He has these hands that look like they could build a house or tear one down, and right now, they’re wrapped around my wrists.
13 min read·2,429 words
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[Voice Memo 01: Tuesday, 11:42 PM]
I’m recording this because I think if I don’t say it out loud I might actually catch fire, my skin feels like it’s three sizes too small for my body and everything is humming, do you hear that? Probably not, it’s just the blood in my ears, but I’m sitting on the edge of this massive marble tub in the Darkwood Suite and my thighs are shaking so hard I can’t stand up, he just left and the smell of him is still everywhere, that cedar and expensive soap and something else, something sharper, like the way the air smells right before a thunderstorm hits the Piedmont. I should have stayed in Savannah, I should have just finished the final chapters of the Landon-Duval book and kept my head down, but no, I needed a 'wellness retreat' and now I’m here in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Elias is—God, Elias is exactly what I was running from. He’s the ghost of every mistake I almost made during the divorce, the man who sat across from me in that glass-walled office in Buckhead and negotiated my life away while I watched the way his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. He was my ex-husband’s lawyer, for Christ’s sake, he shouldn't be here, and he definitely shouldn't be knowing exactly what to do with a silk tie when the lights go out.
[Voice Memo 02: Sunday, 2:15 PM]
I just checked in, the lobby of The Gilded Pine smells like eucalyptus and money, and the mountain air is so crisp it feels like it’s cutting my lungs open in the best possible way. I’m here to find an ending, my editor says my last three books have lacked 'visceral punch' which is a polite way of saying the sex scenes are getting as tired as my libido, but then I turned the corner toward the concierge desk and there he was. Elias Thorne. He wasn't in a three-piece suit this time, he was wearing a charcoal sweater that made his shoulders look like they were carved out of the same granite as these mountains, and when he saw me, he didn't do the polite nod, he just looked at me, his eyes traveling down my throat to where my pulse was jumping like a panicked bird. He knew. He knew I was alone here, and he knew exactly why I’d chosen a place where the nearest neighbor is a five-mile hike through the pines. We didn't even speak, I just grabbed my keycard and practically ran to the elevators, but I could feel him behind me, not physically, but like the weight of a storm cloud pressing down on the back of my neck.
[Voice Memo 03: Wednesday, 12:05 AM]
I can still feel where the silk was, it’s like a phantom limb, my wrists are red and my heart is doing this stutter-step thing that makes me feel like I’m twenty again and sneaking out of my daddy’s house. He came to the door ten minutes after the turn-down service, didn't even knock, just leaned against the frame when I opened it and asked if I was still writing about things I’d never actually done. That bite, that Georgia-lawyer drawl that sounds like honey poured over gravel, it does something to me that I can't even put in a prologue. I told him he was being arrogant and he just stepped inside, closing the door with a click that sounded like a final sentence. He didn't touch me at first, he just made me stand there in the middle of the room while he walked around me, looking at me like I was a first draft that needed heavy editing, all red ink and hard questions, and God if I didn't want him to just cross me out and start over. He asked me if I ever got tired of being the one in control of the narrative, and when I couldn't answer, he reached out and took my chin in his hand, his skin was so hot it felt like a brand, and he told me that for the next hour, I didn't have to write a single word.
[Voice Memo 04: Monday, 4:30 PM]
I was in the salt cave, that's where it really started to slide off the rails, it’s this room lined with pink Himalayan bricks and the air is thick with minerals and silence. I was laying there in my white spa robe, my eyes closed, trying to think about my plot outline, and then the door opened and the air shifted. I didn't have to open my eyes to know it was him, I could hear the specific rhythm of his breathing. He sat on the bench across from me and for twenty minutes we just sat in the pink gloom, the silence getting heavier and heavier until it was a physical weight on my chest. Finally, he said, 'You’re holding your breath, Julianne,' and I almost choked on it. He told me to come over to him, and I should have said no, I’m a grown woman, a successful novelist, a mother of two who has survived a fifteen-year marriage and a bitter settlement, but I stood up like I was in a trance. I walked across that salt-covered floor and stood between his knees, and he didn't even look up, he just reached out and untied the sash of my robe. He didn't pull it open, he just loosened it, his fingers brushing against my stomach and making every nerve ending I own scream. He told me I was too loud, even when I wasn't saying anything, and then he made me stand there for five minutes without moving while he just watched my chest rise and fall.
