The moment the door toFaust’s hotel room clicks shut, the air between us begins to evaporate.
He doesn’t turn on the lamps. Stark-Benzin has him on the top floor, and one corner of the penthouse is entirely windows overlooking the water, city lights, the dark. I slip off my flats, slowly turning as he stalks around me. That’s really the word for it. As he carefully removes a suit jacket that must be circulating the internet like wildfire—Faust in florals, actually groundbreaking—I feel small. Surrounded. I like it.
“So.” I cross my arms in front of my chest, not knowing if I should start peeling off my all-black workwear, too. “We’re here.”
Faust watches, setting the jacket down on a sleek armchair. “Is this still something you want to do?”
“I—yes.”
“And you’ll use the safe words?”
“Red, yellow, green. Yes.”
“You will need to stay tonight, after.”
I blink. “For?”
“Aftercare. Is that okay?”
“Sure? You’re really amping this up, huh?”
Wrong thing to say. Or, right? He walks over to me, almost silent. My eyes flutter shut as he takes my face, and the last thing I think isat lastandthank goodnessandwe’re so overdue for this. Since that day at the pool, a tiny piece of me knew we’d end up in a room, wrapped around each other. This has been an obsession. All my running, all his chasing, all to get here.
I reach up to kiss him first, just to do it. I want him to know that I want this as much as he does.
More than him, possibly.
The growl that rumbles deep in his throat makes my toes curl. Not quite annoyed. Very surprised. Then Faust wraps one arm around the small of my back and we’re crushed together, his lips an endless press against mine. My mind whites out, gone. I only exist where he’s touching me—his teeth on my lower lip, his tongue against mine, never painful, like he’d said, but so much. He kisses like the first cold day in November, when the clocks roll back and the world goes dark. Winter, inescapably here.
A whine smolders in the back of my throat as he nudges me toward the bed with his hips. Just having his legs on me, against me, makes my knees weak, and I’d be slipping onto the mattress if it weren’t for his hand. He helps me down carefully, directing my movements. Each touch, orchestrated by him.
He stays standing. His fingers going to his belt. “I never answered your question, Arcadia.”
“I… which?” I can’t stop looking at him, undoing his belt. The tendons on the back of his hand flexing, his face authoritatively calm.
“You asked if I think I’m lucky.” The buckle clicks. “I don’t think I am.”
“Oh. I didn’t…”
“Can you be quiet for me?”
My thighs squeeze together like he’s closed them himself. I nod dumbly, my mouth dry.
“Very good.” With a slight smile, he slips the belt off. He leaves his pants on, though, as he starts working on my shirt. “I might have bad luck—but I’ve always seen my destruction coming. And you. I knew you were going to ruin my life. But I couldn’t… couldn’t resist. Seeing what happened. Keeping an eye on you.” He slips off button after button, nudging a curved finger against my stomach before pulling my shirt off. I’m hot everywhere he touches, jumpy. “You know what I thought when we met? When you walked up to me in that black dress, looking like an angel who’d hold a knife against my throat? ‘Ah, fuck, this one’s going to hurt.’?”
He slides his hands down my thighs. “But I couldn’t look away from you. I lookedforyou. You burned a hole through me that first night. Your face, and nothing else. Nothing compared.”
He’d looked for me? After Bernard’s wedding? I inhale, ready to ask what he means, then remember I’m quiet.
Faust glances up from my legs. Notices that I’m silent for him. “Green?”
I nod; he nods back.
Then he’s moving on, back to us, like I’m not falling a bit more for him with every word he murmurs. “You don’t even see it. How you bring color back to people. How you’re here and then—it’s all fucking gray when you’re gone.” His mouth finds the stretch of skin behind my ear. “I want to be around you all the time. Will you let me?”
I’m squirming against where his fingers are wrapped around my thighs. All the way. “Mmhm.”
“Every day?”
