EPISODE 6- Movie Night
(Layla's POV)
The lecture hall was a cavern of whispered theories and the dry scent of old books. Psychology 101: Foundations of Human Behavior. The irony wasn't lost on me. My own behavior was a case study in irrational, compulsive desire.
I slid into a seat near the back, my pulse already a frantic bird against my ribs. Mia had saved me a spot, but my eyes were scanning the rows ahead. There. Three rows down, to the left. The back of his head, the familiar set of his shoulders beneath a dark sweater. Ethan.
Seeing him here, in the harsh fluorescent light, was a different kind of violation. This wasn't a dark closet or an empty lab. This was real. This was my future. And he was planted right in the middle of it.
The professor droned on about Maslow's hierarchy. Physiological needs. Safety. Love and belonging. My body had a very clear, very insistent opinion on what constituted a 'physiological need.'
A shift in the crowd. Students shuffling for a group exercise. He stood, turning to speak to someone behind him, and his gaze swept over the room. It caught on me, paused. Those blue eyes, so cold in the dining hall, now held a heat that I felt between my legs. A ghost of a smirk touched his lips. He knew. He knew exactly what his proximity was doing to me.
He didn't look away as he gathered his things and moved. Not to the front. Not to the side.
Right into the empty seat beside mine.
His scent—sandalwood, clean cotton, him—wrapped around me before he even sat down. My knuckles were white around my pen.
"Adams," he murmured, his voice a low vibration meant only for me as he settled in. His knee brushed against my thigh.
A jolt, sharp and electric, shot straight up my spine. I flinched, but there was nowhere to go. The brushed fabric of his jeans was a brand through the thin material of my leggings.
"Marshall," I managed, staring straight ahead at the professor, seeing nothing.
The lecture continued. A discussion on proximity and attraction. "Repeated, unplanned exposure often increases liking and sexual tension…"
I wanted to melt into the floor.
Every time he shifted to take a note, his arm grazed mine. Every time he leaned forward, his shoulder pressed against me. Each touch was a tiny lightning strike, a promise of the storm I knew his body could unleash. My skin felt hypersensitive, aching for more. The air between us grew thick, charged with a silent, screaming awareness.
I could feel the heat radiating from him. I could hear the soft sound of his breathing. My own breath was shallow, uneven. My core clenched, a hollow, throbbing ache beginning to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
He dropped his pen. It clattered to the floor between our seats. "Shit," he muttered, low.
He bent to retrieve it. As he did, his hand, reaching down, slid deliberately along the outside of my calf, from knee to ankle. It wasn't an accident. The touch was slow, possessive, his fingers pressing just enough to feel the shape of my leg through the fabric.
A soft, involuntary gasp escaped me. My eyes squeezed shut. When he sat up, pen in hand, he didn't look at me. But I saw the satisfied curve of his mouth.
The hour was a sweet, torturous agony. By the time the professor dismissed us, I was a live wire, every nerve ending exposed and sparking. I shoved my notebook into my bag, my movements jerky.
"Movie night at the Sigma Chi house," he said, his voice casual as he stood, not looking at me. "Nine o'clock. The basement rec room."
It wasn't an invitation. It was an instruction.
"I have reading," I whispered, my throat tight.
Finally, he turned his head. His eyes raked over my face, down to where my chest was rising and falling too quickly. "Be there."
Then he was gone, swallowed by the stream of students leaving the hall. I sat there, trembling, the ghost of his touch on my leg burning like a brand.
*
The Sigma Chi basement was a dungeon of low lighting, stale popcorn, and a dozen students sprawled on worn couches. Some cheesy horror movie was playing, the screams on-screen a distant backdrop to the roar of blood in my ears.
I sat wedged between Mia and Chloe on a large sectional, a bowl of popcorn untouched in my lap. I'd come to prove I could be normal. To prove he didn't own me.
He arrived late.
He didn't look at me. He took a seat in a large armchair directly across from our couch, his long legs stretched out. He was a dark silhouette against the flickering light of the television. But I felt his focus like a physical weight. It pinned me to the spot.
Time stretched. The movie's plot was incomprehensible. All I was aware of was the space between us. The occasional glimpse of his profile in the dark. The way his fingers tapped slowly on the arm of the chair.
Then, during a particularly loud jump-scare, Chloe shrieked and grabbed Mia's arm, pulling her into a debate about the killer's motive. In the shift, a space opened up on the couch next to me.
