Chapter 34 Leo
I didn’t remember her name until she told me again.
Angela. Or maybe that was a lie she’d offered because it sounded soft enough to be real. She was stretched out beside me anyway, warm and naked and trying too hard not to look at my face while her tongue traced a slow line down my chest. The room was dim, curtains half drawn, city noise bleeding in through a cracked window. Her mouth was skilled. Deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing.
My body responded on instinct.
My mind didn’t.
I stared at the ceiling, at the faint water stain shaped like a crooked continent, and let myself drift somewhere else entirely. Her tongue circled a nipple. My cock thickened. My hands rested uselessly at my sides. I felt detached, like I was watching this happen to someone else.
Kristen’s face rose uninvited.
Not imagined. Remembered.
The way she looked when she was concentrating. The slight crease between her brows. The way her mouth curved when she was about to say something smart. I swallowed and closed my eyes, but that only made it worse. The dark filled with her. Her laugh. Her voice saying my name like it meant something.
Angela shifted lower, fingers deft as she unbuckled my belt and slid my jeans down my hips. Her breath was warm where she kissed the inside of my thigh. My cock was already hard, heavy against my stomach, betraying me completely.
She wrapped her mouth around me and hummed softly.
I shut my eyes.
In my head, it was Kristen kneeling there. Kristen’s hands sliding up my thighs. Kristen’s mouth, curious and unguarded and nothing like this practiced precision. I imagined her looking up at me, eyes dark and searching, asking without words if this was okay.
The thought slammed into me.
My hips jerked before I could stop them. I groaned low in my throat, fingers curling into the sheets. The heat built fast, sharper than it had any right to. I was breathing hard now, chest rising and falling as I leaned fully into the fantasy because resisting it hurt more.
Kristen’s mouth. Kristen’s hair brushing my skin. Kristen’s hands holding me like she meant to keep me.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered.
Angela’s rhythm changed, faster, more eager, taking my reaction as encouragement. The pressure coiled tight and sudden, snapping the last thread of restraint.
“Oh fuck, Kristen.”
The name tore out of me on a broken breath.
Everything stopped.
Angela froze.
I felt it immediately. The absence of motion. The way her mouth pulled away, the air suddenly cold where there had been heat. I opened my eyes.
She was staring at me, fury and humiliation colliding on her face.
“What did you just say?” Her voice shook, sharp and loud in the small room.
I pushed myself up on one elbow. “Angela—”
She laughed once, short and bitter, and scrambled back, grabbing at the sheet, then her clothes. “You asshole. You didn’t even see me, did you?”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t,” she snapped. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright with anger. “Don’t try to explain. I’m not your fucking stand-in.”
She swung her legs off the bed and reached for her shirt.
Something dark and hot surged up my spine.
I grabbed her wrist.
She jerked, breath hitching, eyes flashing to mine.
“Let go,” she said.
I didn’t tighten my grip. Didn’t pull her back yet. Just held her there, grounded, my thumb pressing lightly against her pulse.
“I’m not done,” I said quietly.
Her nostrils flared. “You said someone else’s name while I was on my knees.”
“I know.”
“Then why the hell would I stay?”
I leaned closer, voice low. “Because you want to.”
She hesitated. I could feel it. The tension in her arm. The anger warring with something else. Desire. Pride. The need not to be dismissed.
“Do not make this something it isn’t,” she said.
“I’m not,” I said. “You can walk out. Say the word.”
Her eyes searched my face, maybe looking for apology. Or maybe looking for something uglier.
“Say it,” I repeated.
She didn’t.
Instead, she exhaled sharply and yanked her wrist free, then shoved me back down onto the bed and climbed over me, fury still burning but her body betraying her with the way it pressed against mine.
“Don’t say her name again,” she said.
I didn’t answer. I kissed her neck instead, mouth hot and insistent, murmuring things I didn’t bother filtering. Filth. Promises. Commands. Her breath stuttered despite herself. Her hands fisted in the sheets near my head.
I rolled us, pushing her down and taking control fully, letting something darker take the wheel. I fucked her hard, relentless, chasing the burn in my blood like it might cauterize the shape Kristen had carved there. Angela cried out, nails dragging down my back, anger dissolving into something raw and desperate.
I was close again when my phone vibrated on the nightstand.
The alert tone cut through everything.
I glanced over.
The screen lit up.
Kristen.
Standing outside.
Simple gown. Hands folded behind her back. Waiting.
Something inside me snapped.
I thrust harder, faster, chasing the edge as Angela came apart beneath me, her cry sharp and unguarded. I followed almost immediately, biting back a groan that still sounded too much like her name.
I pulled away, breathing hard.
“Stay inside,” I told Angela, already reaching for my trousers.
Then I headed for the door.