8. Buzz
BUZZ
NOW
The key card slid into the lock with a click that sounded too loud in the hallway quiet. The light flashed green, but before she could push the door open, my palm landed flat against the wood beside her head—a sound that made her freeze with the card still half-in, half-out of the slot.
I could smell her. Jasmine and something underneath, something that had been stuck in my head since I was seventeen. My fingers itched to touch her, but I kept my hand on the door. The plastic card trembled in her hand. I hated that she still made me feel like this.
"You sure about this?" My voice came out rough in a way that had nothing to do with the loss tonight—lower, scraped clean of the easy swagger I wore like armor.
She turned her head instead. Just enough.
Enough to see the freckles scattered across her nose, the way her brown eyes had gone dark in the dim hallway light, the slight part of her lips like she was holding her breath.
She held my gaze for one beat. Two. Then she pushed the door open and stepped inside, leaving the choice to me.
I followed. The door clicked shut behind us, and I locked the deadbolt with a decisive slide of metal, but her thumb found it first—she was already reaching for it, already turning it, as if her body had made the decision before her brain caught up.
The room was cool and still, smelling of starch and old carpet and her own jasmine perfume from earlier. A king bed dominated the space, made up tight with white linens, and a single lamp glowed amber on the nightstand. She set it before she left. I didn't want to think about why.
She didn't turn around. I stood behind her, still by the door, and the silence stretched until it felt like something solid between us. Her bag slipped from her shoulder and landed on the carpet with a soft thud.
"Say it," she said, and her voice came out steadier than I expected. "Say whatever you're going to say so we can stop pretending this is complicated."
I stepped closer. One step. Two. The carpet muffled my footfall, but I felt the air shift in front of me, felt the warmth of her waiting. My breath ghosted against the curve of her ear, and she closed her eyes.
"I'm not gonna say anything you don't already know, Lucy." My voice was barely a whisper, rough and low, and the way I said her name—like it hurt me—made my chest tighten. "I'm just gonna do what I've been wanting to do since I saw you at that bar."
My fingers brushed the hair from her shoulder, slow, deliberate, and the touch sent a shiver down her spine that she couldn't hide. I pressed my lips against the bare skin of her neck—soft, testing, a question she had already answered the second she let me through that door.
Her body went still under my lips. A breath caught in her throat, and for a second I thought she was going to tilt her head, give me more skin, let me take this somewhere neither of us could walk back.
But then she turned, and the look in her eyes—dark, narrowed, full of everything we'd never said—made me pull back.
"This changes nothing." Her voice was low, clipped, the same flat tone she'd used in the office when I asked her to double-check the schedule just so I could hear her speak. "I still hate you."
She held my stare, and I saw the dare in her brown eyes—the one she didn't say aloud. Prove me wrong. My mouth went dry.
Then her fingers found the hem of her blouse.
She unbuttoned it slowly, one button at a time, her gaze never leaving mine, and each small tug of fabric felt like a sentence I wasn't ready to read.
The blouse parted, revealing the pale skin of her chest, the lace edge of her bra.
She shrugged the fabric off her shoulders, let it fall to the carpet with a whisper of silk.
I couldn't breathe. I'd seen her body before—a hundred times, a thousand—but that was years ago, when everything was still soft and easy.
Now it was different. Her shoulders were sharper.
Her collarbone cast a shadow in the amber light.
She was harder, leaner, and the sight of her bare arms, the curve of her waist, the way her ribs moved with each breath—it unraveled something in my chest.
Her hand moved to the clasp of her bra. She didn't break eye contact, didn't flinch, and I realized she wasn't just undressing—she was testing me. Seeing if I could handle the truth of her. Seeing if I'd look away first.
I didn't.
The bra fell. Her breasts were full, pale, the nipples already tight from the cool air—or from me, from this.
She stepped out of her shoes, then hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her trousers.
They slid down her thighs, her hips, and she stepped free, standing before me in nothing but her underwear and those tortoiseshell glasses, her auburn hair wild around her shoulders.
