Chapter 20
Phoenix
The taste in my mouth is a mix of wine, mint and Roni’s sweet cunt. The bathroom mirror is fogged from the shower, but my outline leaks through—a gorilla in a towel—slabs of muscle melting into a dad bod and regret. I lean in, press my forehead against the glass, and breathe.
Roni’s already at work. But last night—fuck.
We started on her shitty DIY IKEA couch, her in nothing but a black tank and a pair of my boxer briefs I didn’t know she swiped from my place, and me in a dress shirt that smelled like my cologne and the coffee I dribbled on it in the morning.
We didn’t make it five minutes into what I think was a movie, though I don’t really care.
She climbed on me, one knee between my thighs, tongue in my mouth before I could say her name.
The rest was teeth, nails, fists in hair.
She bit my lip hard enough to leave a mark.
I retaliated by tugging her head back, one hand tangled in the roots, the other between her legs. She was equal parts wet and ferocious.
We fought for control the whole way across the apartment.
Furniture got toppled, a mug shattered on the laminate.
We knocked over a lamp, which stayed dead for the rest of the night, and I dragged her into the kitchenette.
She tried to throw me off by tickling me, but I pressed her against the fridge and hiked her up so her ass barely cleared the handle.
Her thighs clamped around me like a bear trap.
I made her come twice just by grinding against her in the hallway, my hand buried under the waistband of her shorts.
She scratched my chest until it bled. At some point she got the upper hand and wrestled me to the ground and straddled my face.
She tasted like salt and sin and the promise of rain.
I let her win. I wanted her to win. She turned on the shower to drown out the neighbors.
I can’t remember how we ended up back in the bed.
Only that I woke up at 3 a.m. with her curled around my left arm like a python, our legs knotted, her mouth open on my bicep.
She drools in her sleep, which is disgusting and perfect at the same time.
I untangled myself and walked to the window. The sky was just starting to pink up.
Now I’m here, in my own penthouse, with the city fifty floors below and the taste of her still under my tongue. I brush harder, trying to scrape her out, but she’s everywhere. I want to punch the mirror, but I know it’ll just cost me three grand, and I’ll have to explain it to security.
Instead, I finish, spit, wipe the toothpaste on a hotel-grade hand towel. It comes away streaked with blood. I grin. Old habits. Old wounds.
Getting dressed feels like putting on a costume, every morning. Underwear, pressed white shirt, suit pants, tie. The armor of civilized men. All for the benefit of people who already know I’m a monster.
I do the buttons slow, one by one, and try to avoid the mirror. I fail. The bastard in the looking glass is always there, sneering.
For a breath, all I see is Mercy, and all I feel is crippling guilt.
Fuck.