The Last Night at Eagle Crest

The fire had burned down to embers when I heard the key turn in the lock. Three years since I'd last seen Lena, and she still had the spare. She stood in the doorway of the chalet, snow melting in her dark hair, cheeks flushed from the cold climb up the mountain road.

"Marcus," she said. Just that. My name, hanging in the frosty air between us.

I'd rented this place to finish a book. She'd tracked me down through my publisher. The audacity of it made my cock twitch even before she dropped her bag and stepped inside.

"You look like shit," she said, but her voice cracked on the last word.

"Three years alone will do that."

She laughed, that sharp, dirty laugh I'd woken up next to for five years. She was still wearing my favorite sweater — the gray cashmere one with the hole at the elbow. She'd stolen it during the breakup. I let her.

"Come here," I said. Not a question.

She crossed the room in three strides. Her mouth found mine before I could say anything else, and she bit my lower lip hard enough to taste copper. I groaned into her mouth, my hands finding her waist, pulling her against me. She was warm from the hike, smelled like pine and sweat and the perfume she'd worn since college.

"Fuck me like you hate me," she whispered against my throat.

I pushed her against the stone wall of the fireplace. The rough surface scraped her sweater as I hiked it up. She wasn't wearing anything underneath.

"Jesus, Lena."

"I knew I'd find you here. I planned it." Her hands worked at my belt buckle, frantic, clumsy. "I've been wet since I got on the plane."

I lifted her. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I carried her to the sheepskin rug in front of the fire. The embers cast orange light across her skin as I laid her down. Her eyes — those pale blue eyes I'd drowned in for years — rolled back the moment I pushed inside her.

"That's it," she breathed. "Yes. Give it to me."

She was tight, so tight I had to pause, my forehead against hers, both of us panting. She clenched around me, and I felt her start to come apart. Her face twisted into that expression I'd memorized — the one she only made when she was completely gone, mouth open, eyes unfocused, pupils blown wide. The ahegao that meant I owned her, even if just for these moments.

"Look at me," I said, thrusting deeper. "I want to see you."

Her eyes tried to focus, but they couldn't. Her lips parted, a string of drool connecting them. She was babbling now, half-words, sounds that meant nothing and everything.

"Harder," she managed. "Please. Break me."

I grabbed her hips and drove into her, the sound of our bodies slapping together echoing off the wooden walls. She screamed — not a word, just a raw, animal noise that built and built until she came, her whole body arching off the rug, her face a perfect mask of ecstasy and loss of control.

I followed her over the edge, buried deep inside her, my own sounds lost in her hair.

We lay there for a long time, the fire crackling, her heartbeat slowing against my chest.

"I missed you," she finally said.

"I know."

"I still have the key."

I looked down at her. She was tracing patterns on my arm, avoiding my eyes.

"The guest room has a broken lock," I said. "Stay the night."

She smiled, that crooked smile that had ruined me for other women. "What about the book?"

"The book can wait."

She propped herself up on one elbow, her hair falling across her face. "I have a confession. I didn't just come here for sex."

"No?"

"I came here because I can't stop thinking about you. Even when I hate you. Especially when I hate you."

I pulled her closer. The fire needed more wood. The night was young.

"Then stay," I said. "Let's see if we can make the hate worthwhile."

She kissed me again, soft this time, and I felt her hand slide down my stomach.

"The night's just starting," she whispered, and her eyes started to roll back again.