9. Rule #9 Sometimes you discover your kinks in interesting ways.
Amelia
My eyes pop open, and I stare at an unfamiliar sheer green curtain. My sketchbook and pencil are clutched against my chest, and there’s a line of drool dried across my cheek. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but it takes me a while to get my bearings and figure out where I am.
Oh yeah…sleeping in a sex club.
My neck aches and my mouth is parched as I force myself up. After setting my sketch pad on the back of the couch, I stretch my arms over my head. I should probably just go home. It was pathetic of me to seek some solitude in an empty sex room because I don’t want to be alone.
I wonder where Matis and Laura are. Did their date end? Are they still together? Would it be too obsessive of me to text him to find out?
Why am I so pathetic?
With a relenting sigh, I fall back against the couch, knocking my things to the floor. My book and pencils land with a thud behind the couch. Standing up, I walk behind it and kneel down to gather them up.
With my arm outstretched to grab the pencil that rolled under the couch, I spot the time.
A quarter after.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
I overslept past my reservation time. The room is technically open. Which means I need to get the hell out of here now.
Frantically, I collect everything that fell so I don’t leave a trace behind when I hear the sound of the lock mechanism on the door.
Frozen, I watch the door on the other side of the room. As it opens, laughter spilling through the crack, I realize someone is coming into the room.
In a panic, I drop down behind the sofa to hide myself.
My heart is hammering in my chest as I wait for them to find me lying here any minute. Jack and Julian are going to be furious. Oh God, will the members report me to the police? Can I get in trouble for this? I’m going to lose my job.
“Are you sure we can be in here?” the woman whispers between kisses.
I need to show myself now. Before things go too far. The only way out is the door they just came through. And there’s no way I’m just going to hide here while they do it.
Slowly standing from the couch, I keep my eyes down, refraining from looking at the couple, kissing their way to the bed. My plan is to just apologize and quickly exit.
Then I hear his voice.
“I’m sure, ma belle.”
My head snaps up, and I stare through the sheer curtain at Matis on the other side.
Frozen in place, I try to register what I’m seeing, unable to take my eyes off the way he’s kissing her. He has both hands wrapped around her jaw, licking his way into her mouth with passion. They are both so engrossed with each other, neither of them see me standing here.
Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, I sway on my feet as the room starts to pulse around me. This can’t be happening. He brought her here?
He told me he wasn’t going to sleep with her on the first date. He’s supposed to be looking for a real partner.
It’s like watching a car crash. I don’t want to see this. But I can’t look away. He’s touching her. Kissing her. Moving her toward the bed.
Tears prick my eyes as I watch the man I love give another woman everything I want.
Then, as he grinds his hips against her, gripping her ass, he presses his groin to her core…and warmth grows in my belly like a slowly kindling fire.
My feet are planted, and I am an unmoving statue, watching the scene unfold slowly. It feels like both torture and ecstasy at the same time.
It’s too late for me to go now. But my eyes widen as she drops to her knees in front of him, tugging down his zipper with a look of flirtatious need in her eyes.
I find myself dropping to my knees too, hiding behind the couch although neither of them has noticed me here at all.
The curtain is dark but not so dark that it hides me completely.
He must…really be so into her he’s not aware of his surroundings.
I don’t know why I watch as she pulls out his cock. I don’t know why I watch as she wraps her lips around it. And I don’t know why I watch as she moans around his length…but I do.
I watch it all. My eyes focus on her movement. His pleasure. His face.
Filled with both arousal and jealousy, my body is at war with my heart. I should hate this. It should be torture, but instead…I’m so turned on I feel like a ticking bomb ready to explode.
After a few minutes of her bobbing her head on his groin, he lets out a husky growl. Tearing her off his cock, he tosses her down on the bed and climbs over her.
No.
I can’t watch him have sex.
I can’t.
He lifts her dress, just a few inches, and I see the restlessness in his movements. Something has him acting frantically. As he runs his fingers between her legs, it’s like he’s running them between mine.
My lips part, and I stop breathing altogether. I’m watching them as if I’m a part of them. I’m not watching them because I like it or because it turns me on.
I’m watching them because it gives me control.
And that control is intoxicating.
They didn’t consent to this. What is wrong with me? Everything about this is against everything I believe in, but I can’t bring myself to stop.
Matis has his eyes shut tight, and I wish I knew why he looks so pained. He seems intent on her pleasure, as if it’s all he needs. He kneels over her as his hand works its way up her dress. As he slips his hand down the front of her panties, I have to cover my mouth to keep from gasping.
It’s not even that I’m afraid of outing myself now. It’s that…I’m stuck in this moment as if it’s pulling me, holding me tight.
I can’t ignore the moisture pooling between my legs.
“That feels so good,” she cries out.
My thighs squeeze together.
“Don’t stop.”
