chapter three

Lila

Ethan must have slipped out while I slept, because the sheets beside me are cold. I hate that I notice. I hate that I reach for him anyway.

The power’s still out. The only light is the orange flicker dancing over the walls, painting shadows that look like us, tangled, fighting and fucking. My body aches in places I forgot had names. Between my thighs is a sweet, brutal reminder: he was here. He took And I let him.

I sit up, sheets pooling at my waist. The lace bra is gone, i guesss it got torn off sometime after round two on the stairs, maybe round three against the hallway mirror. My skin is a map of him, his fingerprints on my hips, bite marks on my collarbone, a bruise blooming where his thumb pressed my throat. I trace one with a fingertip and feel my pulse kick, traitor that it is.

The door creaks open and Ethan steps in carrying two mugs. He’s shirtless, sweatpants riding low, the scar on his eyebrow catching the firelight. His knuckles are split. He must have found the heavy bag in the gym.

“Coffee,” he says, voice rough from sleep or moaning, I can’t tell. “Figured you’d need it.”

I take the mug and our fingers brush lightly

“You started the fire,” I say.

“You were shivering.” He sits on the edge of the bed, back to me. The muscles in his shoulders are knotted tight. “Storm took the generator. Won’t be fixed till tomorrow.”

I sip.Ths coffee is Black, no sugar. He remembers.

I hate that too.

Silence stretches between us. I watch the firelight lick over the ink on my arm, the newest piece, a raven mid-flight, wings spread over the scar where my mother’s name used to be. I added it the week I left. Ethan hasn’t seen it yet. I wonder if he’ll ask.

He doesn’t.

“Day two.”

I nod. “Twenty-eight to go.”

He turns then, eyes unreadable. “You still think this is a game you can win?”

I set the mug on the nightstand. Crawl across the bed until I’m kneeling behind him, chest to his back. My hands slide over his shoulders, down his chest, tracing the ridges of old scars,knife fight in Prague, bar brawl in Shanghai, the night he taught me how to throw a punch and I broke his rib. I press my lips to the nape of his neck.

“It’s not a game,” I whisper against his skin. “It’s a reckoning.”

He shudders then his hand comes up, covers mine, pins it over his heart. It’s racing.

Good.

I bite his shoulder, He growls, spins, and suddenly I’m on my back, wrists trapped above my head.

“Reckoning,” he repeats. “Then let’s start with the truth.”

He releases one wrist, reaches for the nightstand drawer. Pulls out the divorce papers,still unsigned by him. The pen is clipped to the top like a dagger. He holds it over my chest, tip hovering above me.

“Sign them again,” he says. “Right here. Over your heart. And I’ll let you walk out that door. No fight. No thirty nights. You win.”

The ink is cold against my skin. I don’t flinch.

“And if I don’t?”

His smile is dangerous. “Then you’re mine for the next twenty-eight days. Every breath. Every scream. Every tear. Mine to break or keep.”

I arch up, my lips brushing his. “You first.”

I snatch the pen, flip us so I’m on top. Straddle his hips, pin his wrists with one hand. The papers crumple between us. I drag the pen down his chest, leaving a black line from collarbone to navel.

“Truth for truth,” I say. “You lied about the company. I know you did. Eighty-two million doesn’t vanish overnight. You pushed me out to protect me from something. Tell me what.”

His jaw locks. “Not your concern.”

I lean down, bite his lower lip until he hisses. “Everything about you is my concern until one of us says the word.”

He bucks beneath me, trying to reverse us. I grind down hard, feel him throb against me.

“Tell me,” I breathe.

“My father’s debt. Russian money. They came collecting six months ago. I paid them with the liquidation. Told you the company was failing so you’d leave before they noticed you.”

The confession hangs between us like smoke. I sit back, pen still in my hand. The line I drew on his skin looks like a wound now.

“You let me think you didn’t want me,” I say. My voice doesn’t shake. I won’t let it. “To keep me safe from them”

He doesn’t deny it.

I throw the pen across the room. It hits the mirror, cracks the glass.

“You bastard,” I snarl. “You think I’m some fragile thing you get to hide in a tower?”

I slap him. Open palm, across the cheek. The sound cracks like ice breaking. His head snaps to the side. When he looks back, there’s blood on his lip,mine from earlier, or his now, I don’t care.

“Hit me again,” he says, voice low. “Do it.”

I do. Harder.

Then his mouth is on mine, brutal and forgiving at once. I taste blood and coffee and the particular flavor of our ruin. He flips us, pins me to the mattress, rips the sheets away. I’m naked beneath him, thighs spread, my heart hammering.

“You want the truth?” he growls against my throat. “Here’s another. I jerk off to the memory of you every night. Your mouth. The way you said my name when I made you come so hard you forgot how to breathe.”

“Prove it.” I say

He does.

He spreads me open with his thumbs, licks a stripe from entrance to clit like he’s starving. I scream into the pillow. He doesn’t let go, he sucks, bites, fingers curling inside me until I’m writhing, begging in languages I didn’t know I knew. When I come, it’s violent, thighs clamping around his head, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

He crawls up my body, lines himself up, thrusts in to the hilt in one brutal stroke. I gasp at the stretch, the burn, the perfection of it. He doesn’t move. Just holds there, buried deep, eyes locked on mine.

“Say it,” he rasps. “Say the word and I stop.”

I wrap my legs around his waist, dig my heels into his ass. “Move.”

He does. Hard and fast.

The headboard slams the wall in rhythm with the storm outside. I meet him thrust for thrust, nails in his shoulders, teeth in his neck. We’re animals. We’re prayer. We’re the end of the world.

When we come, it’s together with my name on his lips, his on mine

He collapses on top of me, breath ragged, sweat slick between us.

After a minute, he rolls off, pulls me into his side. I’m shaking. So is he.

“Day two,” I whisper into the dark.

He kisses my temple. “Twenty-eight to go.”