26. Delayed Collapse
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DELAYED COLLAPSE
Ethan
The light turns red.
My foot settles on the brake, and for a fleeting second, I consider taking the next right instead. I could head home. Walk through the front door, kiss Claire, ask Ellie about her day, pretend none of this ever started.
The light changes.
I press the gas instead.
At the next intersection, I tell myself I can still turn around. Every traffic light offers another chance. Every mile puts more distance between the man I thought I was and the one I’m becoming.
Still, I keep driving.
When I pull up to her small apartment, I already know I’m not leaving without her. The front door opens, and she emerges with a small overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She pauses, her gaze sweeping over the street before landing on my truck.
Before I know it, she’s opening the passenger door, and sliding into the seat beside me.
“Morning.”
“Hey,” she replies with a bright smile as she closes the truck door with a soft thud.
The drive to the airport passes in a strange mixture of straightforward conversation and uncomfortable silence. I slide my hand onto her thigh while changing lanes, and she covers my hand with hers.
“We can still change our minds,” she says.
“I think we passed that exit a few miles ago.”
Seattle greets us with gray skies and the faint, earthy scent of impending rain. Brooke stops on the sidewalk outside the terminal and tilts her face toward the clouds.
“This is what I imagined.”
“Most people don’t get this excited about overcast weather.”
She turns to me with a grin. “Most people are wrong.”
Before we find a cab to the hotel, I pull her to me and kiss her hard, the rough fabric of her jacket presses against my chest. Her lips are soft against mine, and it feels good to be here.
Friday evening marks the start of conference duties: check-in, grab participant ID, and collect freebies.
Technically, these are the reasons for my attendance.
Tomorrow, I will feign interest through presentations on sustainable design, green infrastructure, and urban development.
But tonight, I want to spend the evening with Brooke.
We find a restaurant overlooking Elliott Bay, where floor-to-ceiling windows frame the harbor. “And the kid just stared at me and said, ‘Are you a real teacher?’” Brooke is saying, but I haven’t heard the last few minutes of her story.
She catches me. “What?”
I blink. “What?”
“You’re staring.”
“You’re beautiful.” Glasses clink and someone nearby laughs, yet the only thing I can focus on is her.
After dinner, I reach for her without thinking. She meets me halfway, weaving her fingers through mine as we walk back to the hotel. Our room is on the fourteenth floor, with a wall of glass overlooking the city.
She stands at the window with her back to me, still in her navy silk dress. I see her reflection in the glass—her arms crossed loosely over her chest. The champagne I ordered sits half-finished on the table beside the bed. One bed. I requested only one.
“The city is so beautiful from up here,” she says. Sounding a little lost.
I cross the room, the carpet muffling my steps, and stand behind her, close but not touching. “Yeah,” I say, my voice a little rougher than I intended. “It is.”
She turns toward me and I cup her face with my hand, feeling the pressure of her cheekbone against my palm.
“We don’t have to,” I say. I both mean it and I don’t.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
That’s all it takes. I kiss her and she tastes like wine.
Her fingers curl into my shirt. I turn her to face the window, and my hands find the zipper at the back of her dress, drawing it down inch by inch.
On the way down my knuckles trace her spine, and she shivers.
Her silk dress falls to the floor, and she steps out of it.
I can see goosebumps on her back as she unhooks her bra.
She looks at me over her shoulder. She’s in just a thong, silhouetted against the night.
She faces me. “Your turn,” she says, as she pushes my jacket off my shoulders.
She unknots my tie with deliberate fingers, watching my eyes as she works each button of my shirt free.
I let her undress me, standing still under her inspection.
Then she turns presenting her back to me, an invitation and a challenge both.
I wrap myself around her, my chest flush against her spine. My hands find her full breasts, her nipples hardening under my touch, and she makes a sound—approval, impatience, need.
“Fuck, Brooke.”
I kiss the back of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, and work her thong down and off.
She exhales and shifts her stance wider.
I press her upper body against the window, the cool glass a stark barrier, and kneel behind her.
I find her center, and she’s already wet, slick, and eager.
One swipe of my tongue from back to front, and she’s moaning my name, a drawn-out guttural sound.
She yanks my hair with one hand, the sting of it sharp enough to make my eyes water while she directs my mouth where she wants it.
