Archive of Our Own

She came back from the funeral with the ghost of a dead boyfriend and bruises the shape of fingerprints on her hips. 

Grief was strange. 

She’d always heard people describe it like a weight: heavy, hard, and then as time passed, lighter. Easier to bear. 

But it wasn’t really like that. Not for her, at least.

Weights were simple. You could put them down. You could move them from one hand to the other. Weights helped you make progress – you got stronger and stronger until it became muscle memory, the path from your synapses to your muscles and tendons fortified each time. 

This wasn’t like that. 

This couldn’t be put down. It was everywhere, all the time. 

Under her skin. In the hollows below her eyes. Caked beneath her fingernails as she tried to claw her way out. 

It was always there, like an old wound that never got the chance to heal right, and then sometimes, it flared up in flashes, vicious and bright. A surge of fresh blood rushing to the surface.

JJ's laugh. His hands. The sound of his voice saying her name.

Then it would pass. Nothing left but the ache. 

That was the part she couldn't understand. How a person could occupy so much of the world and then, suddenly, none of it. 

But thinking about it didn’t help her understand. 

So, she stopped thinking about it. Or tried to, at least.

Don't.

The word became instinct.

Don't think about Morocco.

Don't think about the blood.

Don't think about his face. The way it’d gone pale as she cried for help, wailing like a baby for their friends.

Don't think about the last time he’d kissed her. Touched her. Had been inside her.

Don't think about the fact that there would never be another time.

Yeah. 

Especially that.

But she could survive almost anything if she kept it moving. 

Don't stop.

Don't sleep.

Don't look at photographs.

Don't open old messages.

Don't say his name unless someone else says it first.

Even with all her rules, the flashes still happened – the wound acting up, ragged flesh that had tried to stitch itself together again and failed.

Sometimes it happened in the grocery store, sometimes in the shower. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation when someone laughed in a way that sounded a little like him.

Once, she was brushing her teeth when she suddenly had to grip the porcelain sink because her knees stopped working. She’d keeled over, breathless and weak.

Don’t.

She forced herself to straighten, staring at herself in the mirror. She spit into the sink, rinsed her mouth, and wiped her lips with the towel until they bled. 

She didn't cry – hadn’t, actually, since they’d buried him in the sand. If she started, she wasn't sure when it would end.

It was the worst at night. It would gather in the corners of her bedroom, loom over the empty side of their bed. An awful, enormous thing. Terrifying to behold.

Don’t.

She would close her eyes. Hold her breath.

And reach for anything that could make her feel something else.

The first time happened too soon. It’s not hard for her to admit that to herself, because truthfully, any time would have been too soon with him. 

She’s sure JJ was rolling in his grave the first night she fucked Rafe. 

She knew, and she did it anyway. The grotesqueness of the choice is what made her feel better. An ugly decision to match her ugly insides that are disfigured, or maimed, or otherwise changed by the loss. 

She needed something that hurt. 

And Rafe, being Rafe, recognized what she was asking for. He was a thing she could blame. He was used to it, after all.

So Kie let herself be selfish. Let herself be angry.

Grief had made everything feel too soft around the edges, like the world had lost its shape. JJ was gone, and everyone kept telling her that she would eventually learn how to carry the weight of it.

She didn't fucking want to carry anything.

She wanted something heavy enough to crush her for a little while.

Rafe was heavy.

Rafe was angry.

Rafe was there.

She’d find him at night because nighttime was when everything became agonizing.

During the day, there were people. There were things to do. Notifications pinging. Doors opening. Music playing, food being made. Sarah asking if she wanted anything. Pope and Cleo laughing on the other side of the wall. John B pretending he wasn't watching her.

But at night, there was only the empty space JJ had left behind – and Rafe.

Two choices.

The second was bad.

But the first was unbearable. 

The first time went like this. 

She showed up on his porch late one night with her arms folded tightly across her chest, glaring at him when he opened the door like she couldn’t stand him. Like it wasn’t her who’d driven across town to be there. 

He looked different. Handsome, like always – the line of his jaw sharp, his blue eyes dark in the shadows of his porch. But there was something ruined around the edges of him, something she recognized because it’s what she saw when she looked in the mirror. 

She could see the flickering of a television screen from around the corner, the light bouncing off the wall from his living room. "Are you alone?" she asked, looking over his broad shoulder into the house – a question as loaded as a chambered gun. 

Are you alone? 

Did you get left behind? 

Like me?

That’s not really how she’d meant it, though. 

She’d only meant to ask if the pretty bartender from the country club was there, the one he’d put Sarah’s mother’s ring on for all of ten minutes before it had crashed and burned. 

His mouth tightened. "Yeah. Alone."

Kiara nodded. She figured as much. Assumed that was the reason he looked the way he did.

She wasn’t the only one who’d left Essaouira having lost something important. 

Neither of them said anything after that, but eventually, he shifted – stepped back from the door, like he was making room for her to come in.

So she went inside.

She wishes she could say she doesn’t remember who touched who first, but that would be a bold-faced lie. 

