Best-Worst Way

The sky outside the windows was still the bruised purple of pre-dawn when I woke up.

His arm was heavy across my waist, his breath slow and even against the back of my neck. His body heat had seeped into every inch of me during the night, turning the sheets into a cocoon I didn’t want to leave. I lay there for a long minute, listening to the ocean breathe beyond the open glass doors, feeling the steady thump of his heart against my spine. 

My skin still hummed from him. Every place he’d touched, my hips, my breasts, the sensitive skin behind my ears, felt marked, claimed, alive in a way that made my chest ache.

I shifted carefully, testing the soreness between my thighs. God. Yes. There it was. A delicious, tender ache that reminded me exactly how many times he’d taken me apart and put me back together. Once on the beach, once, maybe twice? in this bed. I’d lost count somewhere around the third orgasm, when the world had narrowed to his mouth on my skin and the sound of my own broken moans.

I’d never felt anything like it. Not even close.

With Chad, sex had been… functional. Comfortable. Predictable. Lights off, missionary, a quick kiss afterward like checking a box. This? This had been a wildfire. Hunger. The kind of sex that felt like the first time all over again, raw, reverent, terrifyingly intimate.

 Every thrust, every whispered curse, every time he’d looked into my eyes like he was seeing straight through to the parts of me I’d hidden even from myself… it had cracked something open inside me.

And that terrified me more than anything.

I slipped out from under his arm, slow and silent, holding my breath as he stirred, then settled again. My heart was hammered. I padded barefoot across the cool tile floor, moonlight painting silver stripes across the room. His black linen shirt lay crumpled on the floor like a casualty of war. I picked it up, brought it to my face. It smelled like him, dark rum, salt, clean male skin, a hint of expensive cologne that had driven me crazy at the bar. I slid it on without thinking. 

The sleeves swallowed my hands, the hem hit mid-thigh. It felt like wearing a piece of him.

I gathered my things quickly: bikini bottoms, cover-up, sandals. My anklet was missing, I must’ve lost it on the beach, but I didn’t have time to search. Dawn was creeping closer. I couldn’t be here when he woke up. We’d made no promises. No names. No tomorrow. That was the deal. I needed to keep it that way before I did something stupid like crawl back into bed and beg him to let me stay.

The door clicked shut behind me with the softest snick.

The resort was enormous, winding paths lined with hibiscus and torch-lit palms, villas scattered like jewels along the cove. 

I walked fast, heart racing, the hem of his shirt brushing my thighs with every step. The air was cooler now, carrying the promise of morning. My legs felt shaky, not just from the walk but from the memory of him inside me, the way he’d growled my name, no, wait. He hadn’t said my name. Neither of us had. And yet I’d felt known. Seen. Wanted in a way that made my throat tight.

I finally found our bungalow after two wrong turns and a near-miss with a night gardener who gave me a very polite, very knowing smile. I slipped inside, the door sighing closed behind me.

Mia was sprawled across the king bed like she’d fought it and lost, one leg hanging off the edge, hair a wild halo on the pillow. The room smelled like coconut sunscreen and her favorite vanilla perfume. She didn’t stir as I crawled in beside her, pulling the sheet over both of us.

I curled onto my side, facing the window where the first blush of pink was bleeding into the sky. My body throbbed in the best-worst way. Every shift of my hips reminded me of him, how deep he’d gone, how perfectly he’d fit, how he’d held me like I was something precious and dangerous at the same time.

My hand drifted between my thighs before I could stop it. Just the lightest touch sent a fresh wave of heat through me. I bit my lip, remembering the way he’d looked when he came, head thrown back, jaw clenched, a low, broken sound that had made me clench around him harder. I could still feel the warmth of him spilling inside me the second time. No barriers. Just skin and need and reckless trust.

I pressed my thighs together, trying to ease the ache, but it only made it worse. My nipples tightened against the soft linen of his shirt. I wanted him again. Right now. I wanted to wake him up with my mouth, wanted to ride him slow and deep until we both shattered again.

Stop it, Lila.

I yanked my hand away, rolling onto my back, staring at the ceiling fan.

This was dangerous.

I wasn’t supposed to feel this much. Not after Chad.

Four years. Four years of building a life with someone I thought was forever. I’d imagined the wedding, the house, the kids. I’d worn his ring. I’d believed every promise he whispered in the dark.

Then one Tuesday night, during what was supposed to be our engagement announcement livestream, three hundred thousand viewers, he’d looked straight into my eye, calm as death, and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, Lila.”

The comments had exploded. The memes had started within minutes. “Viral Dump Girl.” “Live-Streamed Heartbreak.” I’d gone from fiancée to punchline in under sixty seconds.

Three months later, I still woke up some nights with the echo of his voice in my head.

I wasn’t ready.

I couldn’t be.

This stranger, this beautiful, dangerous man whose name I didn’t even know, had given me one perfect, reckless night. That was all it was supposed to be. A story I’d tell Mia over coffee in the morning. 

Not something that made my heart stutter every time I remembered the way he’d kissed me like he was starving.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the images away. His midnight eyes. The scar above his brow. The way his voice had dropped to gravel when he said, “Come for me.” The feel of his hands pinning mine above my head, bodies slick with sweat and moonlight.

My pulse was racing again. My skin felt too tight.

I rolled toward Mia, pressing my face into the pillow to muffle the frustrated sound that escaped me.

This wasn’t me. I didn’t do this. I didn’t fall for strangers. I didn’t let myself want more than one night.

But God help me, I did.

I wanted his mouth again. His hands. The way he’d looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.

And that scared me more than Chad’s betrayal ever had.

Because if a man I didn’t even know could make me feel this alive, this seen, this wanted… what would happen if I let myself hope again?

I wasn’t ready to open that door.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

The first real light of dawn slipped through the curtains, painting the room gold.

I closed my eyes, still wearing his shirt, still aching for him, and told myself it was just one night.

Just one night.

But deep down, in the quiet spaces where truth hides, I wasn’t sure I believed it.