Every nerve in my body is strung out like tightly wound thread. One pluck and I would fall apart.
“That’s it,” he mutters, his voice raspy and breathless. “Come for me.”
“I’m almost there,” she whimpers.
I’m almost there too…which is unbelievable because I’m not even touching myself.
“That’s it. Come for me. Come for me, Amelia.”
Everything stops.
Her moaning. My ears ringing. My clit pulsing.
It all turns to silence.
Widening my eyes, I stare at him in shock, but my brain can’t seem to piece together what just happened.
He said my name.
He said…come for me…Amelia.
Did he see me?
Does he know I’m here?
My name on his lips, in a moment of torrid passion, feels so good and yet so out of place. I can’t move, only staring as everything happens in slow motion.
The woman shoves him away, and he reacts with shock.
“Amelia?” she shrieks as she stands. “I’m Laura!”
“I didn’t say…”
She pulls down her dress and sneers at him. “I should have known,” she mutters to herself.
“I said Laura!” he argues as if trying to convince himself as much as her.
“The handsome ones are always such…assholes!”
The scene plays out as she storms toward the door, but I am still reeling from what just happened.
He said my name.
He said my name.
Laura slams the door closed, and I jolt with the surprise of it until it’s just me and Matis left alone in the room, except he doesn’t know I’m even here. He thinks he’s alone.
Letting out a sigh, he puts his cock away and zips up his pants. His expression turns despondent and downcast. I’ve never seen him look this way, and it takes everything in me not to rush out there and hold him.
“Mais qu’est-ce qui ne va pas chez moi?” he mutters to himself with his face in his hands.
What is wrong with me?
My poor Matis.
He can never know I was here watching this. It would change us forever, and that’s something I could never sacrifice.
Silently, I crawl backward, hoping to hide until he leaves. But then my knee lands on something hard and with a little bit of pressure…
Crack.
I glance down at the broken pencil beneath my leg and then back up at his face. He’s staring at the curtain with alarm on his features.
“Who’s there?”
Shit.
My heart has never pounded so hard in my life. I’m practically shaking from head to toe as I realize that it’s all over. Once Matis finds out I was here, that I saw all that, that I heard what he said, he’ll never look at me the same way again.
I try to be still and hope he’ll just rush out of the room.
Instead, he bellows again, “I said, Who’s there?”
There’s so much anger in his tone I know there’s no escaping now.
Slowly, like a dog with its tail between its legs, I crawl out from behind the couch and reveal myself to Matis.
The look on his face when he sees me is one I’ll have etched into my memory forever. It’s terror and shock and anger all mixed into one.
“Oh God!” he cries out, digging his hands in his hair. “Amelia?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What are you doing here? Have you been there the whole time? Oh God, did you see…?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he shouts. “Why would you watch that? You should have…closed your eyes or showed yourself!”
“I’m sorry! I just came in here to focus—”
“To focus?! Amelia, you’re in a—” He stops himself, letting out a loud disgruntled sound.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry! I fell asleep and slept past my reservation time and…”
Matis begins to pace. “You should have never seen that. I had no idea you were there. Oh God, if your father knew…”
“I won’t tell him, I promise,” I say, stepping closer to him.
When my hand touches his arm, he flinches and backs away. Then our eyes meet, and I see the frantic alarm coursing through him like a storm.
That’s when he remembers. He said my name while touching her.
“Oh God,” he mumbles to himself, recoiling away from me. “That was a mistake, Amelia. I didn’t mean to say your name. It meant nothing.”
I don’t respond. I can’t.
It’s clear to me now that no matter what Matis said in the moment or how much he’s flirted with me or how badly I want him, the mere idea of seeing me as anything more than his goddaughter disgusts him.
I will never be anything more.
“We must forget this ever happened,” he says, pleading.
Slowly, I nod.
He winces as if the memory of it all causes him agony. “I have to go.”
Matis sweeps toward the door, causing a tender ache in my chest from him pulling away from me like there’s a string connecting us. But just before he disappears out of the room, he turns back in a rush.
Coming at me so fast I don’t have a chance to react, he pulls me into his arms and hugs me tight to his chest. My arms wrap around him desperately, clutching at the fabric of his shirt and squeezing him so tight I can hardly breathe.
I hug him back just in case it’s the last one I get.
He doesn’t say a word, but maybe this embrace is enough to convey what he’s unable to speak. That he’s sorry. That he wishes this hadn’t happened.
Maybe even that he loves me.
Pulling away, he stares into my eyes. The world stops turning, and I wonder for a moment if he’s about to kiss me.
I’d give anything for it.
“You always were trouble,” he murmurs.
Then, just like that, he lets me go and walks away. The door closes once he’s gone, and I’m left standing alone with nothing but memories and the echoes of his arms around me.
And it’s all I’m going to get.