Rafe stopped her once that first night – just once – pulling back his mouth from her lips even as she chased after him.

His forehead rested against hers, his breathing uneven. He was hard, pressed into the soft curve of her lower stomach.

"Kie…"

She knew what he was asking, even though he hadn’t. 

She shook her head. 

"Don't,” she breathed. 

And Rafe – well, Rafe’s not the guy he used to be, sure, but he’s not noble enough to stop her when she leaned in again. 

That’s how she remembers it afterward. Not exactly a beginning, but a surrender. 

A hand finding hers. 

A lamp flicking off.

The rest disappearing into darkness.

She had thought Rafe would be easy because Rafe was already complicated.

She made it through the first thirty minutes of the funeral.

Well – memorial. 

Funerals necessitated a body. They’d left JJ’s in the sand outside Morocco. 

Anyway.

Thirty minutes was impressive, Kiara thought, considering she'd spent most of them staring at the photograph they'd put up on the display easel next to the flowers.

His smile felt like a knife in her stomach, but she couldn’t look away. How could she leave JJ alone in his suffering? She needed to suffer, too. So she kept staring at the photo, JJ frozen forever with that crooked grin on his face – her fingertip pressing a metaphorical bruise until the blood vessels broke open again. 

She lasted until John B stood in front of the crowd to tell a story. 

“Most of you – well, probably all of you,” – John B glanced up with a small smile – “know that JJ and the rest of us spent a month washed up on a remote island a while back. JJ joked that we’d lucked out – had proactively won Three Truths and a Lie for the rest of our lives.” 

Kie heard Sarah make a sound between a sniffle and laugh next to her in the pew. 

John B cleared his throat. “The bunch of us have a lifetime of stories from Poguelandia, as we called it.” This drew a few good-natured chuckles from the crowd. “But one of my personal favorites is when JJ accepted a dare to jump from the three-story high cliff into the water. As Pope said at the time… ‘Highly dangerous, zero reward.’ So, of course J did it.” 

It was a good story. One of the best. Kie knew it – she was there. She was the one who dared him, after all. 

“That’s just the kind of guy he was,” John B continued. “Stupid things have good outcomes all the time, he used to say. It was his motto.”

Everyone laughed, even Kie – a small, broken sound that barely made it past her throat. 

Sarah reached out and put her hand on Kiara’s knee, and Kie turned her face away. 

Don't.

Don't look at me.

Don't say it.

John B’s voice continued, but she didn’t care to make out the words anymore. She let her eyes wander toward the back of the church, traveling aimlessly over the audience as they listened.

Her gaze landed on Rafe.

He was standing several rows behind them against the wall, but he wasn’t watching John B like everyone else. 

He was watching her. 

And the thing was, he wasn’t watching her with pity, with the careful, kid-gloved consideration everyone else in her life was. 

Flashes of the other night flickered through her mind. 

Darkness.

Rafe’s face cut into pieces by the moonlight filtering in through his bedroom blinds.

His hand at the back of her neck.

The murmur of his voice pressed against her hair.

The roughness of his jaw beneath her palm.

Her breath caught in her throat like a butterfly in a net.

His eyes on hers in the dark, asking without asking.

The room seemed to tilt.

She stood quickly, and the pew creaked beneath her. She could hear Sarah saying her name. The photograph of JJ beside the altar blurred in her periphery.

Heads turned, but she didn’t care. She thought she maybe heard John B’s voice falter, but she didn’t bother checking. 

Her feet carried her down the aisle, picking up speed with each step. By the time she made it out the open door into the muggy, oppressive heat, she was running.

She didn’t have a destination in mind, only distance. Her eyes caught on the path that led past the side of the building towards the dunes and followed it, sand slipping into the sensible black heels her mother had lent her. Kiara kicked them off her feet and kept moving. 

She made it pretty far before her legs gave out. When they did, she sat in the sand and pressed both hands over her face. Her cheeks were wet – that was a surprise, actually. She thought she’d wrung them all out already, but it was nice to see her body had more to spare. 

Going back was probably the right thing to do. It was selfish to leave, selfish to make her friends face it alone. Sarah had called for her, reached for her. Was probably worried about her.

Yes, going back was the right thing to do.

But she didn’t really care about the right thing right now. 

The right thing was for JJ to have come back to Kildare, happy and alive. The right thing was for him to have not died in her arms after his own fucking father sank a knife into his stomach. 

The right thing was probably not sleeping with Rafe the night before last. 

But here she was – ass in the sand and tears on her face. A dead boyfriend and a hickey hidden beneath a layer of makeup from the guy who’d dug his grave. 

She folded forward and rested her face on her knees. 

She didn't hear his footsteps until he was close enough to crouch beside her. Even when she became aware of his presence, she didn’t lift her head to acknowledge him. 

"Kie."

She shook her head, her eyes still closed. "Go away."

Rafe sat down beside her instead.

For a while, he said nothing. Eventually, she lifted her head, but neither of them spoke. The wind curving off the dunes whipped her hair across her face, but she didn't fix it.

