Page 11

Chapter 11

Fantasia

T he motel Piers finds for us is the single most disgusting place I’ve ever been in my life- worse even than the diner we just left, if that’s possible. The wallpaper is peeling in jagged strips, revealing water-stained drywall beneath, and the faded pattern is mottled with brownish stains I don’t want to identify. Thin, grimy curtains hang limp over the window, allowing streaks of hazy light to illuminate dust particles swirling through the stale air.

A damp, musty smell clings to the air, undercut by a sickly-sweet scent, as if someone tried- and failed- to mask the odor. There’s a suspicious stain spreading across the ceiling, the water damage forming dark, swollen bubbles that look ready to burst.

In the bathroom, mildew curls around the sink’s drain in fuzzy green-black patches, and the mirror above it is fogged with age, streaked with fingerprints and water spots. A single dim bulb flickers overhead, buzzing faintly like it’s struggling to stay alive. I feel dirtier just standing here.

“Cozy,” Piers remarks as he locks the flimsy door behind us. At least there is a lock, though I can’t imagine it’ll hold up under even a stern glare.

Speaking of glares, I fix my best one at him. “You grew up in an orphanage. Forgive me if I find your taste lacking.”

He responds with his new sharp-edged grin. “I saw what you did with Wesley Hall when you had it. You didn’t even finish updating the wiring.”

I turn my back on him, but the room is too small to escape him and I don’t want to spend time in the bathroom unless I absolutely have to. There’s no safety outside, no peace in here. My own body feels like a cage around my soul, tightening more and more until I want to scream.

“A hot shower might help,” Piers says behind me.

I shudder. There’s still blood smudged and dried all over me despite his best efforts, covered mostly by my clothes but still there. Not to mention the feeling of Barnes and Armstrong’s hands on my body. And before that I sat through a ten hour commercial flight. Even so-

“I’m not touching any surface in that bathroom.”

I practically hear his eyes roll. “You’re not lying in this bed without getting cleaned off.”

“You’ll have to drag me in there yourself then,” I snap, whirling on him.

Piers’s eyebrows raise, and I realize what I’ve said too late. “If you insist,” he shrugs, before snatching me by the shoulders and walking me straight into the tiny bathroom. Before I can even think to start struggling, he has the door closed and is bodily blocking it. I cross my arms over my chest, and he does the same.

“What now, hm?” I demand.

Piers shrugs. “Well, I assumed you knew how to shower-”

“You ass-”

“You can strip down, or I’ll do it for you. Either way works for me. But you’re not leaving until you get cleaned off.”

My whole face feels too hot to be healthy. My thoughts go back to the whisper of his breath on my cheek, the feeling of the wall against my back and his body penning me in. Even when his hands were sponging blood off my nearly naked back and my side was freshly stitched, I wanted him to keep touching me.

What would it be like for his hands to take the clothes off my body? Gentle, I think, based on my limited past experience. Exhilarating, surely.

And, more than anything, forbidden. By my brother. By the Ashwoods who would prefer I be dead. By anyone in Piers’s household who’d rather he be back where he belongs in Wesley Hall than here with me. And he will go back. Sooner rather than later. I’ll make sure of that.

But until then… I could indulge just once in a kindness he’s desperate to show me.

Who’s taking the mile now ?

I don’t know what Piers sees in my face, but I do see his pupils expand. His gaze wanders away from my face, down my body, and my skin comes alive wherever it touches me. He chews his bottom lip, as if fighting the urge to taste me.

Then he turns and leaves the bathroom, closing the door with a snap behind him.

I’m left feeling cold and shocked, but before that shock can curdle into rage, Piers returns with a plastic bag in his hands. He must’ve taken it from the basket left for us to put our dirty clothes into- just in case we trusted this dubious place to wash them for us. He closes himself into the bathroom with me again, his eyes focused on folding the plastic into a narrow strip. I watch, confused and fascinated, until I realize it’s meant to keep my stitches from getting wet. Once the bag is folded, Piers turns to me.

