renegade / cs55

five

hardening positions based on miscommunication
🎶 love it if we made it by the 1975

INEZ

THE MOMENT the Audi slows to a stop in front of one of the most overtly luxurious hotels in Amsterdam, I realise I've been tricked. This hotel is, in fact, not our own, and neither is it the final destination of our forty-five minute drive. It's been barely ten minutes since we left our own hotel, and the moment a mop of midnight waves appears through the revolving door, my heart lurches in my chest.

Accepting Eleanor's invitation to Zandvoort had been a no-brainer. I'd been pestering her about it for ages—why would I let a certain Spaniard stop me from ticking off a bucket list item? I have never been one to let men interfere with my life, and yet here I am, my palms sweaty while regretting every life decision that had led up to this very moment. The door swings open, the warm summer air mingling with the breezy chill blasting from the ac.

Over the past few weeks, I had come to the conclusion that I could easily face Carlos again when—if—life were to throw him onto my path. It was bound to happen, of course, since my best friend's boyfriend was his best friend, and yet I had hoped to stretch it out for another couple of weeks, because as of right now, he still haunted every dream and interfered with every romantic encounter I had had since that damned night in Monaco. Whenever I found myself on a date with another man, I could only ever think about him and the way he smelled like a rainy summer morning and the curve of his cupid's bow and the way his lips felt on the inside of my thighs. It had become a complete disaster.

And yet, I couldn't find it in myself to regret that night.

The scent of petrichor fills the spacious Audi the moment the door closes behind Carlos, and my breath hitches the second his presence brushes mine. It's not as much a moment of skin-on-skin contact as it is an interference of his aura with mine. It takes me by surprise how my body instantly responds to his own simply being present—like electricity sizzling down the back of my neck, to the tips of my fingers.

It's an instant reminder of the toe-curling orgasm he inflicted upon me that night in the back of his Ferrari, with rain trickling down against the window, the streetlight leaving a blur of golden phosphenes on the back of my eyelids. Being so close to him now that I can hear the sharp inhale of breath and the soft exhale of a sigh leaves me shivering. It's a cruel play of the universe, for us to be cooped up  of an Audi, when the memory of the sparks created in the back of a Ferrari remains fresh in our minds.

I wonder, then, if he feels it, too. I know—am fairly certain, at least—that it is purely lust, but for a brief second, I find myself wondering whether he feels the same. Perhaps he is unaffected by it, and yet his little show of possession earlier during my conversation with Pierre would imply otherwise. I take a deep breath, crossing my right leg over my left, my panty-hose covered skin sliding smoothly over each other. The point of my black knee-high leather boot nudges the front seat, and I exhale—tension slips from my shoulders but that luxury is only granted to me temporarily.