suite. During the summer we met, I watched him come in here a couple of times, but I never had a reason to follow. Now, the only reason I need is that I want to see his space the way he’s seen mine.
When I open the door, his scent envelops me. It’s a mixture of his cologne, deodorant, and maybe a little laundry soap. I wish I could capture this scent and carry it with me always. If I don’t get to smell him again, I’ll be forever homesick.
I tiptoe around the room like a creep and touch all his things. His backpack. His bed. His closet full of clothes. When I find the hoodie he was wearing after practice today, I slip it on, and it nearly swallows me whole. I keep it on anyway and start opening all the drawers in his dresser. Most of them are full of tee shirts and his briefs, but there’s one that’s just full of stuff. It takes me a minute to realize what it is.
A pencil. A notebook. Folded pieces of scratch paper with my handwriting on them. The dog-eared books we read together when I was tutoring him. A bottle of my perfume. My leopard scrunchie. A sweatshirt I thought I lost a long time ago. An address scribbled onto a sticky note. My grandmother’s address. And beneath it, one unused plane ticket to Hawaii.
Was he going to come to me?
My heart flutters, and I can’t decide if this is the strangest or sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Landon Blackwood has kept everything that’s ever reminded him of me.
A door slams downstairs, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I slide the drawer shut as quietly as I can and listen. There’s a soft, feminine giggle, and multiple pairs of footsteps on the marble floor. Someone turns on low background music, and a couple of guys start talking about the tits on a stripper at the Eager Beaver.
Within a minute, the familiar stench of marijuana smoke is creeping up the stairs, and Landon’s grunting at his friends to take that shit outside. He sounds drunk.
More doors open and shut, and then the noise spills out onto the lawn below the windows. I’m wondering if I’m in the clear to run down the stairs when I hear another familiar voice.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Audrey purrs.
What?
My stomach bottoms out.
I glance around frantically as footsteps echo up the staircase, drawing closer by the second.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What is she doing here? Why is Landon with her?
Without any other options, I close the door to his closet and burrow behind his hanging clothes. All I can do is pray they don’t open it.
A second later, his bedroom door shuts, and I slap a hand over my mouth as Audrey starts talking. They are in his room together.
“Mmm… you like this, don’t you? You’re such a dirty, hot bloodsucker. I want you to sink your teeth into me while you fuck me hard.”
A deep masculine groan follows, and I nearly collapse against the wall. I don’t want to believe it. Landon wouldn’t do this. Not right after…
“Give me that cock.”
Something unzips and rustles before falling to the floor. The slurred words that follow are indistinguishable. But the sounds that come next aren’t. For a full minute, I’m too paralyzed to move as her familiar slurping pierces my ears.
She’s sucking his dick, and I think I might vomit.
He was just inside me. I gave myself to him.
I was the only one.
And now I’m not.
For an eternity, I lean into the wall for support, unable to breathe or think or move. All I can do is listen to the rumbles of masculine pleasure, and then, skin slapping against skin when he starts to fuck her. Audrey tells him over and over how good he makes her feel. How much she loves him inside her. I feel like I’m going to die. And then she mortally wounds me with one final blow.
“Yes, Killian! God yes. Bite my neck. Claim me.”
Killian.
There’s no denying it’s him on the other side of that door. I always knew he was going to destroy me. I just didn’t think it would be on the same day I finally realized I’m in love with him.
I sink to the floor and cry silent tears until it’s over. Until the last shuddering breath heaves from their lips, and the room goes silent.
They don’t move for a long time, so I can’t either. I’m trapped in hell, listening