Marissa's Night (III)

The click of the Suite elevator door was soft but absolute, the sound of a room sealing itself off from the world. Andy turned to welcome Marissa, and somehow, inside the Suite, his mood was recalibrated after the conversation with Arabella: all golden lamps, heavy corners, and the faint, ever-present whirr of the HVAC slicing the air into ribbons.

Marissa didn’t move right away. Instead, she leaned back against the elevator door, arms folded loosely, blue eyes fixed on Andy. The weight of her gaze was a new species of attention—not professional, not even intimate, but hungry, the way a person might stare down a locked dessert case after months of restraint.

Andy didn’t know if he should say something. For a minute, he just stood there, letting the aftertaste of the afternoon linger. His shirt still smelled like her hair from where she’d rested against his shoulder; he could still feel her fingertips on his wrist, an echo that tingled.

She spoke first, but only with her body. A few steps, then a stop. Another step, closing the gap with clinical, almost experimental care. She reached for him—no hesitation—palms on his face, thumbs sweeping along his jaw. Then she kissed him.

It was not the polite, exploratory kiss of their first night together, the one that had tasted like therapy and forbidden fruit. This was pure appetite. Her mouth was soft but insistent, her tongue probing with a curiosity that bordered on aggression. She tasted of tea and wind and a thread of something sharper—desire distilled to its essence.

He returned the kiss, arms slipping around her waist, hands settling on the small of her back. Marissa pressed closer, flattening her body to his, her chest rising and falling with a subtle tremor that he’d never seen in her before. She was, for the first time, not in control—not even pretending.

They kissed for a long time, until the hum of the room seemed to pulse in sync with their blood. When she finally pulled back, she didn’t step away; she kept her forehead pressed to his, their breaths mingling, her hands sliding from his face to his shoulders, then down to his wrists.

Marissa’s voice, when it came, was barely a whisper, but it vibrated in his bones. “I’ve wanted to do that all day,” she said, her lips brushing the corner of his mouth.

Andy almost laughed, but her seriousness held him in place. “You could have,” he said, voice soft.

She shook her head, dark gold hair falling over her cheek. “No. I couldn’t.”

He let that hang for a second, then stroked her spine with his thumb, a gesture that felt both tentative and necessary. “What changed?”

Marissa didn’t answer right away. Instead, she tilted her head back, studying him with that same analytical focus she’d brought to the terrace—like she was reading a case file, only the case was her own.

“I spend all day telling other people how to feel things,” she said, her words gaining ****. “How to manage them, compartmentalize, keep them safe. But sometimes…” She trailed off, the sentence unfinished but not uncertain.

Andy filled the gap by kissing her again, slower this time. He felt her relax into it, the rigidity in her shoulders melting. She tasted different, now—softer, sweeter, as if the need to explain herself had given way to something simpler.

He led her further into the Suite, moving toward the softest pool of lamplight. The shadows on the wall stretched and merged, turning two bodies into a single, shifting silhouette. Andy was aware of every inch of her: the way her hands clenched and unclenched at the fabric of his shirt, the subtle arch of her back when he traced her waist, the shiver that ran through her when his lips found the hollow behind her ear.

Marissa’s breathing hitched as she spoke again, this time barely audible. “You make it easy to forget myself,” she said.

He smiled, but the emotion behind it was real. “Is that good?”

She nodded, then kissed him again, deeper, pulling him so close he felt the air leave his lungs.

When he reached for the buttons of her blouse, she didn’t stop him. Instead, she tugged at the hem of his shirt, **** and clumsy in a way that made him ache for her. The sound of fabric parting—buttons skipping across the floor, the whisper of silk on skin—was the only punctuation in the otherwise perfect hush of the room.

She shrugged out of the blouse, not caring where it landed. Beneath, her bra was nude, delicate lace with a flash of gold at the clasp. Her breasts strained against the fabric, her nipples always hard, visible even in the low light.

Andy traced the edge of the cup with a single finger, drawing a line from her collarbone to the swell of her breast. Marissa shivered, her hands tightening on his shoulders, nails digging in. When he bent to kiss her chest, she inhaled sharply, the sound pure and unfiltered.

He looked up, searching her eyes for any sign of doubt. There was none.

She said, “Don’t stop,” and the words were a command, not a plea.

He didn’t.