"I’m not going back in there," she said finally.

Rafe was looking out toward the water. "I didn’t come out here to tell you to."

"I can’t listen to them all acting like –" Her voice broke. "Like he's gone." Her throat convulsed around a swallow, fighting against the lump that had settled there.

He shifted next to her, and she could feel his eyes on her. "He is, Kie."

She shuttered her eyelids. "Don't."

"I'm sorry," he muttered. The words sounded clumsy in his mouth, like he wasn’t used to saying them.

Kiara pressed her palms against her eyes. "I don’t want to hear that from you."

"Alright."

"I mean it."

"Okay."

She let out a sound between a sniffle and a snort. "When did you become so fucking agreeable?"

"Don’t get used to it," he replied. 

They lapsed back into silence. 

After a while, Kiara looked over at him. He’d mirrored her when he sat, plopped down in the sand with his knees drawn up, his hands propped behind him. He had sand in the creases of his dark pants, and even though his slacks probably cost more than the gown Kie had worn to Midsummers two years ago, the overall effect of all of this made him look more human than she could ever recall. 

Rafe's hand rested in the sand next to her, his pinky extended out – so close she could touch him if she moved an inch and half to the right. 

She wished she could say she didn’t know what she was doing until it was already happening, but it wasn’t the truth. 

That was the thing about Rafe – even back then, at the beginning, she could always find the part of herself that wanted him.

That part was easy. That part didn't ask questions.

She shifted closer until her pinky brushed his, her knee knocking against him.

His eyes dropped briefly to the contact then dragged back up to her face. "Kie," he said, his voice not quite a warning.

Like he didn’t think it was a good idea. 

On that, they were in agreement. 

She leaned in anyway, and he didn't back away.

Her mouth found his. His lips didn’t move beneath hers for a moment. It felt like enough of a rejection that she stopped, shifting back several inches. His gaze was dark and careful as it took in her face piece by piece, and whatever he saw there made something in his resolve break.

His lips brushed hers, featherlight – but light isn’t what Kiara wanted. She pressed into him, her hands finding the fabric of his shirt and bunching it between her fingers. She heard him groan as the kiss deepened, the glide of his tongue against hers driving reason and logic and grief right out of her head. 

Climbing into his lap wasn’t a conscious decision on her part, but it was met with nothing short of approval from Rafe. The instant she was on him, he was tugging her in closer, grabbing her hips and using his grip to wedge her against him tighter. The heat of his fingertips through the thin fabric of her dress felt like a brand on her skin.

It was all scrabbling hands and seeking mouths. He sucked at the skin beneath her earlobe as she unbuttoned the top half of his shirt. When her nails scraped over his chest, he bit down on her neck, and Kie couldn’t help the way she ground into his lap. He was hard already, so hard, and she felt like she was burning from the inside out when the length of him pressed against her clothed center. 

Rafe cursed under his breath as she moved her hips in a tight circle. He fisted her hair and drew her head to the side, giving his mouth more space to explore as he kissed and licked at the sensitive dip between her neck and shoulder. Kiara dug her fingers into his arms, feeling herself grow wet and achy with unprecedented speed. 

Their breathing matched in labored pants and gasps. She was glad he was as affected as her. 

It felt like bliss, the way she was buzzing in her own skin – the relief of feeling anything other than the all-consuming heartache making it a hundred times sweeter. They were barely even doing anything, and it felt incredible.

“Rafe.” She whispered his name on a gasp, her last bits of rationality melting into a need that should’ve been embarrassing. 

“I know,” was all he said. “I’ve got you.” He pushed his hand between their bodies and drew a knuckle up the center of her until it pressed into her clit. She shuddered – even through the damp fabric of her panties, the pleasure was sugared and sharp. “Open your legs for me.”

Kiara whined at the command – his voice was dark and crisp, and she felt almost grateful at the assurance that he knew what to do, that he knew how to take care of the ache inside her.

“Shh,” he soothed, pressing his knuckle into her clit once more as she inched her thighs open wider. “I’ve got you, pretty girl.” One long finger hooked into the gusset of her underwear and gave a rough tug, and then he was touching her bare cunt. 

“Jesus, Kie,” he breathed. “So wet already. You’re unbelievable.” His throat worked as he ran his gaze over her body, lingering on the way her chest heaved before trailing further down, landing on where his fingers played with her clit. 

“Rafe – can you –? Please–”

He shushed her again with a soft sound and a firm pet against her clit, and then there was the unmistakable sound of his zipper opening. 

Kiara was vibrating with need. “Stop telling me to shh and just –”

But the air slammed out of her lungs – he’d thrust into her, the deliciousness of being filled so suddenly and thoroughly taking her breath away. He was big, something she knew from the other night, and he hadn’t been particularly gentle or slow about the way he’d shoved himself inside. The pain made the nerves in her cunt sting in the best way, her clit practically humming from the perfect agony. 

Rafe must have felt similarly. The groan he let out sounded like it was being carved from his lungs, the sound making Kiara’s toes curl with satisfaction. “Fuck,” he hissed. His wide hands found her hips again, fingertips digging into the give of her flesh as he urged her into a grinding rhythm. 

