YEARN FOR YOU

Already falling

Lizzy left his place just as the sky was turning pale.

Her legs still trembled. Every step down the stairs sent a deep, residual ache through her core, a reminder of how thoroughly he had used her. She could still feel the ghost of the ropes on her wrists, the stretch in her hips, the way he had kept her open and full until her body had nothing left to give. By the time she reached her apartment, her hands were shaking as she unlocked the door.

She should have felt used.

She should have felt angry.

Instead, something quieter and more dangerous sat in her chest.

She was already falling for him.

It had started in small, unwilling ways — the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching, the rare softness in his voice when he told her she wasn’t leaving, the careful way he had cleaned her afterward. Even his possessiveness, as overwhelming as it was, had begun to feel like a kind of claim she wasn’t sure she wanted to escape. That realization frightened her more than the ropes ever had.

At the office, Freddy treated her like a stranger.

He walked past her desk without slowing. His voice stayed flat and professional when he spoke to anyone near her. No lingering glance. No private acknowledgement of the night before. The coldness should have protected her. Instead it left a dull, private ache under her ribs. She kept her eyes on her screen and tried not to notice how often her attention drifted toward his office door.

Lunch hour arrived with a quiet dread.

His shadow fell across her desk.

“Storage room.”

She followed him on unsteady legs.

The moment the door shut, the air changed. Freddy didn’t speak. He simply backed her against the metal shelving, one hand braced beside her head, the other already under her skirt. He shoved her panties aside and pushed two fingers into her without warning. She was still swollen, still sensitive, and the sudden stretch dragged a soft, broken sound from her throat.

He watched her face the entire time.

Slowly, deliberately, he curled his fingers inside her, collecting the wetness that had already gathered for him. Then he pulled them free and brought them to his mouth. He licked them clean with unhurried strokes of his tongue, eyes never leaving hers.

When he finished, he leaned in until his lips almost brushed her ear.

“Those legs of yours,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “Think they can still spread for me another time?”

The question landed harder than it should have. Because part of her — the part that was already falling — wanted to say yes. Wanted the next time. Wanted *him*, even when he was cold, even when he used her and then walked away like she meant nothing.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He fixed her skirt with a quick, impersonal tug and left the storage room as if the last minute had never happened.

Lizzy stayed pressed against the shelves, heart pounding, thighs tight together. The physical ache was familiar now. The emotional one was new, and far more dangerous.

---

Across the city, Cherry’s evenings had begun to revolve around a voice.

Ken’s silence had stretched into days. The last message still sat unread on her side, unanswered and growing heavier. In its place, the calls with the stranger grew longer and softer. After work she would close her bedroom door, curl up against the pillows, and dial the number she now knew by heart.

His voice had become a kind of refuge. They talked about nothing and everything — the weight of ordinary days, the things they were afraid to want, the quiet loneliness that lived under successful exteriors. One night she admitted she had started looking forward to hearing him more than anything else. He was quiet for a moment, then said, almost carefully, “I’ve been waiting for these calls too.”

Cherry lay in the dark afterward with the phone still warm against her cheek, realizing she was falling for a man whose face she had never seen. The bond between them was growing in the exact spaces Ken had abandoned — steady, unexpected, and increasingly hard to ignore.

---

That evening, Jane stood outside Freddy’s door with the same careful hope she always brought.

She had chosen the outfit with intention. She had prepared the smile. She expected the usual half-annoyed tolerance he usually offered when he found her waiting.

Freddy barely looked at her.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and left it open only wide enough for himself. Whatever was occupying his mind — the memory of Lizzy’s trembling legs, the wetness he had tasted on his fingers hours earlier, the quiet way she had taken everything he gave her — left no space for Jane.

“Freddy—”

“Not tonight.”

The words were flat. Final. He closed the door without another glance.

Jane stared at the wood for a long second as the practiced expression drained from her face. Heat rose in her chest, sharp and ugly. She had been dismissed without even the courtesy of a real rejection, and she understood, with sudden clarity, that the place she used to occupy had already been given to someone else.

Inside the apartment, Freddy leaned back against the door and exhaled slowly. His body was tired, but his thoughts were already elsewhere — already calculating the next time he could get Lizzy alone, the next time those still-unsteady legs would open for him again.

He did not yet know that she was already falling.

And he did not yet know what that would cost either of them.