They didn’t so much find the bed as collide with it, hands in each other’s clothes, skin already warm from kisses and flurries of laughter that seemed to ricochet off the high, shadowed ceilings of the Suite. The few steps from elevator to mattress were a blur, punctuated by half-buttoned shirts and the slap of bare feet on old wood, Marissa’s chest pressed to his back as she all but tackled him onto the sheets. The world had felt pressure-cooked all day—Riley and rules and the ever-present questions about the future—but in this brief, wild sprint, the only imperative was touch.

Andy landed on his back with a yelp, bouncing once, and Marissa followed immediately, pinning him with her full weight, knees bracketing his hips. She let her hair tumble over his face, smirking as she peeled his shirt away with a flourish, then leaned down and kissed him, open-mouthed and biting. The taste of her was new, more alive than the Marissa he’d known—her tongue bold, her breath hot and almost frantic, a sharp contrast to the measured woman who’d held court on the terrace hours earlier.

He tried to speak but she shushed him, not with a finger this time but with her lips, and the message was clear: words were not the thing tonight.

His hands drifted up her back, tracing the lines of muscle, the gentle rise of her ribs beneath smooth skin. She arched into his touch, moving with an urgency that bordered on ****—her body in constant motion, never satisfied, a kinetic charge that built with every second. When she broke from his mouth, she trailed kisses down his neck, sucking at the pulse point until he gasped, and then lower, teeth grazing his collarbone with a playfulness that threatened to tip into ****.

“Should I be scared?” he whispered, voice shaky but not really afraid.

She paused and looked down at him, blue eyes wild and shining. “Only if you want to be,” she said, and the honesty in it made him ache.

They worked at each other’s clothes in tandem: her blouse unfastened, his jeans tugged down in awkward fits and starts, her bra unclasped with a snap that revealed breasts already flushed and swollen. She let him look—she wanted him to look—her back straightening, chin up, as if daring him to memorize every detail. Andy took his time, running a slow palm across her chest, circling a nipple with his thumb until it peaked and she shivered.

Marissa shucked her own panties, kicking them away with a determined flick, and then pulled off his boxers, tossing them somewhere into the dark. She straddled him again, bare now except for the links of her gold bracelet, and Andy took a moment to just see her: the way her breasts hung, heavy and perfect, the flat expanse of her stomach, the delicate shadows where her thighs met her hips. She was a painting in brushstrokes of skin and want, and he was helpless before it.

She guided him inside her with one slow, precise motion, and the sensation hit so hard he had to grip her thighs to keep from losing control. Marissa sighed, head dropping, hair swinging forward to brush his chest. She stayed still, savoring the first fullness, then began to move, rocking her hips in a rhythm that was unpredictable—sometimes fast, sometimes lingering, never letting him get comfortable. She was chasing something, he realized: not just her own release, but a kind of oblivion, a way to burn out whatever she’d kept tethered behind her eyes for so long.

Her hands wandered, restless and hungry. She clawed at his chest, raked his scalp, wrapped around his wrists to pin them above his head. Her grip was strong and unyielding; she didn’t want comfort, she wanted surrender, and Andy found that he wanted to give it to her. He let her take what she needed, let her dig her nails into his skin, let her use him as the lever for her own pleasure.

The room was all sound and heat now—slap of skin, the creak of the bed, Marissa’s breath growing rougher, higher, sharp vowels tumbling out whenever she lost the rhythm and found it again. Andy was attuned to her every movement: the way her jaw tightened when he thrust deep, the way her eyes rolled back when he cupped her breast just so, the way her whole body trembled when the edge neared.

There was nothing clinical about her now, nothing reserved. If she had ever been a clock wound too tight, now she was all unwinding, all wildness. She rode him in staccato bursts, hips stuttering, then slammed down with a **** that made him grunt, then gentled for a few teasing rolls before starting again. It was like she wanted to break both of them open and see what would spill out.

As he senses her muscles tightening, he gasped, “I should…” but she wouldn’t even let him finish. “No,” she panted, “I need this. I bought something…” But her need was too strong to continue, and Andy didn’t find it in him to deny her.

Marissa 4300 BP - 100 BP = 4200 BP

When her orgasm came, it did not creep up or announce itself with shy tremors; it hit her like a seizure, a full-body quake that left her gasping and clutching fistfuls of bedding, her arms shaking as she struggled to stay upright. She screamed, not a word but a raw, triumphant sound, and Andy felt the echo of it in his own bones. He lost himself then, gripping her hips and thrusting up into her until the world shrank to a single, blinding point of fire, a white-hot clarity that erased every thought except for her.