“Do you have any fucking clue how perfect you are?” he asked between his teeth. He sounded pissed about it. “Answer me, Kie.”

But she couldn’t – all she could do was close her eyes and moan. 

He tugged her hair, not enough to hurt but enough for her eyes to flutter open. “Look at me, Kiara. Look at me when I’m fucking you. I want you to know it’s me.” 

She managed to drag her eyelids open and immediately wished she hadn’t. He was so handsome, especially like this – his pupils blown so wide his eyes looked like pools of ink, the tight set of his mouth highlighting his jaw. The fact that they were both still mostly dressed with just enough uncovered for him to be inside her was adding to it, his shirt open and rumpled from when she’d hurriedly undone the top few buttons. 

It only took a handful of thrusts more and she was coming. Kiara saw stars, the orgasm was so good – lights twinkled in the furthest reaches of her brain as heat licked over her skin from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes. 

Rafe was groaning praise into her ears, filthy words that had her fluttering and clenching at him as she rode out her orgasm. She felt his hips stutter, thrusts turning sloppy, and then with a pained sound, he emptied himself into her. The way he twitched with aftershocks made her brain hazy – even as he softened, he remained deep inside. 

They caught their breath together, their bodies slack with spent pleasure. The wind was still whipping off the dunes, moving around them and bringing a welcome relief to the singed heat of her face. She could only imagine the flush on her skin, how bright her cheeks were, how mussed her hair was – she couldn’t go back into the memorial now even if she wanted to. 

She didn’t want to.

Inside, people sat remembering JJ.

And out here, for a little while, Kie didn't have to.

She saw him when she wanted to. Sometimes that was every night for a week. Sometimes she disappeared for three weeks at a time. It didn’t matter – either way, when she eventually showed up on his porch, he opened the door like he'd been expecting her.

Don’t make plans. 

Don’t ask questions.

Don’t owe each other anything.

That was the arrangement for several months.

Or it had been.

She was halfway through putting her clothes back on when he asked it.

"When am I seeing you again?"

Her fingers stopped.

It was such a stupid question to get such a reaction out of her, and yet… something in her chest tightened uncomfortably, like he'd reached inside and pulled a thread.

She looked over her shoulder. "What?"

Rafe was still sitting against the headboard, watching her. "I said, when am I seeing you again?"

Kiara couldn’t understand why he was asking. He never had before. 

"Why?" Kie asked, the word coming out slow and sluggish. Her fingers had stalled at the zipper of her shorts, but with a shake of her head, she carried on.

Rafe’s expression barely changed. "Because I asked."

"That's not an answer."

"I asked my question first.”

She tugged the sleeve of her flannel on harder than necessary. "Whenever," she said with a jerk of her shoulders, an irritated semblance of a shrug.

Rafe's jaw shifted. "Whenever?" he repeated.

"Yeah." She hoped her tone made the word sound synonymous with “Duh.”

"That's your answer?"

"What do you want me to say, Rafe?"

His tongue ran over his teeth. "Message received."

She looked up sharply. He sounded as blasé as ever, but there was something different in his voice somehow. Something that made her hackles rise. 

"You don't get to do that,” she said with a glare.

He just looked at her, eyes impassive. “Do what?”

“Act like I owe you something."

One of his brows lifted. “Oh, Kie. C’mon.” His voice was almost soothing in its patronization. “We all know you don’t owe anyone anything."

She rolled her eyes at the sarcasm. "God, you're exhausting."

"And you're predictable."

That stopped her. "What does that mean?"

Rafe shrugged, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment before finding hers again. "Nothing. Forget it." He sounded tired.

"No. Explain."

"Forget it." There was steel in his voice now.

Kiara stepped closer. "Why? You clearly have some shit to say."

His laugh was quiet. "Do I?"

She hated that. The calmness. The way he could make her feel like she'd somehow walked into a trap of her own making while he’d sat there, unbothered. 

It made her want to throttle him. 

Kiara thought he’d probably let her – that’s what he did. Took whatever she threw at him and remained unmoved. Opened the door for her without comment every time she showed up on his front porch. Never demanded an explanation when she disappeared, never asked who she'd been with. Just fucked her like he was carving a place for himself inside her, then let her leave without saying goodbye.

So accommodating. 

"You are such an asshole," she snarled.

His smile was brittle. "Yeah."

See? It was that – that fucking indifference. He was so unfazed and apathetic and it made her feel crazy.

"Why do you keep letting me come here?” She spat the question out with an intensity that surprised both of them. “Huh? If I'm so predictable, why do you keep opening the door?"

He said nothing.

"If I'm such a pain in your ass, why don't you tell me to stay gone?"

Rafe's expression changed, just barely. A flicker of something – something fleeting and indecipherable – and then it was gone.

"Why do you keep coming, Kie?" He stood from the bed abruptly, his voice suddenly much louder. Angrier. 

Something inside her thrilled at this uncommon loss of control. 

