Chapter 18 #2
He didn’t move, didn’t signal, he just stood there watching.
I looked away and got into the car. The door shut, and the sound seemed to echo through me.
She started talking again almost immediately, something about traffic, about the apartment, about how it wasn’t far, how she liked the area.
But my focus was elsewhere. On the way, the trees blurred past, on the feeling sitting just under my skin that refused to settle.
“I moved to a place just outside the center,” she said, glancing at me briefly before looking back on the road.
“First floor. It’s… quiet.” Her fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel. “You’ll like it.”
Would I? I let my head fall back against the seat and closed my eyes. I only closed them for a second, but it was enough for everything to come back. A pull in my chest, the ugly sense I was driving toward something that had been expecting me.
The apartment was smaller than I expected, obsessively neat.
The sort of neatness that makes you wonder what it’s compensating for.
I’ve learned to distrust rooms that look too disciplined.
The walls were a muted grey, but not clean grey.
There was something underneath it, a colder undertone.
Almost blue in certain light, like bruised skin that just began to fade.
The door behind me was darker, almost black.
The carpet under my shoes was a deep, washed-out red.
The kind that had dulled over time, like it had absorbed too much.
It didn’t feel like a home; it felt like something staged.
She closed the door behind us softly; the sound landed heavy in the room. I just stood there for a second, taking it in, letting my eyes adjust to the space. The silence, the way the air smelled faintly of something sweet layered over something older.
“You like it?” Her voice was close. Closer than it had been a second ago.
I felt her before I fully registered her movement. The shift in the air, the warmth. Then her finger touched my stomach through the fabric of my shirt and moved, slow enough to make the meaning impossible to miss.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
There was a pull in her voice I didn’t know how to name then, only that it made my skin tighten and crawl. She stepped in front of me, her fingers finding the edge of my belt like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I thought about you,” she continued, voice dropping.
“More than I should have.”
My body reacted before my thoughts did. My hand shot up and grabbed her directly by the throat, my fingers large enough to almost wrap all the way around it.
Her back hit the wall with a blunt thud, enough to break her breath as my fingers closed tighter around her throat.
Her eyes widened, and that… did something to me.
I leaned in. She met my mouth with a kind of hunger that had nothing cautious in it, as if patience had already been abandoned. She responded instantly. Soft moans slipping from her, her body pressing forward instead of pulling back. That told me everything I needed to know.
Krystyna’s lips had been on mine many times before, but not like they were then. My body knew hers, every movement, every sound, her warmth, but every time before she’d been the one in control. Of what happened, and of me.
The feeling of her body in my hands did something to me I hadn’t expected.
I pulled away first. Her breath was uneven, and it left me wanting more of what just happened between us. I let go of her throat slowly, watching the way her body reacted to the absence of pressure, the way she stayed exactly where I left her instead of pulling back.
I turned and walked into the kitchen like I owned the space.
The drawers slid open one after the other, the sound too loud in the quiet apartment, wood scraping lightly, metal shifting, until…
there. Duct tape. I took it and closed the drawer.
When I walked back into the living room, she was on the sofa.
She had already taken care of the distance between where she was and where she wanted to be.
Clothes gone. She was watching me. There was no hesitation in her. That was almost amusing.
“Up.” My voice was low. The energy in the room felt different, something neither of us had ever managed to create in the house with Bartosz there.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if she could feel it too, but the searching, almost yielding look in her eyes told me everything I needed to know.
She moved as I stepped in. I went around her slowly, not touching yet, letting her feel the space close instead. I didn’t rush it, just stayed there long enough for it to sink in. Then I took hold of her.
I pulled her arms back without hesitation, forced them together, felt the shift in her body the second it registered.
The tape came next, tight enough that she felt it immediately, tight enough that there was no doubt about what was happening.
Her breathing changed under my hands. I paid attention to that, to the way it sped up, the way her body reacted.
I noticed everything. Her ankles next. She didn’t resist, not even a little.
I left her there, kneeling as I sat down.
The sofa dipped slightly beneath my weight, the leather giving a soft sigh as I settled into it.
My posture relaxed just enough to look effortless, but there was nothing careless about it.
Even though the roles between us had changed, my body stayed tense and painfully aware of everything around her.
One arm stretched across the back of the sofa while my fingers moved slowly against the fabric, almost absentmindedly, but my eyes never left her.
I could hear her breathing. Could hear my thumb rubbing against the sofa in slow motions.
The longer the silence dragged on, the harder it started pressing against the room, until it felt like one wrong word would change everything between us.
My hands moved to my belt without any hurry to them.
I took my time with it, fingers brushing against the buckle while I kept my eyes on her.
I knew she was watching.
The fabric shifted until my cock sprang free, already hard and throbbing.
I let my hand wrap around the shaft, slowly stroking it.
I leaned back against the sofa, tilting my head just enough to keep her in view without having to move much.
Her eyes stayed on me the whole time, and after a while, it started feeling less like she was just looking and more like she was caught on something.
Something between us had changed, and she felt it too.
I could see it in the way her body stayed still even when her eyes moved over me again.
The room felt warmer now, almost close, and every time she breathed in, the scent of her reached me a little more.
Sweet, distracting, getting into my head in a way that made it hard to think about anything else.
That was when it settled somewhere deep in me, heavy enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.