Without a word, without even glancing my way, Ethan rose from his chair. In two strides, he crossed the space and sank into the newly vacant spot beside me.
His body was a solid, warm line against mine from shoulder to knee. My heart hammered against my ribs so violently I was sure he could hear it.
On screen, the protagonists were hiding in a closet. The tension was thick, silent.
Under the cover of a shared blanket someone had tossed over the back of the couch, his hand found my thigh.
I froze.
His palm was hot, heavy. It rested high, his thumb beginning a slow, maddening circle on the inner seam of my jeans, just inches from where I desperately needed his touch. He stared straight ahead at the movie, his expression one of mild interest.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. The gentle, rhythmic pressure of his thumb was a direct line to my core, which was now throbbing in a relentless, aching rhythm. Every rotation sent a fresh wave of liquid heat pooling between my legs. My fists clenched in the fabric of my own jeans.
His fingers flexed, digging in slightly, massaging the tense muscle. He was touching me. In a room full of people. In the dark, but not hidden enough. Not nearly enough.
A soft, needy sound caught in my throat. He heard it. His thumb pressed harder, circling faster.
On screen, a door creaked open. Someone in our room giggled.
His hand moved. Slowly, deliberately. It slid from my thigh, over the junction of my hips, and settled low on my stomach, his fingers splayed possessively. He pulled me a fraction of an inch closer, so my side was flush against his. I could feel the hard line of his bicep, the steady, strong beat of his heart.
His lips brushed my ear, his voice a whisper of warm air that made me shudder. "You're trembling."
I was. Everywhere.
"Tell me to stop," he breathed, the words a dark caress. His hand slipped lower, his fingertips teasing the waistband of my jeans.
I was molten. My carefully constructed walls were ash. The risk, the consequences, the fear—it was all drowned out by the roaring need his touch had unleashed. My body was screaming its answer.
I turned my head just an inch. Our faces were so close our noses almost brushed. In the flickering blue light, his eyes were endless pools of midnight hunger.
My voice was a ragged, desperate whisper, lost in the movie's soundtrack. "Don't you dare stop."
A low, predatory growl rumbled in his chest. In one fluid motion, he grasped my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and stood, pulling me up with him.
"We're getting more drinks," he announced to the room, his tone bland, normal. No one looked up from the screen.
He didn't let go of my hand. He led me, not toward the kitchen, but past it, down a short, dark hallway lined with closed doors. He shouldered open the first one—a small, windowless laundry room, smelling of detergent and fabric softener—and pulled me inside, clicking the lock behind us.
The second the lock engaged, he had me pressed against the humming dryer, his mouth crashing down on mine.
This kiss was pure fire. It was weeks of stolen glances, of simmering tension, of brutal, public denial, exploding into a frenzy. His tongue plunged into my mouth, claiming, demanding. My hands flew to his hair, gripping the dark strands, pulling him closer. I kissed him back with a ferocity that shocked me, all pretense gone.
He broke the kiss, panting, his eyes blazing. "I've been going out of my mind," he snarled, his hands already at the button of my jeans. "Watching you in class. Seeing you walk across the quad. Knowing how you taste." The button gave way. The zipper hissed down.
"Ethan," I gasped, as his fingers hooked into the waistband of my jeans and panties, dragging them down my hips in one rough, urgent motion.
"Say it again," he demanded, his hands sliding up to cup my bare backside, lifting me. My legs wrapped around his waist of their own volition. The cold, ridged metal of the dryer pressed against my exposed skin.
"Don't stop," I moaned, arching against him, feeling the hard, thick length of him straining against his own jeans, pressed right against my dripping, aching core.
With a groan that was pure victory, he fumbled with his own fly, freeing himself. He guided himself to my entrance, the broad head nudging against my slick, swollen flesh. He paused, his forehead pressed to mine, his breath ragged.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice raw.
I opened my eyes, drowning in the storm of blue and hunger.
He thrust up, burying himself inside me in one deep, devastating stroke.
A cry tore from my lips, muffled by his shoulder as I bit down on the fabric of his sweater. The feeling was exquisite—a perfect, stretching fullness that obliterated every thought. He was so deep, so impossibly there.
"Fuck, Layla," he gritted out, his body trembling as he held himself still, sheathed to the hilt. "You feel… god."
Then he began to thrust.
—