“I mean, Jesus Christ,” he continued, rubbing a hand over his head and looking away from her. “What do you want me to do? You show up here. You're not okay. You don't want to talk about it. You don't want anybody asking questions."

"Rafe –"

"You show up, and you want me to make it stop. You want me to fuck you through the mattress so you don’t have to feel, or think, or whatever it is you’re avoiding."

Her face burned. "I’ve never asked you for anything."

"No." His voice dropped. "You’re right. You don't.” He took a breath, and his next words were as smooth as a velvet-sheathed knife. “You come here. And I take care of it.”

The room went very quiet.

She looked away, biting her tongue hard enough for a well of blood to wash over it. She couldn’t argue – they both knew it was true. 

She showed up at his door and expected him to understand. 

And he did. Every time.

It wasn’t ever supposed to get that deep – she’d never meant to rely on him so much. It had started as something easy, disposable. Something she could touch and leave behind, something that didn't follow her home.

Except somehow, he’d gone from a thing to use to a place to stow her grief, her anger – a place to hide that ugly, restless thing inside her that had nowhere else to go.

Don't.

Don't make this into something it isn't.

Don't wonder why he lets you come back.

Don't wonder why he never tells you to stay.

Don't – 

It wasn’t working. Her chest was tight – she couldn't breathe around it. The taste of blood was still on her tongue. 

Kiara had no idea what else to do with the sudden, crushing pressure between her ribs, so she did what felt familiar. She closed the distance between them and practically jumped on him. He met her with equal ferocity, grabbing and lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Her thighs spread to accommodate him and they slot into each other as smoothly as a pair of puzzle pieces.

The kiss was an argument neither of them had any hope of winning. 

Distantly, Kie wondered if he could taste the blood in her mouth.

It was a new moon – the night was an inky, pitch black that even the stars weren’t penetrating. The sky felt like a heavy blanket that stretched on forever. 

Or at least, it would feel that way if his porch light wasn’t on. 

She walked up to the house, her eyes lingering on the pendant light hanging from the pitched roof of his porch. It was late, late enough that she was surprised he’d left it on. For some reason, she’d tried to resist the familiar itch under her skin that evening. She thought if she distracted herself with enough reruns of Real Housewives of Atlanta, the urge to drive over would dissipate. Instead, it had grown stronger and stronger – a craving that had become an ache she couldn’t ignore until she’d gotten in her Nissan and turned the key. 

So here she was.

Kie lifted her hand to rap her knuckles on the door, but before she could make contact, it swung open. Rafe stood there. For a moment, neither of them moved. 

“You’re late.”

Kiara’s brows creased. “For what?”

Rafe glanced down at the watch on his wrist and back up. “You just usually get here earlier.” His face didn’t give anything away as he stepped aside so she could walk into the house.

She stared at him. “You’ve… been keeping track?” 

His expression didn’t change. “Hard not to.”

Something shifted in the cage of her ribs, but she ignored it. “Well. I’m here now.” She shook off her hoodie and turned to face him.

“Yeah.” Rafe’s eyes dropped to her mouth. “You are.”

They were quiet for a beat. There was something familiar about the silence – not quite comfortable, exactly, but certainly not awkward. How could it be, after all these months?

“You gonna stare at me all night?” she finally asked.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Depends.”

“On what?”

His gaze traveled lazily down her body, dark and sticky. “What you came here for.”

Her pulse jumped in response, nerves coming alive in anticipation. She wished he wasn’t able to do that to her with four fucking words. 

Three steps forward, and she was breathing his air. Her hands found his shoulders as his palms settled at her waist, squeezing lightly, and then his lips were on her. He trailed his tongue over hers and she moaned into his mouth, letting herself settle into the pleasure.

Rafe squeezed her waist again, and it felt like a welcome anchor to her mind. 

This, she reminded herself, this is what you come here for. Just this.

His hand drifted down, sidling inside the thin cotton of her leggings. His fingers strummed over the waistband of her thong for a moment before moving lower, cupping her ass and pressing her tightly against his front. 

Kiara could feel him maneuvering her into the living room, walking her backwards towards the couch. Their lips stayed connected like neither of them could bother breaking the kiss. She could feel him growing hard between them. 

The backs of her legs met the couch and he retreated a few inches, his hand drifting up to cup her chin in his palm. The pad of his thumb brushed against her mouth. His eyes fell to stare at the way her lower lip shifted with the pressure of his thumb, and Kiara wondered what it looked like from his vantage point. Were her lips red from his kiss? Was her face flushed? Were her pupils blown as wide as his?

Then, his gaze shifted, lingering over her face with an expression she couldn’t suss out. Something softer than his usual detachment, stripped of the sharper edges he always wore around everybody else. 

Fond, maybe.

The word surfaced before she could stop it, but once it did, she tried her best to push it back down. 

Fond? What the hell was wrong with her? 

No. Rafe Cameron wasn’t fond of people. 

He was looking at her because she was standing right in front of him and he wanted to fuck her. That was all.

Probably. 

