Chapter2:The Reckless Night
1345 Words
Ella barely recalled the city lights flickering through tinted glass as the stranger’s driver whisked them away. All she felt was the press of his hand against the small frame of her back. It was steady, commanding and possessive as if she already belonged to him.
She didn’t even know his name nor who he was. The thought alone should have sobered her up. Instead, it thrilled her more, filling the hollow ache inside her chest with something sharper and more dangerous.
When the car slid to a stop before a towering glass building, she blinked in surprise. The lobby gleamed with marble floors and chandeliers, the security guards bowing their heads as the stranger strode past them. He didn’t glance back, but his firm hand never left her, guiding her forward gently.
“Who was this man?” she wondered cluelessly.
Her heart raced as they stepped into a private elevator and the doors closed firmly behind them, enclosing them in silence. She caught her reflection in the mirrored walls next to her. Her lipstick slightly smudged and her eyes puffy red from tears. She stared sadly at her messy hair falling loose around her shoulders.
“I look like a woman unraveling,” she muttered under her breath.
But yet when his gaze met hers in the reflection, she felt looked at in a way Daniel never had. The tension between them became thicker. It was taut and electric. Ella swallowed hard and her voice was a bit low.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
He tilted his head a bit and his silver gray eyes locked into hers with unnerving intensity.
“Then why are you here?” he asked calmly.
She opened her mouth, but the words tangled in her throat. Why was she here? Because she was broken? Because she wanted to punish herself? Because for once in her life, she wanted to step outside the careful lines she had drawn around her heart? The endless thoughts raced through her mind like flash.
“Because I want to forget everything,” she whispered and fiddled clumsily with the hem of her dress.
Something dark flickered in his gaze.
“Good.”
The elevator doors slid open revealing a penthouse that was breathtaking. The floor to ceiling windows stretched across the room, offering a stunning view of the glittering city skyline. Everything inside radiated power and sleek furniture, muted posh tones, the quiet hum of luxury that screamed untouchable wealth.
Ella stumbled forward and her heels clicked softly against polished wood. The man closed the door behind them with a click. Her heartbeat thundered loud in her ears. She turned to face him and her body trembled not just from fear but from anticipation she couldn’t control.
“You still don’t know my name,” he murmured with amazement dazzling in his eyes.
Her breath hitched hard.
“I don’t need to.”
The corner of his mouth curved a bit, though his eyes remained cold and calculating.
“And if I told you that names matter?”
“Then tonight,” she said confidently and looked him straight in the eye while lifting her chin, “mine doesn’t.”
Tense silence stretched forth. It was heavy with everything unsaid. He walked up to her and gently brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. His touch burned and undid all of her restraint one thread at a time.
“Tell me to stop,” he said in a low voice yet dangerous.
Her heart stuttered rapidly. Her instinct screamed for her to stop this and walk away before she drowned in something she couldn’t escape. But when his thumb grazed her lips, she couldn’t summon the word and strength to do so.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed hard.
His mouth crushed against hers, fierce and unrelenting. She gasped as the heat surged through her veins and her body arched crazily toward him. Every kiss was both punishment and salvation all at once. He tasted like sin and his touch like the very antidote to her heartbreak. He felt like the one mistake she needed to make to feel alive. Daniel had kissed her sanity away. This man kissed her like he owned her and he had waited a lifetime to claim her mouth.
Her hands fisted wildly in his shirt and pulled him closer as if the close proximity could erase the deep ache of betrayal. His grip tightened at her waist and lifted her effortlessly as her legs wrapped around him. She should have felt ashamed but shame was a luxury she couldn’t afford at the moment.
They stumbled through the penthouse while knocking into furniture. Consumed by lust, he set her down on the bed. She froze for a second and stared up at him with different emotions flickering in her eyes, that of fear yet unwilling to stop it.
His gaze was fierce and unreadable, the city lights spilling silver across his stunning features. For the first time, she saw raw and restless emotions beneath the coldness in his eyes, as if he too carried scars invisible to the world.
He brushed a finger along her cheek, gentler this time.
“Last chance,” he murmured in a deep low voice. “Tell me to stop, Ella.”
Her heart stopped in shock and her eyes turned wide.
“He knew her name.” The thought raced through her mind in alarm.
“How come,” she stuttered with a dark frown plastered on her face.
His lips silenced her question and his mouth claimed hers again. Just like that the rest of the world and common sense disappeared into thin air.
Hours blurred in dark silence into fragments of heat and whispers. The stranger was relentless yet deliberate, as if he wanted to strip away every memory of Daniel, every piece of pain that clung to her. He ended up succeeding. That one night, Ella forgot the painful betrayal. She forgot the sting of not being enough, her best friend’s smirk, disdain and her fiancé’s lies. For that night, she felt wanted, desired and alive in her whole life.
But dawn crept in too quickly, spilling pale light across tangled sheets and bare skin. Reality checked in with the morning sun. It was heavy and tense. Ella stirred in her sleep half awake, her body aching in a strange way both foreign and intoxicating. She turned her head to see him sprawled beside her in perfect stillness, the sheet low across his hips with his arm wrapped firmly around her waist.
His features in the morning light were breathtaking. Her gaze traced the masterpiece from sharp cheekbones to his sculpted kissable lips. His long lashes longer than that of a woman, dark against his pale skin. He looked untouchable like a god carved in shadow and fire.
Quietly her instinct kicked in. She knew she couldn’t stay. She sat up immediately. The weight of what she had done pressed down heavily on her chest. This wasn’t her world. She didn’t belong in silk sheets and penthouse suites.
Quietly and carefully she slipped out of bed, gentle enough not to wake him up. Shamefully she eyed her clothes scattered across the floor. It was a silent reminder of a night she wasn’t brave enough to own. She gathered them and dressed up quickly, her hands trembling and her heart beating loud in panic.
Her gaze lingered on his face once more. Who was he? This stranger who had torn her open and stitched back her broken pieces together in a single night? The thought ran cluelessly in her mind.
“It didn’t matter. This is not forever but a moment,” she sent a firm mental note to herself.
Leaving nothing, not even a note or goodbye, with her heart made up, she turned and left. The door clicked softly behind her. Ella told herself it was for the best and that she would never see him again. Who knew that fate had already decided otherwise.
- Writer