I still haven’t begun to undress, and his eyes are still dark with the desire to do it himself.

“Well?” he asks. “Are you going to be difficult then?”

My breath feels trapped in my chest. “When have I ever not been?”

It takes a single step to bring us chest to chest, the bathroom is so small. “You’ll only hurt yourself if you fight what’s good for you.” He says it like a warning, but there’s a spark in his eyes that promises he won’t let that happen.

“I’m always hurting myself,” I tell him, and watch some of his amusement fade. “This is nothing new.”

Piers’s hands rest on my shoulders, and I expect him to push me up against the wall, but he turns me around instead. I suck in a breath as he drags his palms down my back to the hem of my shirt, then back up again, baring my skin to the chill air. Lifting my arms over my head sends pain through my side, but I don’t wince as Piers pulls my shirt off.

I welcome it instead.

Piers’s breath tickles the back of my ear, his fingertips skating over my hips. “Brace yourself,” he tells me, before wrapping the chilly folded plastic around my waist. I flinch, but don’t pull away as he ties it off behind me like a sash.

I nearly do jerk away when Piers reaches around the front of me and unzips my pants. My breath catches and he pauses. When I turn my head, my lips brush against his cheekbone. Am I trembling, or is it him? Perhaps we’re both being overwhelmed. And I’m not even naked yet.

“How can you even stand to touch me?” I whisper.

Piers hooks his fingers under the waistband of my pants and pushes them down. I step out of the pile of fabric left on the floor, and freeze again when I feel his touch tease the clasp of my bra. His knuckles whisper against my skin, and my heart clenches at their tenderness.

Just once. I’m only letting this happen once. It’s fine if it happens once and never again.

I let my bra fall among my abandoned pants. But instead of taking off my underwear as well, Piers steps away. The water turns on in the shower, shockingly loud in the tense stillness. I look back over my shoulder and find Piers stripping in a utilitarian way, reaching out to test the water with his fingertips in between removing his shirt and unbuckling his belt. I watch the muscles flex in his back, watch the freckles shift across his shoulders and the back of his neck.

I feel two years younger, observing him without him observing me, free to feel girlish curiosity alongside mature hunger. But when Piers turns back to me, I’m too slow to look away and he catches me. Our eyes meet, and then I can’t look away at all, because his hunger is matching mine.

I haven’t seen his bare chest and stomach since he was in his mid twenties and we went on holiday to an Italian beach. To a sixteen year old me, his body looked like it belonged to a supermodel, with the brilliant smile and windswept hair and gorgeous green eyes to match. Now that he’s thirty, everything about him is broader, more solid, more grounded-

Oh god. How long have I been waiting for something like this to happen? How can I remember so many points throughout my life when I imagined seeing Piers naked for the first time?

And why is it finally happening now that it’s absolutely the worst possible scenario for both of us?

Piers keeps his eyes on me when he shrugs out of his pants, leaving him in nothing but boxers. I swallow, but my throat goes dry when he shucks those off as well.

He’s already erect, and not even remotely interested in hiding it. He’s also very intentionally left me to remove my own underwear. Perhaps he’d been willing to pressure me into taking a shower before, but now that we’re here, he wants me to choose.

So I do, slipping off my underwear and turning to face him fully. Piers’s green eyes, almost black from the size of his pupils, examine every inch of me, lighting fires in their wake. Then he jerks his chin at the shower.

“Go on, then.”

I step past him, skin tingling under his gaze. Even though the water in the shower is warm, it pales in comparison to the blush suffusing my entire body. And when Piers steps through the curtain after me, my internal temperature rises even higher.

This shower is very, very small.

If Piers’s excuse for climbing in with me is still to help me with my shower, it’s a poor one. His head and shoulders block the weak jet of water entirely. But if I’m in front of him, I can’t stand far enough back to avoid being hit full in the face by the water. I watch his lips twist in a ghost of a smile, and wonder if he’s realizing this too.