She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He pursed his lips, expression morphing into something more like amusement. “You came over. So I’m looking at you.”

“Yeah, but you’re being,” – well, she wasn’t sure what he was being – “... weird,” she finished lamely. 

“You’re the one standing in my living room accusing me of looking at you wrong.”

“Because you are.”

His laugh was soft, and she hated herself a little for the warmth that moved through her at the sound. 

“Why are you laughing?” she huffed, irritated. “You’re so –” Kie stopped herself. She didn’t actually know what he was. That was the fucking problem. She swallowed before continuing. “You’re supposed to make this easy.”

He laughed again, this time sounding a little incredulous. “I do.”

She shook her head obstinately. "You don't."

"No?" Rafe cocked his head, raising his eyebrows. “How could I possibly make it easier for you, pretty girl?” There was a hint of challenge in his voice. He dragged his hand down from her chin past her throat to rest on her sternum, just above the valley between her breasts. 

“I already give you what you want,” he said quietly, his thumb brushing against her nipple as his hand drifted over to find the curve of her waist. “When you want it.” With those words, he bent closer to her. His mouth found the spot between her shoulder and neck, sucking on the skin there. 

Kiara’s pulse kicked and she wondered distantly if he could feel it flutter beneath his lips.

“I don’t ask where you go,” he continued, muttering the words into her skin. His mouth skimmed up her neck to just below her ears, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “I’m not allowed to ask when you’ll come back. Right?” 

Rafe pulled back just enough for their gazes to meet. His eyes held hers like he was waiting for a response.

She shook her head, trying to keep her brain from going completely fuzzy. 

What were they talking about again? What was the point he was trying to make?

But he must have changed his mind about requiring her answer, because suddenly he was moving, lowering himself to the polished wood floor. She watched him with hazy eyes as he knelt between her legs and pushed her until her ass rested against the wide, well-padded armrest of the couch. He pinched the waistband of her leggings and dragged them down slowly, taking her panties off with them.

“Take your shirt off,” he said. Kiara wanted to laugh, but found herself incapable. Only Rafe could give a command from his knees and still manage to make it sound intimidating. She slipped her tank over her head and dropped it to the ground next to him. 

Rafe’s palm slid down from her waist, lingering appreciatively on the naked flare of her hip for a moment before easing between her thighs. She let out a shaky exhale as he used the pad of his thumb to part her center and circle her clit. 

He didn’t waste any time. Drawing up one of her legs by the crook of her knee, he draped her thigh over his broad shoulder so she was relying on him and the armrest behind her for balance. He seared a trail of kisses up the inside of her thigh  until his mouth was on her cunt, then licked at her with a groan.

Kie arched into his mouth, one of her hands scrabbling for support on the armrest and the other digging into the shorn hair on his scalp. “Jesus, Rafe –” Her words were cut off when he used the flat of his tongue to spread her open and pushed a thick finger inside her. 

“Fuck,” he sighed, not bothering to move his mouth off her cunt. “So wet. I’ve – shit, Kie – I’ve never met another girl with a pussy this wet.” The words hummed against her clit in the best way and she sighed from the pleasure. 

When he began sucking her clit and moving his finger in tandem, she knew she was going to come embarrassingly fast – it was hurtling at her headfirst. “Oh god,” she whined, squirming in his grasp. He held her tight, not giving her an inch, and soon she shattered with a gasp. 

Her head was still floaty and light from the orgasm as he moved her so both feet rested on the ground again. He stood before planting a brief, chaste kiss against her lips, and then he gripped her waist and turned her around. With a palm planted between her shoulder blades, Rafe guided her chest forward until she was bent over the armrest of the couch, her ass up in invitation and her hips cushioned against the curve. 

There was the sound of clothing rustling, and then nothing.

“What are you –” Kiara tried to ask, but then she felt him drag the head of his cock against her and the question became superfluous. 

He answered it for her anyway. 

“I’m doing what you want, Kie. What you came here for, yeah?” He curved his body over hers, leaning over her until his mouth was next to her ear. “Making it easy for you, like you said.” His teeth found her earlobe just as he ran the tip of his cock along her center, up and down, over and over. 

The slick sounds coming from where he was teasing her were filthy. Her face flamed. She could only imagine his view. 

“Is this easy enough for you?” he murmured, just as he pushed inside.

Her mind went blank.

Don’t stop.

Don’t slow down.

More. More. More.

He worked himself in deeper with curses and pants – she was tight like this, he told her, tight and wet, and what a pretty girl she was, letting him fuck her like this. When he was buried all the way inside, when his hips were flush with the cheeks of her ass, he paused for a long moment. One of his large palms cupped her bottom, hefting the weight of it admiringly before trailing down to her cunt. His thumb dawdled there, collecting the slick that was dripping out of her, and then –

His thumb was pressing against her most sensitive hole, painting her with her own arousal. It wasn’t the first time Rafe had touched her there, but it was the first time he’d done so without prior discussion. He was taking his time, though, the press of the tip of his thumb slow – he was giving her the chance to tell him to fuck off.