For a moment, they were both suspended—her torso arched and locked, his hands gripping her so tight it must have hurt, their bodies frozen at the very edge of what either of them could take.

Then, as if drawn by the same slack tide, they collapsed together, Marissa falling forward to rest her head on his heaving chest, arms wrapped around his neck with surprising gentleness.

The silence that followed was absolute, save for the twin pulse of their heartbeats and the soughing of the Suite’s ancient ducts.

He stroked her hair, damp with sweat, and she hummed against his skin, a lazy, satisfied sound. They lay like that for a long time, tangled and spent, the world outside the Suite reduced to a distant memory.

Marissa was the first to speak, her voice muffled by his shoulder. “That was…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

Andy ran his hand through her hair, pulling her closer. “Yeah,” he said, and it was all the answer either of them required.

The room was quiet, the only sound the soft hum of the fan and the even softer beating of two hearts, side by side.

For the first time in memory, Andy felt not just wanted, but needed. Not for what he could fix, or what he could hold together, but for himself, exactly as he was.

And Marissa, in that moment, was not a therapist, not a caretaker, not the voice of reason.

She was just Marissa. And she was his.

If Andy thought the first time was the finish line, he was mistaken. Marissa gave him all of three minutes to recover before she started again, prodding him with sharp little bites to his earlobe and a soft, insistent palm on his chest.

“Again,” she breathed, not a question.

He caught her mood before he caught his own breath, and rolled on top of her, his hands sinking into the riot of her hair, their mouths crashing together with none of the shyness that had marked their earlier nights. There was no therapist here, no caretaker; just Marissa, hunger and want, stripped of moderation.

She wrapped her legs around him, locking ankles with a **** that said no more holding back. When he slid inside, she arched up, taking all of him in a single, greedy thrust. Her hips rose to meet every movement, an escalating dare that left him chasing her pace instead of setting it.

“God, I love how you feel,” she said, her voice husky, almost angry with need. The words went straight to Andy’s core.

He braced on his elbows, watching her face. “You’re different tonight,” he whispered.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “You never asked what I wanted.”

He slowed, searching her eyes for the question behind her statement. “What do you want?”

She grabbed a fistful of his hair, tugging him close until their foreheads met. “Messy,” she said. “Hungry. Unfiltered.” She kissed him so hard it hurt. “I’m tired of being the one who steadies everyone else. Tonight, I want you to fuck me until I forget my own name.”

Andy felt a grin bloom at the edges of his restraint. “That’s a tall order,” he murmured.

Marissa bucked up, driving him deeper. “Then don’t be gentle,” she shot back. “Don’t pretend I’m made of glass.”

He let go. There was no other option. The next few minutes blurred into a tangle of skin and sweat and hoarse, low moans. He braced her hands above her head, entwining their fingers and pinning them to the mattress. She responded with a growl—actual, unashamed—then twisted free and rolled him onto his back, mounting him with a **** that was nothing like the careful choreography of their first encounter.

She rode him hard, grinding her hips in short, fierce circles, head thrown back, hair a mane of gold and wildness. Her breasts bounced with every stroke, nipples swollen and flushed, begging for the bite of his mouth. He obliged, catching one between his teeth, and she yelped, then laughed, the sound low and triumphant.

He lost track of time. Every time he got close to release, she slowed, squeezing him with her inner muscles until he was shaking with the need to finish. At one point, she let him come, then, without giving him a chance to go soft, slid off and between his legs, stroking and sucking until he was hard again.

“Fuck, Marissa,” he gasped, “you’re going to kill me.”

She grinned, lips wet and eyes on fire. “You can handle it. You’re the Master, remember?”

He pulled her up, twisting until they were sideways on the bed, and drove into her from behind, his hand clutching a fistful of her hair. The new angle made her howl, the sound echoing off the Suite’s high ceiling. She clawed at the headboard, back arched, and he could feel her pulsing around him, every contraction drawing him in deeper.

He bent low to her ear. “You like this?” he asked, voice guttural.

She nodded, words beyond her.

He kept going, hand on her hip, pounding until his own vision blurred, then bent her forward and pinned her wrists to the bed. He finished inside her, and this time she came with him, her whole body shaking so hard he worried she might tear apart.

