements slow and methodical, not unlike the way she’d prep a fresh canvas of skin before laying ink.
She knew what this was; she just didn’t want to admit it, not even to herself.
She was preparing for Giulietta, and that alone pissed her off.
She adjusted the height of the padded table, flicked the light fixture until it hit the perfect angle, and stepped back to assess the room like it might tell her something she hadn’t already internalized.
She was nervous. Not the fluttering, girlish kind, but the volatile, adrenaline-laced version that simmered beneath her ribs and made her pulse tick with low, slow intent.
She’d never met anyone who unnerved her by doing so little.
That was the thing about Giulietta: she didn’t chase or flirt.
She simply entered a room and unmade it.
Ivy lit the candle last, standing there for a beat too long after the flame caught.
She didn’t even like candles. Thought they were performative and clichéd, the kind of thing you used when you couldn’t get the vibe right any other way.
But this wasn’t about mood lighting or cheap seduction.
It was about intention, about atmosphere, about control.
And maybe, just maybe, about making the space feel less like a room and more like a stage, because Ivy had a sinking suspicion that Giulietta didn’t walk into scenes. She took them.
The sheets were fresh, black cotton—no patterns, no nonsense. The scent of antiseptic lingered beneath the vanilla warmth of the candle wax. Everything was ready.
But she wasn’t.
The door opened without warning. No knock or text or buildup.
Giulietta stepped inside like she’d been here a hundred times before, her expression unreadable and her coat wrapped tight around her body like it had something to protect. Her heels barely made a sound on the polished concrete floor, but her presence hit Ivy like a switchblade to the gut.
There were no greetings or pleasantries.
She just shrugged off her coat and let it fall to the floor with careless grace, revealing fitted black trousers and a silk blouse that clung to her frame in a way that made Ivy’s throat go dry.
Everything about her was tension, held in the line of her jaw and in the precise movement of her fingers as they moved to the buttons of her blouse. One by one, she undid them slowly.
Ivy didn’t move or speak. She stood still, hands curled loosely at her sides, her gaze fixed on the smooth reveal of skin as Giulietta peeled the blouse from her shoulders and let it drop beside the coat. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Ivy crossed the room in three deliberate steps, her boots silent, her breath louder than her footsteps.
She didn’t ask anything. Didn’t whisper reassurances or promises.
She simply lifted her arm and pressed her forearm firmly against Giulietta’s collarbone, pinning her against the wall with a kind of practiced inevitability.
The wall was cool beneath Giulietta’s bare back, but she didn’t flinch. Her head tilted slightly, chin lifting so that her mouth hovered just beneath Ivy’s, her breath warm and steady between them.
Their lips didn’t touch. But the air between them pulsed with something more dangerous than want.
Ivy’s body was taut with restraint, her muscles wound tight, every nerve ending lit like fuse wire. She could feel Giulietta’s heartbeat through her arm, through her palm, through the breath that slipped out in a slow, measured exhale.
And then Giulietta moved to lean in. Her mouth brushed the curve of Ivy’s shoulder, and she sank her teeth into the muscle with enough force to bruise. No hesitation or warning, just a clean, brutal mark left behind.
Ivy hissed, her hips jolting forward instinctively, her arousal sparking like a live wire under her skin. She didn’t pull away, didn’t even pretend to be annoyed.
Instead, she slipped her free hand down, fingertips skating over Giulietta’s waistband, dipping just beneath it with deliberate intent. Giulietta didn’t gasp or tremble; she only sighed, low and controlled, her lips parted in the kind of silence that felt louder than any moan.
“Hands up,” Ivy murmured, voice rough against Giulietta’s jaw. “Against the wall.”
Giulietta obeyed without a word, her wrists lifting above her head, palms pressing flat against the smooth plaster. Ivy caught them in one hand and pinned them there, easily, almost casually, like Giulietta had never had any say in the matter.
With her other hand, she pushed deeper inside her, two fingers, slow at first, deep and steady.
Giulietta’s eyes fluttered closed, her spine arching slightly as she rode each thrust with mechanical precision, as if her body had memorized Ivy’s rhythm after a single night. She didn’t plead, but Ivy could feel her tightening. She could feel the tension in her thighs and the tremor in her jaw.