She didn’t. 

He pulled his hips back, his cock retreating from her cunt about halfway. The pressure of his thumb increased against her ass. She squirmed when he slipped inside to the first knuckle, letting out a breathy exhale as the muscles in her cunt fluttered around him. 

“Good?” he asked, and Kie was glad to hear from his voice that he was affected. She was starting to lose herself in the haze that always came from fucking him, helped along by the way his thumb was now stretching her more and more. 

She nodded jerkily, and he let out a gritty laugh. “Good,” he breathed, and then he shoved his cock inside her cunt fully once again.

The moan that came out of her was practically pornographic. She could feel herself starting to drip down her thighs – god, the mess she was going to end up leaving behind on this armrest. 

He started up a rhythm, firm and steady, the angle allowing his strokes to hit the sensitive spot tucked up deep inside her over and over again until she was panting with each thrust. Meanwhile, the thick ridge of his thumb was stretching her where she was tightest, adding a buzzy sort of quality to the pleasure. 

“God, Rafe…” Her voice warbled. She wouldn’t last long, not when she was already so sensitive from the first orgasm.

“Go ahead.” His voice was rough, but he was still in control of himself. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? What you use me for?”

It was impossible to concentrate on his words. She tipped over the edge, falling headlong into pure bliss. The world melted away, coating her in a glaze that settled over her mind and made everything slow and sticky. 

He withdrew his cock, still hard. Before Kiara could protest his retreat, she felt the warm dribble of something wet in the crease of her ass where his thumb still remained wedged. He slid it out, the way now eased by what Kie could only imagine was his spit. 

Two fingers replaced his thumb, pressing into her once more. She felt relaxed and pliable from the rapid succession of her two orgasms. Her mind was starting to go to that floaty space above that she’d only ever found with Rafe. 

“Look at you,” he marveled when she took two easily. “No wonder you come here, huh? Bet no one else makes you feel like this.” 

It scared her sometimes, how it felt like he could practically read her mind. 

His other hand slid down the length of her spine, soothing her as he scissored his two fingers inside her, stretching her deliciously. His fingers retreated, and the hand on her back slid around to cup her cunt in his palm. 

“Rafe,” she breathed. He hadn’t finished inside her when she had come. She could still feel how hard he was, pressed against the curve of her bottom as he continued to play with her. “Are you –”

“Quiet, pretty girl,” he interrupted, his voice rough. The hand on her cunt pressed into her wetness, gathering her slick on his fingers and dragging it up into the crease between her cheeks. “Fuck. So wet I don’t even need any lube. Aren’t you a dream?” 

Kie let out a moan. 

If it hadn’t been obvious what his plan was before, it sure was now. She wriggled her hips against the armrest of the couch – without it supporting her weight, she’s sure she would have collapsed into a veritable puddle by now. 

His fingers slipped from her, followed by the feel of his hands falling heavily on either side of her ass, spreading her wide. She shivered as the blunt head of his cock prodded her entrance, and then he was pressing inside. 

“Breathe,” he hissed. 

Easy for you to fucking say, she wanted to hiss back – but that would require both brain power and air to spare, neither of which she had at the moment. She tried to do as he said, relaxing her muscles as best she could. 

He slipped inside another inch, and Kiara heard his stuttered breath from above.

He was so big, the fit warm and hot and all-encompassing, and he just kept pressing – a slow, insistent nudging that was catching on every nerve ending inside in the most delicious, depraved way. His fingers dug into the flesh of her hips like he needed an anchor, and she found herself pressing back into him, her back arching in invitation.

“Fucking hell,” he sighed. The sound was practically reverent in its sincerity. He pushed in further, meeting no resistance until he’d sunk in fully. When his hips rested against the plush curve of her ass, she let out a strangled sort of moan. 

“God, Kie.”  There it was again – he sounded almost devout, and it was doing something to her brain – jumbling it or maybe melting it or simply evaporating it. Heat enveloped the entire lower half of her body as he withdrew a half inch and thrust back inside. The noise he made was like nothing she’d ever heard from him before, and she found herself wanting to see if he looked as wrecked as he sounded.

She turned her face to the side, rubbing her cheek into the soft, expensive fabric of his couch cushion. Over her shoulder, she could see him standing above her, behind her, looking down at her like she was something he couldn’t quite believe. Their eyes met and he groaned, his hips twitching forward so he sank in even deeper. 

Her vision whited out – he was reaching some place inside her that had never been touched, a completely unexplored part of her body that she didn’t know existed. The air in her lungs punched out in a sharp exhale. 

“Feel good?” he asked between clenched teeth. 

As if she could answer. 

She couldn’t even close her gaping mouth and was almost positive she was drooling. She was glad she’d turned her face to watch him, though– he looked undone, his neck tight, the muscles of his shoulders and arms straining as he used her hips to shift her up and down on his cock like she was nothing more than a puppet for his pleasure. It was dizzying.

