Daphne
U up?
She sends the text. Then waits. Minutes stretch, every second too long. Her pulse picks up, not just from anticipation but from the quiet certainty that if he doesn’t come now, the wait will unravel her. Again.
Then—movement. A knock, one she wishes she knew by heart. For a beat, she hesitates. The sooner he’s here, the sooner it’s over. The sooner he’s gone. Back to her.
Daphne swings the door open, scanning the courtyard as he slips inside. She clicks the lock behind them, feels the thrill of something new—having him here. In her home. They usually met elsewhere: bars, hotel lounges, the hush of a parked car, hidden on a forgotten stretch of Mulholland. But seeing him here, steps from his own front door, feels less reckless than it should. More bold than wrong.
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He reaches for her. She’s already rising to meet him, mouth open, hands in his shirt as the kiss deepens, unnegotiated.
She pulls away. Leads him down the dark hallway. He kisses her again, harder this time, until they’re staggering toward the bedroom. Then he shoves her against the wall. Daphne yelps, then stills. Meets Casey’s gaze.
That look again. The one that makes her responsible. For his weakness. For what he wants from her. She hates it. But she savors it. The power he gives her. The weakness he won’t claim. So she plays along.
“You don’t belong to her tonight,” she says into the hollow of his throat, smiling as her mouth finds his skin, tasting sweat, as she lets him press her harder into the wall.
And in that fevered moment, laughing at how recklessly alive it feels, she ignores the truth whispering from the corners of her mind. There is no escape. No salvation. No undoing what she has done or who she has become. She surrenders fully, collapsing onto the bed, into him, into the reckless abandon of his desire, letting the current carry her off into the storm, to the kiss that drags her under.