Soon she’s trembling against the glass, her whole-body shuddering.
I pull out a condom, ripping the foil open with my teeth, and slide it down my hard length. She watches me in the reflection, her eyes dark and hungry. I press my palm flat between her shoulder blades and guide her upper body forward until her hands hit the window.
“What if someone sees?” she asks, her voice a mix of fear and excitement, but her hips are already arching back, seeking.
I put my mouth against her ear, my breath warm against her skin. “No one can see you up here.”
She shivers, and I feel the ripple of sensation move through her, back into me. Her positioning and the arch of her back are deliberate, demanding.
“You feel that?” I ask. “Every single inch of you is mine right now.”
“God—” she chokes out.
I press her hands flat against the glass. “Don’t move. Keep them right there.”
She obeys, but her hips roll, impatient, and her breath fogs the window. I push inside her, one hand braced on the glass beside hers.
“That’s it,” I whisper into her hair, my lips brushing her scalp. “That’s it. You don’t know what you do to me.”
With every deliberate push, a shudder runs through her, and she pushes back harder.
“You feel so good,” she whispers as she drops her forehead against the glass, her breath clouding it again.
“Look at the window,” I say into her ear. “Watch us in the reflection. See that? See how beautiful you are? Watch how well you take me.”
“I can’t—”
“Look at all those people down there.” I press deeper. “They have no idea. This is just for me.”
“Please,” she whispers.
“Please, what?” I pull back before driving forward again. She gasps, her palms squeaking against the window, leaving faint steamy prints.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop, please, don’t—”
“I’m not stopping.” I bite down on the back of her shoulder. “I’ve got you. We’ve got all night, and I am not stopping.”
I can feel her start to come apart, her pussy squeezing my cock, and we both let go together. Afterward, she leans back into me and rests her head on my shoulder, and I put my arms around her.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
I press my lips to her hair. “That I don’t want to sleep.”
She tilts her face up and kisses me. “Then don’t.”
The weight of the ring on my finger is a dull pressure, the phone on the nightstand showing 11:47 and a text I haven’t opened. I push it all back, into the darkness at the edge of the room, and hold on to her, the warmth of her body the only thing that feels real.
I return to consciousness, the way you do in an unfamiliar room—that half-second where nothing is certain. Suspended between dreaming and waking, I lie there, unable to move. I notice a weight settled on my hips, and I realize her mouth is on me, her lips, her tongue, the deliberate pressure.
How long has she—?
She shifts, and her hair, damp from exertion, brushes across my legs; its soft weight finishes the work of waking me.
I exhale, long and slow, the sound merely audible above the murmur in my ears.
She knows I’m awake but doesn’t stop. If anything, she slows further, as if she waits for me to surface so she can properly take me apart.
I touch her hair, needing to confirm that this is real. The bed creaks, and she takes me deeper, and every coherent thought dissolves. My hands find her hair, gripping tight enough to bruise. “Fuck,” I breathe.
She hums, the vibration moving through me. Then she does something with her tongue, and my head falls back against the pillow as I release into her mouth.
A few seconds later, she moves up the bed, curling against my side, fingers light on my ribs. The rhythmic thrum of the building’s ventilation system is a low drone in the background. I put my arm around her, pressing my lips to the top of her head. She smells like the hotel soap.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispers.
I don’t sleep for a long time. I lie there holding her, hearing the distant wail of a siren, the rumble of a late-night bus. The city’s pulse below feels ceaseless. She falls asleep first. I notice as soon as her breathing evens out against my chest.
The next morning, I wake to the sound of the shower, its steady spray a white noise behind the bathroom door.
I check the time, ninety minutes before the first session.
More than enough time to join her. The city light comes in pale and honest through the curtains hiding nothing—different from last night’s amber glow.
I get up, the carpet soft under my bare feet.
The bathroom door opens to a wall of warm steam. I stand in the doorway, observing the fogged mirror, the wet tile floor, and her silhouette behind the frosted glass. Her long blonde hair is plastered to her neck and shoulders, and her head is tilted back under the spray.
She hasn’t heard me yet over the rush of the water. I watch her for three full seconds, the only sound is water splashing against tile. When I open the shower door, the sudden burst of cooler air makes her shiver.
She turns toward me and the corners of her mouth pull up shyly.