A hand slipped beneath her hips, winding its way down between her thighs to zero in on her clit. Her cunt clenched pointlessly, and she could feel a tidal wave coming – sense was receding from the shore, replaced by a fuzzy, soft cloud of pleasure. 

He was moving back and forth, his breathing becoming harder each time his hips stuttered into her. “Fuck, you look pretty like this,” he growled. 

Kiara looked back over her shoulder. His eyes were possessive as they took in every inch of her. 

“Do you know the fucked up shit I would do to keep you like this?” Rafe asked. He sounded barely human, his voice charred and dark and delicious. He punctuated the question with a slow, firm thrust. “In my house, naked and wet, underneath me? You’d be fucking disgusted if you knew, Kie. The sins I’d commit to keep you.”

She didn’t feel disgusted. 

No, she felt exhilarated. Euphoric. Free… and, inexplicably, treasured. Precious, even.

Every word out of his mouth had sent her flying higher, the empty buzzing in her brain growing louder until she wasn’t thinking in coherent sentences anymore. She was just an endless puddle of want. 

A moan forced its way past her lips as her cunt clenched on empty space once more. She couldn’t come again, surely – the previous two had wrung her out. 

Rafe let out a sharp laugh, and she realized she must have said it out loud. “‘Course you can,” he murmured. “You already do whatever the hell you want anyway.”

With that, he drove into her with a fat shove, the head of his cock brushing that ultra-sensitive spot deep inside as his fingers moved in tandem over her clit – and she came.

Time slowed to something resembling the drip of molasses, thick and slow and sweet. The orgasm felt like it lasted forever. Her muscles seized in a body-wide clench that she thought might never end, and she floated up to somewhere else – right past his vaulted ceiling and into the night sky, next to the invisible moon and unseen stars. 

There was a ragged groan, a faltering of his rhythm, and then a rough, thrilling grind of his hips as he came inside her. He bent low, covering her back with his chest as he brought his mouth to her face. His lips found her cheek, her forehead, the corner of her mouth – he pressed kisses into her skin and murmured words of praise. 

Gently, he withdrew from her. Without preamble, he scooped her into his arms, cradling her back with one arm and the crook of her knees in the other – bridal carry, her brain supplied unhelpfully – and headed up the stairs to his bathroom. 

He heated the water to just shy of scalding, exactly the way she liked it, and clipped her curls up in a pile on top of her head. In the shower, he used his soap to lather every inch of her, rubbing his thumbs into the knots in her shoulders and back until they loosened. When he’d finished he held her close, kissing her slowly and soundly, the slip of their tongues mimicking the way their bodies slid against each other in the water, and Kiara felt the sort of peace she thought had been lost to her in a dusty street in Essaouira. 

Later, once she was clean and dry and he’d coerced her into drinking a full mug of tea – lavender chamomile, her favorite, but why does he even have it here – the things he said while he was buried in her ass started surfacing from the haze. They drifted into her mind while he rubbed her back with soothing circles, the pair of them lounging in his bed.

“No wonder you come here, huh? Bet no one else makes you feel like this.” 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? What you use me for?”

“‘Course you can… you already do whatever the hell you want anyway.”

He was right, to some degree. That’s certainly how it had started – her using him. She hadn’t been afraid to be selfish because she was doing it with the most selfish man on the island. 

But things had changed at some point. She didn’t know when, but somewhere along the way, the drive to see him had stopped being borne from the impulse to push away her grief. 

It was different now. Easier than that. 

Not so ugly anymore. 

It felt like, maybe, she just liked him.

The thought was so simple it almost made her roll her eyes. 

She liked his stupid laugh and the way he watched her when he thought she wasn't looking. She liked that he never made her explain herself. She liked the quiet of his house, the weight of his hand at the back of her neck, the way he always seemed to know when she wanted him close and when she needed space.

She liked coming here.

And… she liked him.

She took a deep breath, and tried a new mantra. 

Don’t run away.

Don’t hide. 

Don’t lie to him.

Don’t lie to yourself. 

"Rafe."

He kept dragging his hand along her spine, back and forth. "Yeah?"

Her throat tightened with the truth. "This… I… I’m not here just because I'm sad."

He went still, his hand frozen halfway through its circuit. There was a long pause, and then –

"I know," he said.

She frowned. "You know?"

"Kiara," he chided. His hand slipped from her back to her shoulder. With a light pressure, he tugged her down so she was laying flat, looking up at him as he propped himself on an elbow. "You think I don't know you like me?"

Her stomach flipped and she opened her mouth to argue, but changed her mind. Why bother? 

"I don't know how to do this,” she said instead.

His eyes were soft. "Neither do I.” He cleared his throat, and she saw it then – a flicker of vulnerability. It was humanizing, seeing it on his face. “I just know I want you,” he finished.

Her breath caught. 

There it was. The thing neither of them had been saying. 

Somehow it was both less terrifying and more terrifying than she'd imagined, because now it wasn’t grief or a distraction, or something she could blame on the worst thing that had ever happened to her. 

It was something new. Something real. 

Maybe even something good. 

She leaned in. 

This time when she kissed him, there was nothing she was trying to forget.