[Voice Memo 05: Wednesday, 1:15 AM]
I’m lying in bed now and the sheets feel like sandpaper because my skin is so sensitive, I’m so incredibly wet and I can’t stop touching myself even though he just spent an hour doing everything I’ve ever written about but better. When he pushed me back onto the bed in the Darkwood Suite, he didn't use the tie at first, he just used his weight, pinning my arms above my head with one hand while the other one went straight for the zipper of my dress. He didn't faff around with buttons or lace, he just opened me up like a gift he’d been waiting years to unwrap. He looked at me, really looked at me, not like a lawyer or a guest, but like a man who had been starving. He told me to stay still, and when I tried to arch up to meet him, he growled 'No' in a way that made my clit throb so hard I thought I might pass out. He took the silk tie from around his neck—that expensive, navy blue silk—and he looped it around my wrists, hitching them to the heavy wooden headboard. It wasn't tight enough to hurt, just tight enough to remind me that I wasn't the one making the decisions anymore. Then he stripped, and seeing him like that, all hard muscle and dark hair and that cock of his standing straight up and heavy, it made me realize that every hero I’ve ever written was just a pale imitation of the real thing. He knelt between my legs and he didn't go for the main event right away, he just used his mouth, his tongue finding every inch of my thighs, the soft skin of my inner knees, the place where my hip meets my torso. I was sobbing by the time he finally got to the center of it, his tongue flicking against my clit while his fingers pushed deep inside me, two of them, then three, stretching me out until I was crying his name into the pillows. He kept telling me to look at him, he wouldn't let me hide, and when I finally looked, his eyes were so dark they were almost black. He said, 'This isn't a book, Jules,' and then he untied me just long enough to flip me over and take me from behind, his hands gripping my hips so hard I’ll have bruises tomorrow, and I want them, I want every single one of them. He pushed into me, slow and deep, filling me up until I felt like I was being hollowed out and rebuilt, and every thrust was a question I didn't have the words to answer. I could feel the headboard banging against the wall, a rhythmic, violent sound that matched the way he was slamming into me, his chest pressing against my back, his breath hot against my ear as he told me exactly what he was doing to me, using words that would make my publisher faint. I came so hard I saw stars, my vision going white at the edges, and he didn't stop, he kept going, driving me into the mattress until he finally stiffened and let out this low, jagged sound, his come hot and thick against my lower back because he pulled out at the last second, wanting me to feel the weight of it on my skin.
[Voice Memo 06: Tuesday, 10:00 AM]
We had breakfast on the terrace this morning, and it was the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced, I was sitting there eating poached eggs and drinking coffee while my body was still humming from the way he’d had me over the back of the sofa an hour before. He was perfectly composed, reading the Wall Street Journal, looking every bit the high-powered attorney he is, while I was sitting there with no bra on under my linen shirt and a hickey on my collarbone I had to hide with my hair. He reached across the table to pass me the cream and his thumb grazed mine, just for a second, and I nearly dropped my fork. He leaned in and whispered, 'You’re distracted, Julianne, you should focus on your meal,' and the look in his eyes told me he knew exactly how much I was struggling to keep it together. There were other people there, a couple from New York, an old woman with a lapdog, and none of them knew that under the table, Elias had his foot between my ankles, slowly rubbing his shoe against my calf. It’s the secrecy that’s killing me, the way we’re playing these roles in the daylight while the night is just this raw, hungry thing that’s devouring us both. I told him I was leaving on Friday and he just looked at me over the top of his paper and said, 'We’ll see about that.'
[Voice Memo 07: Wednesday, 2:30 AM]
I’m back in the room, he’s in the shower now and I’m recording this while I can still hear the water running, my body feels heavy and satisfied in a way I haven't felt in years, maybe ever. I keep thinking about how I used to write about 'surrender' like it was some abstract, poetic concept, some soft thing that happened in a field of wildflowers, but it’s not. It’s the sound of a lock clicking, it’s the way your wrists feel when they’re held together, it’s the specific, terrifying relief of letting someone else decide what happens next. He came back tonight with a blindfold, a simple black sleep mask from the amenities kit, and when he put it on me, the whole world disappeared. I couldn't see his face, I could only feel him, the way he moved, the way his hands found the places I didn't even know were sensitive. He spent twenty minutes just brushing a feather—God knows where he got a feather—over my skin, from my toes to my earlobes, until I was begging him to just touch me for real. He told me that I needed to learn patience, that a good story takes time to build, and then he spent the next hour proving it. He used ice from the minibar, sliding it down my chest and into my heat, and then he replaced the cold with the heat of his mouth, the contrast making me scream into the gag he’d fashioned out of one of my own silk scarves. I’ve never felt so exposed and so safe at the same time. When he finally took me, it wasn't slow, it was desperate, like we were both trying to claw our way into each other’s skin. He’s still in the shower and I’m looking at the scarf on the floor and I realize I don't want to go back to Savannah. I don't want to go back to the version of myself that just writes about this. I want the red marks on my wrists and the ache in my core and the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching. I’m forty-one years old and I’ve finally found a plot I don't want to finish.
[Voice Memo 08: Thursday, 11:15 PM]
Final night. The bags are packed but the bed is a mess and so am I. We didn't even use the bed tonight, we used the floor, the hard, cold slate of the entryway, because we couldn't make it five feet into the room before he had me pinned against the door. He didn't say a word, just reached under my skirt and tore my panties right down the middle, the sound of the lace ripping was the loudest thing in the world. He entered me right there, standing up, my legs wrapped around his waist and my back slamming against the wood with every lunge. It was raw and messy and perfect, and when I looked at him, I saw the man who had torn my life apart three years ago in that courtroom, but instead of anger, there was this intense, burning recognition. We’re the same, both of us hiding behind words and suits and reputations, while underneath we’re just these starving things. He told me he’s coming to Savannah next month for a trial, and he asked me if I had a sturdy headboard. I didn't even hesitate. I told him I’d buy a new one just for him. I think I finally have my ending, but it’s not the one I expected, it’s not a sunset and a promise, it’s just this—this heat, this weight, and the knowledge that some stories are better when you stop trying to control the pen.
