She shakes her head.
“Can you wait?” I ask her. “You have five more hours.”
She shudders.
I can’t watch her crumble like this. My lungs constrict, my whole chest clenching.
“You should go back,” she says. “You’re working.”
I’ve changed out of the Calloway Couture clothes, and I wear my regular black shirt and jeans. “They’re writing down the alterations for the other models. I have time.” I’m supposed to be putting on my second outfit, but Rose is preoccupied with measurements and test shots. She won’t miss me for long.
Lily stares at her hands in her lap, barely meeting my eyes. “I can wait,” she says under her breath, so meek that I don’t believe her for a second.
“Can you?” I ask.
She nods and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. I tuck her hair behind her ear, wanting so badly to pull her into my arms and to make it all better. But that’s not how this new chapter of our lives is supposed to go, is it?
“I didn’t have sex for three whole months,” she says softly. “What’s five hours?”
“This is different.”
“Why?” she asks, her chin quivering. She so badly wants to grab me. I can see it in the way her eyes flit over my body for a brief moment. She catches herself and stares back at the floor.
“Because I wasn’t there,” I tell her. “You didn’t have the opportunity to touch me. It was easier.” I imagine three months without me was like being locked in a house without booze. If there’s nothing to drink, then you’re not going to get drunk. But there are always liquor stores. The same way there are always other guys to fuck. She also had the option to touch herself, but she’s eliminated that completely. She stuck to her vows.
And I know that if I leave her like this, she’ll break one by masturbating. She can’t last five hours, and she won’t ask me to have sex with her. So she’ll be drawn to the next best thing, thinking that self-love is the right solution. She won’t cheat on me. She’ll just cheat on herself.
So while she sniffs and wipes her tears, I rack my mind for that damn blacklist with the therapist’s rules. My head is fuzzy, distracted by Lily’s constant trembling and the way her knees begin to turn inward.
“Lo,” she cries. “I think you should leave.”
My chest falls. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And before she can refute, I kiss her. I part her lips with my tongue, and she clenches my shirt, her soft moans like thank yous. Each one drives me harder, and my movements become as hungry as hers. I lift her in my arms, her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist. And I knock her back into the wall. Her voice is lost in the base of my neck, her forehead pressing to my shoulder.
“I need you,” she whispers, panicked. “Please…” The fear in her voice cuts a new scar.
“Shh, love.” I rub my hand through the back of her hair, and I nip her ear with my teeth. She shudders against me. I want her to release, but I feel like there’s no winning with this one. If I let her go, she’ll masturbate. If I fuck her, she’ll hate herself. If I make her come, she’ll still be filled with shame and guilt for not lasting five hours.
There is no right answer, no fucking break. And so each stroke against her flesh is seared with tension and a strong ache, my heart pounding like a jackhammer to cement.
And I kiss her again, my lips swelling beneath her eagerness, her insistency to push deeper, to go farther. She runs her bitten nails across my back, not sharp enough to draw blood, not even long enough to truly scratch, but she digs her fingers into my skin. She grips so fiercely, as though I am two seconds from dropping her. From saying no.
My brain clicks, and the blacklist isn’t hazy anymore. We can’t do this. I retract my lips from her, and I don’t meet her eyes.
I fucked up.
I want to punch the wall. I want to scream. More than anything, I want to go sit at a bar and forget the road I was about to pull Lily down. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Lo…”
I bring her to her feet, and she wobbles unsteadily. I keep a hand on her waist, but there’s considerable amount of distance between us.
“What did I do…？” Her high-pitched voice lurches my stomach.
“Nothing,” I say, tucking another piece of hair behind her ear.
“Then we can do something…” She grips my shirt again, clenching the fabric between two panicked fists.