They collapsed in a heap, his arms wrapped around her middle, both of them slick with sweat and gasping. Her hair covered her face, a shield and a comfort, but when she looked up at him, there was no mask left.

She pressed her back to his chest and let her breathing slow. For a minute, neither spoke. Then she laughed, a ragged, beautiful sound, and said, “You really know how to follow orders, don’t you?”

He nuzzled the back of her neck, still dizzy from the exertion. “Only when they’re good ones.”

She rolled over, her hair a tangled halo, and cupped his cheek with her palm. “This—” she said, searching his eyes, “—this is what I never let myself have.” She didn’t mean the sex, not entirely; she meant the freedom, the lack of guardrails, the letting go.

Andy kissed her fingertips, one by one. “I hope you get used to it.”

She shrugged, but the smile in her eyes said she just might.

They shifted positions, bodies sticky but comfortable, the bed a nest of tangled sheets and warmth. Marissa tucked herself under his arm, tracing the veins on his bicep, following them from wrist to shoulder as if memorizing a map.

“Do you miss her?” she asked, after a long pause.

He knew who she meant, and nodded. “Every day. But less, when I’m with you.”

Marissa kissed his chest, just above his heart. “Good. Because I don’t want to compete with a ghost.” Her voice was soft, almost playful, but Andy heard the steel underneath.

“You never could,” he said. “You’re too alive for that.”

She laughed again, but this time it was gentle, no bite at all. “You’re a sap, Andy Cooper.”

He pretended to be wounded. “I thought you liked me messy.”

She kissed him, slow and deep, then settled against his side. “I like you any way I can get you,” she said, and this time he believed her, every word.

They lay together until the sun had finished bleeding out behind the curtains, the world outside reduced to a dull blue hush. Andy felt Marissa’s breathing slow, the tension in her body seeping out in increments. He wondered how long it would last—this pocket of peace—but for the first time in months, maybe years, he didn’t feel the urge to chase the next moment. He just let it happen.

Time unwound itself in the hush after. They lay together, limbs tangled, the comforter a fortress around them. The Suite’s lamps painted everything in soft amber, smoothing sharp edges into warmth and shadow. Marissa’s hair spilled over his chest, dark gold splayed against the pale of his skin, and every now and then she’d breathe deep, as if to convince herself that the moment was real and not just another trick of memory.

Neither spoke. Marissa traced invisible patterns along Andy’s ribs with the tips of her fingers, sometimes pressing in, sometimes just ghosting along the line. He let her, breathing in sync with her, listening to the muted white noise of the ceiling fan, the distant pulse of the ocean, and—closer—her heart, slow and steady, still hammering out the last of the adrenaline.

He tried to remember the last time he’d felt like this, but the question felt out of place. It was enough just to be here, not interrogating the happiness, not bracing for the next crisis.

After a long stretch, Marissa shifted, her cheek against his shoulder. Her voice, when it came, was small and raw. “I needed this.”

She didn’t explain, didn’t expand. The words hung in the air, not as a confession, not as a warning, but as fact.

Andy stroked her back, up and down, the motion lazy, rhythmic. He didn’t say, “me too,” though it was true. He just kept touching her, letting the silence say whatever words would have failed.

Marissa laughed, the sound muffled. “If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll kill you.”

He smiled into her hair. “Who would believe me?”

She pinched his side, light as punctuation. “Claire might.”

Andy snorted. “Claire’s got her own secrets to keep.”

There was a pause, then: “Next time, can I join? With her, or Erin? I think I want to try that. If you do.”

Andy felt his heart stutter, not from surprise but from the casual confidence of it. “Of course,” he said. “If you want.”

Marissa lifted her head, studied his face with eyes that for once weren’t measuring, weren’t checking for hidden dangers or unfinished wounds. She looked at him as if she could see through to the other side, and liked what she found there.

“This is good,” she said. “Right now. Just this.”

Andy nodded, and they let the silence return, soft and sprawling, the kind that filled every gap and made them both weightless. Outside the Suite, the resort was sliding toward midnight, the world pared down to a few pools of light and the restless call of night birds.

They drifted, sleep rolling in by slow degrees. Andy was aware, distantly, that tomorrow would bring complications, challenges, maybe even regrets. But tonight, there was only the certainty of the body next to his, the warmth of her skin, and the soft lock of their hands twined together.

When Marissa finally slept, she did so without twitching or murmuring, her face smooth, her body heavy with trust.