LOGINThe hotel was old money and dark wood and smelled of lilies, and my mother had been planning this night in her head for weeks.The suite was on the top floor, corner, with a balcony that looked out over the river and a bed so wide it looked like a stage. My room was the one next door — the door between them thin, the wall between them thinner, and Reina had booked it that way on purpose, she said, "so you're close," and I had smiled and said *of course* and thought about Julian the whole time.The eve of the wedding, and the whole floor belonged to us. Family, a few friends, the last stragglers of the preparations. My mother was in her suite with two of her friends and a bottle of something, laughing the way she laughed now — easily, often, like a woman who'd finally put something heavy down. I heard her through the wall. I heard everything through the wall.I sat on my bed in a slip with Mira's lighter in my hand and clicked it once, twice, watching the flame come and go.Julian had
SYLVANA Mara was still tangled in the sheets behind me when the knock came again, and I had the presence of mind to grab my shorts off the floor before I opened it, one leg in, hopping, the other still bare.The hallway was dim and cold and smelled of old carpet. And there she was.Mira. She was leaning against the wall opposite my door like she'd been there a while, like she owned the corridor — one shoulder to the plaster, arms folded, head tilted. A long coat over what looked like nothing but a slip, dark hair loose and damp at the ends, and that same slow, unhurried smile from the parking lot, the one that made me feel she could see straight through my clothes.She had the lighter in her hand. She always had the lighter. A slim silver thing, turning it over between her fingers, thumb on the wheel, not lighting it. Just moving it. Letting me watch her move it."Morning," she said.“It’s five in the freaking morning Mira." I said as I pretended to rub my eyes."You're flushed.""I
SYLVANAFor a long time neither of us moved.I lay on my side in the dark with Mara's arm draped over my waist and her forehead pressed between my shoulder blades, and I could feel her heartbeat through my own back, fast and uneven, nothing like the slow breathing of someone asleep. She'd been awake the whole time. She'd come over on purpose."Mara," I whispered."Mm.""Are you awake?"A pause. Then, muffled against my shirt: "No."I laughed quietly. "Your heart's going like you ran here.""Because you're warm." She paused…"Because it's cold.""It's not cold."She didn't answer that. Her arm tightened a fraction, and I felt her shift closer, her body lining up along my back, her knees tucking in behind mine. In the dark she smelled of soap and something soft and floral — her hair, her skin, the warmth of her."You've been watching me," I said."Everyone watches you.""That's not what I asked."She went quiet and slowly whispered "Since the day you moved in."I turned over to face her,
SYLVANAThe knock came again, sharper this time, and Julian made a low sound of irritation against my hair, his hips still buried deep, still refusing to move. "Ignore it.""She won't go away," I whispered, and I don't know how I knew that, except that the woman outside had the patient, unhurried look of someone who had decided to be a problem and was enjoying it.Julian swore under his breath. He shifted me on his lap, still inside me, and cracked the window a hand's width. Cold air rushed in, and with it her voice — low, easy, amused. "Well. Julian.""Mira."She looked past him and found me, and her smile widened by slow degrees. Older than me by a few years, dark hair swept back, red lipstick, a long grey coat that fit like it had been tailored onto her specifically. She looked at me in without any hurry at all — my swollen mouth, my skirt bunched at my waist, the flush I could feel burning my cheeks."You're busy," she said."I'm always busy.""You're never *this* busy." Her eyes
SYLVANAThe screen went dark and I set the phone down beside me, the last of its glow fading until there was nothing left in the room but a soft gray hush and the sound of my own breathing. My body was still wound tight, still slick and swollen and empty, and I told myself I could be patient — that the hours between now and the moment I saw him again were nothing, that I knew how to wait. I was lying. I had never once known how to wait for anything Julian gave me, and he had made very sure of it.So I reached for the dildo one final time and worked it slow and unhurried, in and out, until the sharpest edge of the ache dulled into something heavier and warmer, something I could carry with me. Only then did I let myself go still. I turned off the lamp and pulled the blanket up to my chin, and beneath me the house settled into its night sounds — the tick of the radiator, my mother's jazz still murmuring up through the floorboards — and I let all of it rock me down into the dark.Sleep ca
SYLVANAI couldn't speak. His fingers were moving in that devastating rhythm that made my thoughts scatter, my knees weak, my entire existence narrow to the place where he touched me. The library was still active around us, students passing by the end of the aisle, the soft shuffle of footsteps, the occasional cough or whispered conversation—but Julian had me pinned between the bookshelves, hidden in the shadows.“I said I missed you” he repeated, kissing my neck slowly…I swallowed hard as I felt his dick throbbing in his trousers then he said "Answer me," he commanded, his teeth grazing my earlobe, biting down just hard enough to make me gasp. His fingers thrust deeper, curling against that spot that made my vision blur. "Are you still wet for me?""Yes," I choked out, my hands gripping his shoulders, my nails digging into his jacket. "God, yes, Julian, I've been wet since I left your office. I can't—I can't think about anything else—""Good girl."He kept his fingers moving, slow a







