Interlude 2
Paul’s Medicine
Paul wasn’t exactly proud of himself.
He’d told himself a dozen times that morning—between distractedly checking email, pretending to care about system updates, even taking the world’s longest, coldest shower—that he wouldn’t text her.
That he wouldn’t check if she was still sick.
That he wouldn’t find a reason to drive by her street.
That he wouldn’t, under any circumstances, give in.
And yet.
When Mia casually dropped a message in the office group chat: “Hope Alicia’s feeling better! Poor girl sounded awful this morning!” Something inside him snapped. He stared at the screen too long, hands tense, jaw locked. It wasn’t just that he missed her.
It was the way she made him feel: unmasked.
Like he wasn’t a fuck-up coasting on charm and half-forgotten dreams. It was how fragile and brave she was all at once.
The way her eyes didn’t flinch and how she said his name like it belonged to her already.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about the weeks of email conversations, all he’d learned about her already.
Couldn’t stop remembering Victoria and her story she told so openly.
The soft, broken gasps she made when he kissed her.
The way she held back until she didn’t and how her body shook: not from fear, but release.
God, he wanted to see her again. To hear those sounds again and to be wanted like that. But there was more. Something darker that he hadn’t told her and that he hadn’t admitted to himself: he wasn’t ready for this.
He was still half-entangled in the wreckage of something else and keeping too many pieces of his past in boxes he hadn’t opened. There was guilt, and timing, and the fear that he didn’t deserve someone like Alicia looking at him like he mattered.
Still, he got in his car. He stopped at a small shop two blocks from her place and bought two things without thinking: a bag of wildflower honey cough drops, and a bundle of small yellow roses, tied up in brown paper—nothing fancy.
He hadn’t even texted her first, just drove and almost turned around twice.
When she opened the door, barefoot, in an oversized navy hoodie and leggings, Paul felt the air leave his lungs. Her hair was messy, her face flushed with fever, and he thought she was the most authentic, natural person he’d ever seen.
“Hey, girl,” he said carefully and more reverently than he meant to.
She blinked at him, dazed. “You… what are you doing here?”
“Urgent IT matter,” he said, lifting the bag in one hand and the flowers in the other. “You’re behind on system updates. Could be catastrophic.”
She laughed, hoarse and scratchy, but real, and stepped aside to let him in.
The house was quiet. Her family wasn’t home. Sunlight streamed in low and lazy through the windows. Paul made it awkwardly near the entryway until she tugged his sleeve lightly and said, “Don’t just stand there. Come in.”
She led him to the living room and slumped onto the worn, comfy sofa and tugged a blanket over her knees. Paul placed the flowers on the coffee table, the bag of cough drops next to them.
“You didn’t have to,” she said, her voice shy now.
“I know.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “But I wanted to.”
For a second, they just looked at each other. The tension built, not sharp this time, but slow, inevitable, as Paul stepped closer.
“You look awful, by the way,” he said, teasing gently. “You look delicious,” he added under his breath, more serious than she expected.
A flush rose on Alicia’s cheeks, whether from the fever or his words, he couldn’t tell.
She looked down, tugging at the hem of her hoodie. And that tiny, vulnerable movement moved him: he told himself not to touch her.
Before he could second-guess it, he crossed the last inch of space between them. Braced one hand on the back of the sofa, the other cupping her jaw lightly, as if she might break.
“You should be in bed,” he murmured.
She opened her mouth to say something, maybe a joke, maybe a protest, but he cut her off. He kissed her hard. It wasn’t sweet or polite—it was raw and achingly tender all at once.
Alicia gasped softly against his mouth, and Paul drank it in like a starving man.
His tongue swept hers: slow and coaxing.
He kissed her like he needed her: like kissing her was the only thing keeping him alive.
And maybe, in some unspeakable way, it was.
When they broke apart, she was panting, eyes wide, lips swollen.
And he couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop there. Without a word, he slid his hands under her thighs and lifted her, easily, like she weighed nothing, and carried her onto an armchair, setting her down gently.
Then knelt in front of her on the carpet, at her freezing feet, looking up at her like she was a messy miracle.
Paul didn’t believe in saints. But Alicia in that hoodie, flushed and blinking down at him like she didn’t know how divine she looked… that was the closest he’d ever come.
Alicia opened her mouth, confused, but he just smiled. “I want to make you feel good,” he said simply. She froze, blinking down at him.
“You’re sick,” he said, voice low and thick, “and a good rest is the best cure for everything, so I heard.”
He placed one hand on her knee. And when she didn’t move away, didn’t flinch, he pushed her knees apart, gently.
The first kiss he placed was on the inside of her thigh, through the fabric of her leggings. A soft, deliberate press of his mouth. Then another, higher. And higher.
Alicia whimpered, and the sound moved him deeply.
“You taste like fever and honey,” he whispered against her skin. She buried her hands in the fabric of the armchair, trembling. He hooked his fingers under the waistband of her leggings.
Looked up at her, asking, not demanding. She nodded.
And when he peeled them down, when he kissed her properly: slowly, deeply, the tip of his tongue drawing long, teasing circles, Alicia thought she might actually lose her mind.
It was different from Victoria: no rush, no crowd. No need to hide.
It was worship. And Paul didn’t just touch her: he learned her.
Mapped her reactions with his mouth and hands, and made her come once, then again, slower the second time, wringing gasps and soft cries from her she didn’t even know she had inside her.
He didn’t stop until she was boneless and clinging weakly to his shoulders.
When he finally pulled away, lips slick, eyes dark with want, he pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her thigh and rested his forehead against it, breathing hard and shaking.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Alicia closed her eyes, and they both felt her heart pound like it would shatter her ribs. Paul sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, grinning like a man who had just stolen a star from the sky.
“You,” he said hoarsely, “are lethally addictive.”
Alicia let out a shaky laugh, half-sob, half-disbelief. Paul sat on the floor, still touching her, fingers tracing lazy patterns on her bare knee. Neither of them wanted to move, and neither of them wanted to let the spell break, but time ticked, and he knew Adam would be home soon.
“I should go,” he murmured, voice hoarse, his forehead touching hers again. “I’ll see you soon, girl.”
He didn’t want to leave. But something in him, some small, cracked thing, told him that if he stayed too long, she’d start seeing the mess he wasn’t ready to explain.
She nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. Paul kissed her one last time, lingering for a few seconds too long. And then he was gone, door clicking softly behind him.
Outside, he didn’t breathe for three full seconds.
What the fuck am I doing?
But he smiled anyway, because it felt right.