Chapter 2: A possessive, silent squeeze
The buzzing was a knife, cleaving the warmth of the moment cleanly away.
Heath's eyes went flat. Distant. That resigned blankness was worse than anger; it was an erasure. Of her. Of what they'd almost done.
Alice watched it happen, a cold numbness spreading through her limbs where desire had been a wildfire. Home. That call was home. And she was... what? A diversion. A late-night fantasy.
Her breath came quick and shallow. The chill of the stainless steel counter seeped into her bare back. She was still half-undressed, her bra pushed down, her skin gleaming under the harsh light. Exposed. Humiliated.
Heath didn't move toward the phone. He just stood there, his body still close to hers, but the connection severed. His hand, which had been hooked in the waistband of her panties, now hung limp at his side.
The buzzing stopped.
Silence rushed back in, thicker and heavier than before.
Then it started again. A second call. More insistent.
His jaw tightened. A flicker of irritation—or was it duty?—crossed his face. He finally turned, reaching for the phone on the counter. His movements were slow, deliberate. He didn't look at her as he picked it up. The screen glowed in his hand. She didn't need to see it to know whose name was there.
He sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion. "I have to..."
He didn't finish. He didn't say answer it. He didn't say her. But the implication hung there, rotting the air.
A sudden, vicious heat flooded Alice's veins, burning away the numbness. It wasn't passion. It was something darker, sharper. Jealousy. Raw and ugly. The word she pretended wasn't hers coiled in her stomach and surged upward.
He's going to talk to her. While he's standing here with me. While I'm practically naked.
The thought was a spark in dry grass.
Before he could move, before he could tap the screen to answer, she acted. Not with words—words were too slow, too weak. Her quiet nature shattered into a reckless, possessive impulse.
Her hand shot out, not toward the phone, but toward him. She grabbed him—not his arm, not his shoulder.
She grabbed the hard, straining line of his erection through his trousers.
Her fingers closed around him, firm and sudden, through the fabric. He was still swollen from their interrupted passion, a tangible proof of what he'd wanted from her. She squeezed, not gently. A sharp, claiming pressure.