“We’ll get a better room next time,” he says.

“There’s not going to be a next time,” I inform him, but his smile doesn’t disappear.

“Sounds like I’ve got a lot to prove.”

I open my mouth to retort again, but he doesn’t let me. We’re already inches apart- it takes nothing to close that distance and press his lips softly into mine. Especially when I tilt my face up to meet his.

He’s even more tender than I came to expect, no doubt trying to spare me any pain from the bruise on my face. The tip of his tongue touches my lower lip, coaxing, testing, teasing. I part my lips, and with a moan he claims my mouth. His taste, his smell, his power overwhelms me, and I don’t care that I’m drowning.

Our kiss from before was nothing compared to this. Can I even call it a kiss, when he was just trying to get my attention? This is a kiss. More than a kiss.

It’s a realization of my wildest girlish fantasies.

I try to wrap my arms around his neck, but he takes hold of my wrists and lowers them firmly so I don’t stretch my side. My palms flatten on his broad chest, hot even against my too warm skin, but he’s already pulling away. Breaking our kiss.

I whimper when our lips part, then gasp when he drags them over the unmarked side of my jaw and down my neck instead. Warm water hits my skin as Piers bends down, trailing kisses down my torso. His feet and knees squeak over the acrylic surface of the tub as he kneels. His hands squeeze my hips. I suck in a breath that’s almost painful as his lips brush across the tender skin of my abdomen. Lower. Lower .

When he sucks my clit into his mouth, I have to grit my teeth to stifle a moan. I have no idea what my face looks like while I’m being taken apart by this overwhelming intimacy, so I hide it in my hands while Piers licks me up and down. His hands clench around my thighs, and he presses his face more firmly against me. Thrusts his tongue into me. I choke on a sob, my legs trembling. His growl vibrates through my bones as he feasts.

One of his hands releases my thigh, and he pulls his tongue free just to drag it up my clit once again. The kiss he plants there sends a shiver through my whole body. This time, I can’t muffle my cry when his first two fingers circle the rim of me, and then plunge inside.

Between Piers’s sucking mouth and his thrusting fingers, I’m losing my grip on reality. I don’t feel pain anymore. I barely even feel the water drumming against my skin. All I’m aware of is the growing tension in between my legs, the way my muscles are clenching around Piers’s fingers.

I’m not prepared for this to get more intense. I don’t know what I’ll do when the pressure releases-

And when it does, I shatter . Pleasure rolls up my spine and down my limbs. I let my head fall back against the tiled wall, because I can’t keep myself upright without help now. Still, the more I slump, the more it feels like I’m falling upward . My hands are no longer hiding my face. No, they’re clutching at Piers’s hair, pressing him deeper, deeper between my legs, like his mouth and his fingers are my only anchors to this reality. When the sensation finally eases, I’m left limp, but still he holds me up.

Piers pulls his fingers free with one last drag over my clit. I expect him to stand, to move away, but instead he lets his forehead rest just below my belly button. I feel his ragged breath on my too-tender skin, feel every tremble that goes through his body. Slowly, I realize that he’s pleasuring himself now, riding the high of my orgasm and transmuting it into his own. His free hand is still squeezing my thigh. My fingers are still tangled in his hair. His face presses into my abdomen, his teeth scraping my skin-

His breath stops hard when he finally cums at my feet, then returns in a panting moan. My heart is soaring, but all too quickly it plummets. I’m not prepared for him to pull away. It doesn’t matter that we’re both already sated, that this was a bad idea to begin with, that it can never happen again. I’m desperate for him to linger.

But he doesn’t. He gets to his feet, sheltering me from the shower spray once again. His kiss barely brushes my forehead, and his words are a puff of warm air against my skin, there and gone.

“Don’t forget to wash your hair,” he murmurs, before climbing out of the shower and leaving me dazed.