The lamp light made the copper strands glow, and her skin was flushed—a pink that spread from her chest up her neck, the only tell that she wasn't as composed as she pretended.
"You were saying?" Her voice was steady. She lifted her chin, and the challenge in her eyes was a dare I couldn't refuse.
I stepped forward. One step. Two. My body moved before my mind caught up, and I stopped inches from her, close enough to feel the heat rising off her skin. My hand lifted, hovered over her waist, not quite touching, and she held her breath.
"I remember," I said, and my voice came out a rasp I barely recognized. "I remember every curve. Every sound you made. The way you said my name when you—" I stopped, because my throat was too tight. "I remember, Lucy."
Her jaw tightened. Her chin trembled once, then stilled. And she didn't pull away.
I dropped to my knees.
The carpet caught me hard, a shock through my knees that I barely registered.
My hands found her hips—bare skin, warm, the dip of her waist under my thumbs—and I looked up at her.
She was still standing there, arms at her sides, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her glasses caught the amber light, and I could see the pulse beating in her throat.
My mouth found the lace edge of her underwear. A strip of white against her skin, the fabric damp already—I could smell her, could taste the heat of her through the cotton. I pressed my lips there, just above the waistband, and she inhaled sharply, a sound that cut through the quiet like glass.
I slid my hands around to the small of her back, fingers curling into the lace, and I pulled her closer—not hard, not rough, enough to feel her against my mouth.
I breathed her in, let my lips part, let the tip of my tongue trace the edge of the fabric. She tasted like salt and skin and something else, something that made my cock ache against the seam of my jeans.
Her hands found my hair. Her fingers curled into the messy blond strands, not pulling, not pushing—just holding on, like she needed something to anchor herself. Her knuckles brushed my scalp, and I felt her tremble, felt the tiny quiver that ran through her thighs.
"Buzz." Her voice broke on the nickname, cracked in a way she didn't mean it to. She swallowed, and I felt the movement in the way her stomach tightened under my hands. "This doesn't—"
I looked up at her, my mouth still pressed against the lace, and the question in my eyes was the only answer I gave. Her jaw tightened again, but her fingers tightened in my hair, and she didn't finish the sentence.
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down.
Slowly. Deliberately. The fabric peeled away from her skin, damp and warm, and I watched as she stepped out of them, one foot, then the other.
They pooled at her ankles, and I didn't look away from her face—not until she was bare, standing in front of me with nothing but her glasses and her flushed skin.
I lowered my mouth to her. Her taste consumed me—her, the salt of her, the slick heat that made my tongue ache—and I heard her breath catch, heard the tiny sound she made in the back of her throat.
I parted her with my tongue, finding her clit, and she gasped—a sharp, broken sound that she tried to swallow but couldn't.
My hands found her hips again, gripping hard enough to leave marks, and I lost myself in the taste of her, in the way she trembled above me, in the wet heat of her against my mouth.
She was still holding my hair, and her grip tightened, and I knew she was fighting every instinct to let go.
But she didn't pull away. She didn't tell me to stop. And that was all I needed.
I rose to my knees, and the movement broke the seal of her against me, leaving me cold and aching for the taste I'd only just begun to remember.
But the hunger in my chest had shifted—turned sharp and primal, a thing that had been caged behind charm and deflection and the easy grin for years, and it was clawing its way out now.
Her eyes were dark behind the tortoiseshell, watching me, and I saw the flicker of uncertainty cross her face before she steadied it, before she lifted her chin in that familiar challenge.
I reached for the button of my jeans. The metal gave with a soft click, and the sound of the zipper was loud in the quiet room, loud enough that I saw her throat move as she swallowed.
My cock sprang free, hard and aching against my stomach, the tip already slick with a bead of pre-cum that caught the amber light.
I wrapped my hand around the base, a slow, deliberate drag of my palm up the shaft, and I watched her watch me—the way her eyes dropped, the way her lips parted around a breath she didn't mean to let out.
The taste of her was still on my tongue, salt and musk and the raw truth of her arousal.