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She gathers her bag, laptop, keys, and approximately six invisible burdens before climbing out into the rain again. I follow her up the porch steps carrying leftover pizza boxes, because my foster parents never taught me manners, but life occasionally bludgeons useful habits into people anyway.

Laurel stops near the kitchen counter, one hand braced against it. “I think I handled today badly.”

“Tom?”

She nods.

Rain rattles softly against the windows while the old refrigerator hums in the background. The whole place feels suspended in time, like the house itself is holding its breath, waiting for Maggie to walk through the front door.

“You trusted your instincts,” I say. “That’s not handling things badly.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

She laughs softly after saying it, but there's no humor in the sound. I should probably say something helpful.

Instead I keep thinking about the way Laurel looked in the restaurant when she finally laughed.

Like she'd forgotten she was allowed to.

Her hand slides across the counter and settles over mine, looking for something solid.

That's when everything changes.

I cross the few feet between us. The overhead bulb makes her hair look darker, her skin paler, more perfect. She’s trembling a little. I hope it’s not from fear.

Her hand comes up, and I flinch at first, then realize she’s just catching my wrist, pulling, anchoring. I kiss her hard and fast. Her mouth tastes of coffee, salt, and the strange relief that's been building between us all afternoon.

She kisses back fiercely enough to bruise, with a heat that shocks me. I’m the one who has to pull away first, lips aching. Because, suddenly, I need to breathe before I pass out.

“Shit, Briggs,” she whimpers against my lips. “I want you.”

The next moment I’m all over her, clutching her by the waist, hoisting her up, setting her on the counter so her legs scissor around my hips, and her breathless laugh gets cut off by my mouth.

A glass bowl tips and rattles somewhere behind her as I push her dress out of the way, my palms greedy, pushing past her tights and underwear to peel them down to her knees. We’re both shaking, both desperate in that awful, exquisite way that doesn’t so much build as detonate.

She doesn’t resist. She goes pliant, open, her mouth letting out these tiny sounds every time I bite or grip or shove her where I want her.

Her knees knock stupidly against a box of cereal balanced behind her, send it tumbling, but neither of us care.

My fingers dig into the creases where thigh meets hipbone, and when I slide my fingers inside her it’s so hot and tight and slick I want to ruin her, and she wants it too, her whole body curving around me like a cat’s.

She moans into my palm, hips bucking, her hands flying up to dig into my shoulders, and I work her, just driving into her until her eyes roll back, and she whimpers my name against my skin.

I can tell she enjoys being manhandled, gasps and writhes and dares me to push further, harder, lips teasing, eyes wild. When she comes, I can feel every twitch, every spasm, every shuddery aftershock radiating up her thighs. I wrench my hand away from her mouth so I can kiss her again, both of us almost feral with need, pressed up against the counter, two people desperate to drown in each other.

Her hands tangle in my hair, holding on, like she’s falling, and I’m the only thing keeping her from being dragged under.

It’s filthy, the way I want her. It’s hunger, clawing through bone and brainstem, that lives in the teeth and nerves. I could spend hours here, wrecking her, letting her wreck me right back.

She kisses back, lips raw, the tip of her tongue flicking my mouth open wider. I taste blood. Hers? Mine? Doesn’t matter.

I don’t stop.

I knock the remaining bowls and a bottle of vanilla extract onto the floor, ignoring the crash. I want her naked and squirming and straining under me, so I shove her collar aside, bite her neck hard enough to leave marks she’ll see in the mirror tomorrow and either blush or gloat. I can’t tell which, and I want both.

She digs her nails into my back until the nerves scream and I nearly come from that alone.

“Is it okay if I—?” My voice is a rasp against her skin.