“Hi,” she says, water streaming down her throat and over her collarbone.
“Hi.” I step into the shower, and the water hits my chest. I reach past her to adjust the temperature, the chrome handle warm beneath my fingers. She watches me as if contemplating something delicious.
She’s not surprised I’m here, I think. I back her against the tiled wall, and she goes willingly, her body pliant.
She lifts her face to mine, and I kiss her unhurried.
The shower’s spray forms a warm curtain that falls over us.
I gather her wet hair, darkened by the water, pull it aside, and press my mouth to her neck, tasting the faintest hint of soap.
“We have ninety minutes,” I mumble against her skin. “Ninety minutes is plenty of time for what I have planned,” I clarify.
Her smile broadens into a mischievous glint. I lift her thigh, positioning myself at her entrance. My free hand braces on the slick tile beside her head. When I push inside her, she tips her head back against the tile with a soft thud. A desperate, guttural cry vibrates through the water.
“God,” she says, her voice strained.
“Yeah.” I press deeper, feeling the exquisite pressure. “Yeah, I know.”
I move, a slow, deliberate rhythm, and she moves with me, her arms wrapping around my neck, her forehead dropping against mine.
The steam swirls around us reaching every place we join.
My lips brush the delicate curve of her ear.
“I woke up and heard the water,” I say, my voice low and intimate. “And I thought—I’m not missing this.”
I thrust forward harder, a sudden surge, and she gasps, a sharp intake of breath. Her laugh is a breathless sound that breaks off into a moan as her nails press into my shoulders, not quite breaking the skin, but leaving a hot imprint.
“You feel unreal.” My voice catching. “Every time I keep thinking it can’t—” I thrust harder. “—feel like this again, but it does.”
“Don’t stop talking,” she says.
I pull her closer, changing the angle, and she moans my name.
“You think I want to stop? I’ve been awake for six minutes, and this is already the best morning I can remember.”
“Six minutes—” she begins, a hint of laughter in her tone.
“I move fast.” I press my mouth to her temple, to her wet hair, tasting the dampness. “You’re worth moving fast for.”
She shudders against the wall, her body clenching as she comes apart, both hands fisted into my wet hair. I follow right behind her, her name on my lips—low and deliberate.
We stay there, locked together, the hot water cooling. Outside, the city is already in full swing, audible through the thick glass. The conference starts in seventy-three minutes.
“Shower’s getting cold,” she says, a shiver running through her.
“A bit.”
I turn off the water and the sudden silence amplifies the city outside. Pushing the door open, I hand her a towel. She catches my eye in the fogged mirror; her reflection is hazy. “Breakfast?” she asks.
“Yeah, let’s get breakfast.”
The lights over the conference hall bleach all color from the room. I trace the seam of my phone, ignoring the speaker’s droning voice. I picture Brooke outside and imagine the shops she’s exploring. My focus isn’t here on architectural ethics, but on the ache of anticipation.
I spot her outside on a bench, bathed in the warm, late afternoon sun, a book open in her lap, bubble tea in her hand. She looks up as I approach and smiles.
I let out a soft exhale as I sit beside her. “There you are.”
“You say that like I’ve been gone for days.”
“It feels like it.”
The afternoon disappears as we wander Pike Place Market to the scent of food and flowers.
At every vendor booth, her curiosity is a bright, uncomplicated thing I want to borrow.
She samples honey from a vendor who reminds me of Claire’s aunt, a thought I push away.
The joy on her face is a sharp contrast to the knot of deceit in my chest.
“You bought that because the woman selling it is nice,” I tease.
She clutches the bag to her chest, a hint of defensiveness in her eyes. “I bought it because it looks delicious.”
The conversation continues for half a block, and by the end, we’re both laughing. There are no responsibilities, no schedules, no obligations—no reminders of real life. I feel lighter than I have any right to. We take a cab across the city for a late dinner on the water before calling it a day.
The rest of the weekend unwinds much the same way. By eleven-fifteen on Sunday morning, the soft whir of her zipper breaks the comfortable silence of the hotel room. I carry her bag to the door, needing something to do with my hands.
We ride the elevator in silence. The lobby is bright and ordinary—marble floors that gleam and the clatter of luggage wheels.
“Okay,” she says, her voice a little softer than usual.
“Okay,” I reply. The single word feels heavy and final.