20. Red
Red
Kiri
The hallway is empty when I slip out of her room.
The hotel's silent except for the soft click of the door closing behind me and a couple giggling as they shuffle down the corridor, probably on their way to do what I wish I was right now.
I sigh, keeping my hand on the handle for a second, making sure the motorized latch catches.
Then I just stand here like an idiot. Her voice is still in my head.
Breathy and broken, each version more desperate than the last. I scrub a hand over my face and force myself to move.
My room's only four doors down but it feels like crossing an entire fucking city. The carpet catches under the drag of my reluctant feet and my shirt hangs open from her hands trying to peel it off. There’s a dull sting at my shoulder where she bit me, and every step makes the fabric brush over the marks she left against my neck.
Evidence everywhere. I'm a walking crime scene of everything she did and everything I didn't. My dick strains against my pants, the growing ache intensifying.
Of course it would be, I basically cock-blocked myself and every inch of me is pissed about it.
By the time I reach my door, I’m hard enough that getting the key card out of my pocket becomes an exercise in humiliation. I throw it against the panel too fast and it flashes red.
“Come on.”
I try again.
Red.
The memory hits without warning, Natalia pressed against me, breathless and impatient, saying I'm driving her crazy.
I’m trying to come.
A laugh catches in my throat, then the light finally flashes green.
I shove inside and close the door behind me harder than I mean to.
The room is dark, that pale light of early morning starting to creep around the edges of the curtains.
The untouched bed looks at me like it's accusing me of something.
I lean back against the door and close my eyes.
She's there, behind my eyes. Her hair spread across the pillow, lips parted.
The flush moving over her skin as her whole body tightened before giving in, the weak grip of her fingers afterward.
Are you leaving?
My head knocks against the door. I can't decide if I feel guilty or just stupid. I kept her safe all night. I didn’t take advantage of a woman who was drunk, grieving, and barely able to stand.
I didn’t let what I wanted become more important than what she might wake up regretting.
The correct decision, the responsible decision.
So why does one part of me feel like I just walked away from the only thing I’ve wanted in years and the other part is rolling its eyes because I gave in at all?
If I’d come straight back to my room, none of this would be lodged under my skin.
I wouldn’t be standing here harder than I’ve ever been in my fucking life, every drop of blood apparently abandoning my brain for one increasingly inconvenient destination.
I look down at myself, at the body that refuses to listen to reason.
I'd be lying if I said it's the only part of me still screaming for her.
I push off the door and head for the bathroom. Take a shower, find a distraction. That’s the obvious answer.
I turn on some music with my phone and it fills the room.
A heavy, distorted guitar I don’t recognize from whatever playlist Ronan sent me last week.
I turn it up, loud enough to bury her voice.
So much noise that I won’t hear myself thinking.
I strip off my shirt and toss it toward the sink but it misses and lands on the floor.
The mirror catches the marks along my skin, a faint red crescent at my shoulder, her doing. I touch it and shake my head.
“Fucking crocodile.”
I turn away before I can keep staring and shove my jeans down, taking my boxers with them.
The second I’m naked, there’s no pretending I’m unaffected.
I’m standing at full attention, my whole body still fixed on her like she’s in the room with me instead of somewhere down the hall.
I look down at myself and let out a humorless laugh.
“Jesus Christ.”
Then I step into the shower and crank the water as hot as it’ll go. Hot enough to sting, to try and burn the memories out.
I step beneath the spray, the water slams against the back of my neck and runs over my shoulders. I brace both hands against the tile, head lowered, letting the heat beat into me. For several seconds, it works. There’s only water, music and the sting against the places she scratched and marked me.
Then my brain betrays me. Her mouth on my throat, the lazy drag of her lips against my skin. Her smile when she felt what she was doing to me. I go to turn the water hotter but I forgot it's already maxed out.
I see her in the shower with me, blonde hair darkened by the water, eyeliner smudged down her cheeks, nothing polished left.
Her hands on my chest, mouth at my collarbone.
Her body pressing close because Natalia doesn't seem to understand the concept of leaving space between herself and something she wants. I drop my forehead against the tile.
“ l-ngi l-ngeu. (Mindless idiot)”
The music changes and the bass comes in hard enough to vibrate through the counter.
It reminds me of the rhythm she found against my hand.
I squeeze my eyes shut but I can still feel her.
The trembling in her thighs. The way she went from trying to control every sound to saying my name like it was the only word she knew.
My blood feels too hot for my skin, so I try to breathe through it.
In.
I could've had her, felt her.
Out.
