Chapter 96 MAYA'S ROOM

Chapter 96 MAYA'S ROOM


Maya's POV

Ava sat on the edge of my bed with her hands on her knees and I sat next to her and let her talk and didn't interrupt because that was what she needed, not advice, just someone to receive it.

She told me everything, Dominic knowing about the suppression, the timing of it, the fact that he had connected it to her mother and said nothing, and I listened and when she finished I said, "how are you actually feeling. Not the version you've already edited."

She looked at me and said, "I'm not sure if I'm more angry that he knew or more hurt that he was afraid to tell me."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," I said.

"I know," she said.

"And you kissed Adrian in the elevator," I said.

She looked at me and said, "how did you know."

"Because you walked in here looking guilty and relieved at the same time and that specific combination usually means Adrian," I said, and she almost smiled.

We sat there for a while and I made her eat something from the room service menu because she hadn't eaten since morning and we watched half an episode of something neither of us paid attention to and by ten o'clock she was lying on her side on my bed with her eyes closed and I was pretty sure she was asleep.

I sat there for a while and then my phone buzzed.

It was Darius.

He was the man from the hotel bar I'd met two nights ago, a music producer from Atlanta who was in New York for a label meeting and had sat next to me at the bar and been genuinely funny and entirely uncomplicated and had texted me once yesterday and I had not replied because things were chaotic and now he was texting again.

"Still in the city. You free?"

I looked at Ava asleep on the bed and looked at my phone and typed back: "give me twenty minutes."

I changed into something that wasn't hotel loungewear and slipped out quietly and took the elevator down to the lobby bar and Darius was already there, tall and easy and smiling when he saw me, and he stood and said, "I thought you'd ghost me."

"I almost did," I said honestly, and sat down.

We talked for an hour and it was good, genuinely good, no bonds or hunters or marks, just two people in a bar in New York talking about music and his label drama and my job back home and he made me laugh three times and I hadn't laughed properly in days.

At some point he said, "you look like someone who's been carrying something heavy for a while."

"My friend is going through something," I said.

"And you're carrying it with her," he said.

"Always," I said.

He looked at me and smiled and said, "you're a good person Maya Torres."

I looked at him and said, "you don't know my last name."

"I googled you after the bar," he said, completely unbothered.

I shook my head and laughed again and he reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and I let him and then his hand stayed at my jaw and I looked at him and he looked at me and said, "can I?"

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me slowly with no urgency, and I kissed him back and his hand stayed gentle at my jaw and it was the most uncomplicated thing that had happened to me in weeks.

We broke apart and he said, "come on," and took my hand and we went toward the corridor near the hotel supply rooms because the bar was too open, and he pulled me into the small alcove near the service door and pressed me against the wall and kissed me again, this time less slow.

His hands slid to my waist and I grabbed his shirt and he kissed my jaw and my throat and I tipped my head back and his mouth was warm and his hands pushed my top up slightly at the back and found skin and I exhaled.

"You're so pretty," he said against my neck, and I almost said something self-deprecating and stopped myself and just said "thank you" because I was trying to accept things more.

His hand slid down the front of my shorts and I grabbed his arm and then let it go and his fingers found me and I pressed my face into his shoulder and bit down lightly when he touched my clit and he made a low sound and kept going, slow circles, patiently and I was gripping his shirt with both fists and my hips were moving and we heard voices from the bar getting closer.

We both froze until he voices passed.

He looked at me with dark eyes and said, "you okay."

"Very okay," I said.

His mouth kissed me again and I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him closer. Darius groaned in response, the sound vibrating against my lips. His hands slid down my sides, slow and possessive, mapping the curve of my waist, the flare of my hips. One hand slipped beneath the hem of my top, fingertips grazing bare skin, sending shivers racing up my spine.

“You feel so good,” he murmured against my mouth.

He kissed his way down my jaw to my throat, lips and tongue working together in lazy, open-mouthed kisses that made my knees weak. I tilted my head back, offering him more, and he took it sucking lightly just beneath my ear until I gasped. His hand continued its journey, pushing my top higher, palming the bare skin of my back, then sliding around to brush the underside of my breast with his thumb. My nipples tightened instantly under the thin fabric.

I was already aching.

His other hand moved lower, slipping beneath the waistband of my shorts with agonizing slowness. He watched my face as his fingers dipped inside my panties, finding me slick and hot.

“Fuck, Maya,” he breathed, voice rough with want. “You’re soaked.”

I buried my face in his shoulder, embarrassed and turned on by how easily my body responded to him. His fingers parted me gently, stroking through my wetness before circling my swollen clit.

I whimpered against his neck, hips rolling into his hand on instinct. He kept that maddeningly steady rhythm, learning exactly how I liked to be touched

“Shhh,” he whispered soothingly when a soft moan escaped me. “I’ve got you.”

He kissed me again, swallowing my sounds as two fingers slid lower and eased inside me, curling just right while his thumb continued working my clit. The stretch, the fullness, the wet sound of his fingers moving in and out of me, it was obscene and intoxicating. I clenched around him, riding his hand, chasing the pleasure he was so patiently giving.

My legs started shaking.

Darius held me up with his body, mouth at my ear. “That’s it, baby. Let go for me.”

The orgasm hit me like a slow wave. I came hard around his fingers, biting down on his shoulder to stay quiet as pleasure crashed through me in long, pulsing waves. He kept stroking me through it, gentler now, drawing it out until I was trembling and breathless in his arms.

When I finally sagged against him, he pulled his hand free and brought his fingers to his mouth, tasting me while holding my gaze. The sight made fresh heat bloom low in my belly.

He kissed my hair, then my forehead, fixing my clothes with surprisingly tender hands.

“Come on,” he murmured, voice husky. “Before we get caught.”

We went back to the lobby and he walked me to the elevator and said, "breakfast tomorrow?"

"Maybe," I said.

"I'll take that," he said, and stepped back and let the doors close.

I went back upstairs and let myself into my room quietly and Ava was still asleep on my bed and I sat in the chair and looked at her and thought about Dominic upstairs probably also not sleeping and thought that love was genuinely inconvenient sometimes.

Then a knock came at the door, quiet and deliberate, and I opened it and Nadia was standing there looking serious.

"I need to talk to Ava," she said. "Alone. It's about the bond and what actually happens to her if it breaks.”