“Tell me when you’re close,” Ivy whispered, breath hot against her throat.
Giulietta didn’t answer, but her hips bucked once, sharp and involuntary.
That was enough.
Ivy shifted, deepened the angle, and moved faster, her hand still locked around Giulietta’s wrists, her teeth grazing the skin just beneath Giulietta’s ear.
Giulietta came in silence. Her body stiffened once, twice, then shuddered against the wall, her mouth parted in a wordless gasp, her head falling forward onto Ivy’s shoulder as her hands clenched above them, pressing hard into the plaster.
She eased her hand away slowly and kissed Giulietta’s shoulder once gently before pulling back just enough to see her face.
Giulietta’s eyes were closed, lashes damp, her mouth slack with something that wasn’t quite exhaustion. Her breath came in quiet, uneven bursts, but her posture remained intact.
Still composed, still guarded, even now.
Ivy reached for her wrists, letting them go, and Giulietta let them fall.
They stood like that for a moment, neither moving or speaking. Ivy’s shoulder throbbed from the bite mark. Her fingers still glistened. Her chest ached with the weight of something she didn’t know how to name.
It wasn’t sweet or tender, but it was intimate in a way that frightened her.
Because in the heavy, quiet aftermath, as Giulietta leaned back against the wall and reached for her shirt without looking at Ivy, there was no doubt in Ivy’s mind that something had shifted and they were both pretending not to feel it.
The air was still thick with the scent of skin—salt and sweat and something darker, something Ivy would never bottle but couldn’t forget, that alchemy of release and restraint that hung in the room like a silk veil clinging to the sharpest edges of the night.
The candle on the shelf had burned lower, its flame softer now, casting flickering golden shadows over Giulietta’s bare shoulders as she buttoned her blouse with the kind of smooth, mechanical grace that belonged to women who knew how to disappear from a room before they were ever truly seen.
She hadn’t spoken since they’d come down from that fevered, tangled crescendo, and it was the kind of silence that didn’t invite intimacy or comfort.
It carved it out of the space, made it sacred by nature of being so exact, so pointed, that Ivy felt like any noise might break it in half.
She sat on the edge of the table, legs spread just enough to keep her grounded, forearms resting loosely on her thighs, heart still pounding with the echo of something she hadn’t wanted to name.
Her shirt clung to her damp skin in patches, the air cooling fast now that the moment had passed, but she didn’t move to fix it.
She didn’t clean up or reach for the towel or the hoodie slung over the chair.
She just watched Giulietta, watched the slow reassembly of that body, that woman, that ghost she couldn’t stop inviting in, piece by silent piece.
Her blouse was dark and elegant, the silk slipping over skin like memory, one button at a time, hiding the places Ivy had marked, the places her hands had gripped, the breathless curve of her throat when she’d come without a sound, like even pleasure was something to master.
Ivy didn’t say anything at first, didn’t try to fill the space with something stupid or sentimental.
She just reached for the fridge behind her, pulled out a cold bottle of water, and tossed it across the room with a quiet efficiency that surprised even herself.
Giulietta caught it without flinching, without even looking, her fingers closing around the bottle like she’d known it was coming, like she’d been waiting for the moment Ivy would do something human, something thoughtful, and would pretend it meant nothing.
The silence stretched longer than it should have.
One minute. Then two.
The quiet pressed into Ivy’s skin, not heavy like guilt, not sharp like regret, but slow and weightless and intimate in the worst possible way because it wasn’t the silence of strangers.
It was the silence of knowing and Ivy hated how it felt like vulnerability in disguise.
Hated how it settled in her chest like heat she couldn’t breathe through, couldn’t fuck away, couldn’t ink into someone else’s skin just to escape her own.
She shifted, cleared her throat, and finally let her voice slip out, rough, low, scratched at the edges by everything they hadn’t said.
“You always this quiet after?”
Giulietta didn’t look up.
She didn’t smile or soften.
Instead, she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear with a precise flick of her fingers, her gaze fixed somewhere on the floor, as if the ground itself held her answers.