She wanted me.
In.
I did the right thing.
Out
I fucking hate the right thing.
My hand closes into a fist against the tile. I imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t pulled back and let her touch me the way she wanted. If I'd rolled her beneath me and stopped pretending there was anything respectful about the way I’ve wanted her since that first message.
The image changes, now she's kneeling in front of me.
Looking up through wetted lashes, water pouring over the curves of her body, those hands stroking me slowly with the same focused curiosity she used when tracing my tattoos.
Her lips gently teasing the head of my dick. My body jerks at the thought.
I force my eyes open to see that steam has swallowed room, everything beyond the shower has disappeared. The cloudy haze is the only witness to me losing my mind over a woman I keep insisting I can walk away from.
I tell myself to stop, but I don’t.
The fantasy finally takes over.
Natalia’s mouth against my stomach, her fingers hooked around my hips, nails digging into me.
I can see her looking up at me with that wicked little smile she gets whenever she knows she’s found one of my weaknesses before she takes me into her mouth.
My hand moves before I’ve made a conscious decision, I grip myself and move in steady strokes, chasing the feeling she's left me with.
Relief cuts through me so hard that my knees nearly give.
“Fuck.”
The word disappears beneath the music and water as I grip the tile harder with my other hand.
Every thought is her, mouth open, tongue pressed against my length.
Then the look on her face when I first touched her and she realized I wasn’t going to make her feel ashamed for needing it.
She needed me, wanted me inside of her. The way she went soft after she came, all those claws retracted and that stubborn fury temporarily gone.
I'd done that to her, I'd brought it out of her. Made her weak for me.
That shouldn't be the thing that pushes me closest to losing control but it is.
The memory of her pleasure blends with every version of what I denied myself.
Her hand replacing mine, then her hips settling over me, taking what she wants without waiting for permission because she already knows I'd give her anything.
I can almost feel her fingers in my hair and I swear to god I can hear her laugh when my control finally breaks.
You want this too.
“Yeah,” I breathe into the empty shower. “I want you.”
My pace turns rougher, desperate. Nothing like the patience I gave her. There’s no tenderness in this, just frustration built from months of denying every instinct I have about her, finally burning through what’s left of me.
My shoulders tighten, pleasure gathering impatiently.
Her name sits behind my teeth, but I try to hold it there.
It comes out anyway, thankfully swallowed by the guitar screaming through the speaker.
Saying it aloud tips me over the edge, I come so hard I have to lock my arm to keep myself upright.
At first, I can’t move, water pouring over my neck and down my back.
My head hangs between my shoulders, every muscle in my body loosens at once, leaving me weak and shaking.
The relief should clear my head. Instead, all I can think about is her. Still asleep four doors down, curled around the space I left behind.
I finish up my pathetic version of a shower and shut off the water.
The music keeps pounding through the bathroom, obnoxiously loud now that I no longer need it to cover anything. Steam rolls around me when I open the glass door and the change in temperature makes me dizzy.
I catch the counter and stare at myself through the fogged mirror.
I look wrecked. Eyes dark, my hair dripping. Skin flushed almost red from water hot enough to cook me alive. My body gives one faint, exhausted throb, like even now it would try to answer her if she walked through the door.
“That’s enough from you,” I say glancing down at the rogue appendage.
I turn the music off. The sudden quiet feels unsettling because it leaves me alone with my thoughts.
I wrap a towel around my waist and make it as far as the bed before my legs decide they’re finished cooperating.
I dive face-first across the mattress and the towel twists under me.
I should throw it to the floor, maybe dry my hair.
Drink some water, set my alarm, but I don't. My body feels boneless, wrung out by everything that happened and everything that didn’t.
The mattress is cool beneath my overheated skin.
I close my eyes.
The lie pops into my head.
This was just physical.
Of course I’m fucked. I spent hours wanting her, touching her, listening to her fall apart, and denied myself the one thing every nerve in my body was demanding.
Anybody would lose control after that, it doesn’t mean anything.
It's just one night. A moment of weakness stretched longer than it should have been.
We can write it off. She was hurting and I helped.
That’s all.
We can still walk away from this. Go back to separate rooms and sarcastic comments and pretending the air doesn’t change every time she steps close.
She can return to her life, forget all about this, no damage done.
My body gives out against the mattress. Her voice moves through me one last time before sleep finally claims me.
Nothing gets through… except you.
I curl one hand underneath the pillow before burying my head in it.
“Whatever,” I mutter.
The room doesn’t bother answering.
It knows I’m lying.
So do I.