Chapter Seven:
Mornings always comes
Izzy:
I felt more alive as he held me there, my body trembling in the dark cradle of that corner like something precious and ruined all at once. I couldn't stop shaking. Not from cold….no, ...there was nothing cold about what he was doing to me. It was hot. Feverish, desperate heat, winding up in my limbs, curling in my belly.
His fingers moved inside me with an expertise that made my vision blur, slow and deep, almost reverent. Like he wasn't just touching me…..he was searching. Finding every broken piece and pushing them together with each stroke, as if that could fix me. As if that could make me whole again.
But I wasn't whole.
Not even close.
My head dropped forward, resting on his shoulder, my breath ghosting over his neck. I could smell the salt on his skin, feel the tension in his muscles, the restraint barely holding him together.
"You don't know me," I whispered, the words wet and shaky against his collarbone.
His other hand came up, cradling the back of my head like I might fall apart if he let go. "I don't need to," he breathed, his voice ragged now. "I just know what it feels like to want to forget someone who carved you open."
That broke something in me.
My hand curled around the base of his neck, fingers digging in as another wave rocked through me. A choked sound escaped my lips—half sob, half moan—and I hated how much I needed it. How much I needed him. Not for love, not for anything soft or safe, but for this—this brutal, reckless intimacy that made me feel human again.
"I shouldn't be doing this," I said, even as I tilted my hips, inviting more.
"You already are," he murmured against my ear, his breath warm, lips brushing the shell of it. "And it's okay. You don't have to be strong right now."
I bit my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye. That same hunger burned there, yes—but now it was tempered by something else. No pity. Understanding, maybe. Or the shared wreckage of two people trying to stitch themselves together using only heat and skin.
"I need to be somewhere else," he said softly, his thumb grazing my cheek. "Not here. Not in front of them."
I hesitated.
But I nodded.
The walk out of the bar was a blur. I barely remembered slipping through the crowd, his hand locked around mine like a lifeline. The cold air outside slapped my skin, sobering me just enough to register the night sky above—black and wide and indifferent.
We didn't speak.
Not as we climbed into the back of a cab.
Not as the city lights flickered past.
Not even as we stumbled into the elevator of a hotel I didn't recognize.
But the silence wasn't empty. It was thick. Heavy with anticipation and ache. I could feel it in every inch of my skin, in the wild drum of my heart.
The second we were inside the room, he kissed me again. Harder this time. Like he couldn't get enough. Like I was the answer to a question he didn't know how to ask.
Clothes came off fast. Sloppy. Urgent.
My dress hit the floor with a soft sigh. His hoodie followed. I ran my hands over his chest and his stomach, committing the feel of him to memory because I didn't want to remember Carl tonight. I wanted this stranger to burn me instead.
He lifted me with surprising ease, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, gasping when my back met the wall again, this time in a room filled with silence instead of bass.
He looked up at me, forehead resting against mine. "Say stop, and I will."
I didn't.
I couldn't.
I kissed him instead, slow and hungry, guiding him to where I needed him most. And when he finally entered me, filling me in one deep, smooth stroke, I cried out—not from pain, but release. From the sweet, staggering relief of not having to think anymore.
Of just being.
He moved inside me with a rhythm that made my world collapse into nothing but sensation—my body against his, his hands gripping my hips, my name whispering against my skin like a prayer and a curse.
And for that one night, in the arms of a man whose name I still didn't know, I let go.
Of the lies.
Of Carl.
Of everything that hurts.
I lost myself.
And I didn't regret it.
Not yet.
But morning always comes.
And with it, consequences.
... Morning
It was morning already and the first thing I felt was the ache.
A dull, deep soreness spread through my thighs and hips, a physical echo of everything I'd done last night. The second thing was warmth—sunlight filtering through gauzy curtains, pooling across my bare skin like guilt made visible.
And then I opened my eyes.
For a moment, I didn't move. I just lay there, naked under unfamiliar sheets, in an unfamiliar room, beside an unfamiliar body. His back was to me, the covers low enough to reveal the lines of his shoulders, the curve of his spine, the mess of dark hair curling at his nape.
It all came back in pieces.
The bar.
His voice.
The dance.
The way his mouth felt against my neck.
The way I came undone with his fingers inside me, my back pressed to a wall while strangers laughed and drank feet away.
The hotel.
The bed.
The way I'd begged him not to stop.
My stomach turned.
It wasn't regretful exactly.
It was more dangerous than that.
It was a relief, .....relief that scared me. Because for one night, I hadn't been drowning in Carl's betrayal. I hadn't been thinking about the photo, the lingerie that wasn't mine, or the bed that was. I hadn't been Izzy Richmond Lawrence, a respected defense attorney with a crumbling reputation and a husband who carved out her heart with surgical precision.
I had just been a body.
A woman trying to forget.
But forgetting only lasts so long.
I sat up slowly, the sheet slipping down my chest, and winced at the chill in the air. My dress was on the floor, wrinkled and stained with memory. My heels were crooked by the door. The man next to me stirred, shifting in his sleep, and for a split second, I thought he might wake up.
I didn't want him to.
I didn't want to see his eyes, or his mouth, or the expression he might wear when he looked at me in daylight.
I needed this to stay what it was—nameless. Wordless. Safe in its own reckless anonymity.
I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could.
No goodbye. No note.
Just the echo of skin on skin and the sound of my heart thudding too loud in my chest as I crept into the bathroom and turned on the light.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
Mascara smudged under my eyes. Lipstick faded. Hair tangled from sweat and sex and sleep. A purple mark bloomed just beneath my collarbone, shaped like his mouth. I didn't recognize the woman in the reflection.
But I didn't look away.
Because this was who I was now.
This was what Carl made me.
A soft knock at the door nearly made me jump out of my skin.
The mystery man's voice followed, groggy, raspy from sleep. "Hey… you okay?"
I swallowed.
"Yeah," I lied. "Just… needed a second."
Silence.
Then, "I could drive you home."
Home.
The word felt like a wound. Because home was a place Carl and I had built together. Brick by brick. Room by room. Picture by picture.
And now it was a mausoleum for everything I used to believe in.
"I'll call a cab," I said, trying to sound casual. "Thanks though."
A pause. Then footsteps retreat. The creak of the mattress as he lay back down.
I dressed in silence, every movement mechanical. And when I left the room—heels in hand, hair a mess, shame riding shotgun—I didn't look back.
I walked out into the city, into the morning, into the consequences.
I told myself I was fine.
I told mys
elf it was just a night.
But deep down, something cold and sharp was already forming under my ribs. Something that whispered: You crossed a line.
And there's no going back.