Page 49 of Your Echo
13Late Night || Foals
STÉPHANIE
When I’m a panting,wild mess on the bench, and Ace looks like he’s ready to take me then and there, we get up and run to his apartment as fast as my heels will allow. He asked if we could go to mine, but I don’t want to spend this night worrying about my roommate. I want whatever is going to happen next to be loud and fast and hard.
“I don’t”—Ace struggles to get the words out as I kiss him up against the wall of his building—“have very many people over..."
“I don’t mind a mess, as long as we can clear a spot on the floor.”
He laughs deep in his throat, a sound that’s both menacing and hungry. “God, you’re something else.”
His apartment is in a large, two-storey house that’s been split into a few units inside. He takes my hand to pull me through the entryway and up a flight of sagging stairs. I can smell weed in the hallway and the mix of sweat and spilt vodka that seems to cling to all student housing.
“Impressive, right?” Ace asks, sweeping his hand around the dingy hallway.
“I’m just surprised you don’t have a line of fan girls waiting outside the door.”
He pats me on the head. “I have my number one fan girl right here.”
I narrow my eyes. “Do or say that again,connard, and I swear I will actually bite you.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”
He fishes his keys out of his pocket, and I follow him into the studio apartment. It’s dim, lit only by the streetlamp spilling in through the open window, but he doesn’t turn any lights on. I expected a typical bachelor’s living habits, and while the placeiscluttered, I wouldn’t call it a mess. It’s more of a nest. The room is a cross section of Ace’s life: guitars and sheets of music, leather jackets and tattered books. A black and grey tapestry hangs on the wall over his bed.
He hears my soft breath of laughter and gives me a questioning glance.
“It looks like a poet lives here,” I explain. “I’m imagining you writing by candlelight in the dead of night, with a quill.”
He moves farther into the room. “Can’t say I’ve used a quill before, but these”—he stoops down and pulls a box out from under his bed—“are from when I used to not be able to pay the electricity every month.”
He tilts the box so I can see all the mismatched candles inside, then sets two of them down on the table beside his bed and grabs a lighter. Thesnickof the lighter sounds before the flame glows, painting his face in red light and wavering shadows as he gets the candles going.
“Candles?” I joke. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
He doesn’t answer—just takes a seat on the edge of his bed and leans back on his elbows, watching me.
“Spin around,” he orders. “I want to see you in that dress a little longer.”
I drop down and undo the tiny buckles on my shoes, prolonging every movement as I straighten up and step out of them. I hold my arms in first position and do a fewchaînéturns, moving from the door towards the bed. I land just close enough that he can lean forwards and catch the hem of my dress, tugging on it to pull me closer until I’m standing between his knees.
He runs his hands up the skirt of the dress, along my thighs and then over my hips up to my waist. My breath hitches.
“The way you move...” he begins, but he doesn’t finish the sentence.
I settle one knee on the mattress and then the other, straddling him. He grips my hips and starts to trail kisses along my chest, over the tops of my breasts. The cut of the dress means my skin is covered there, but I can still feel the heat of his mouth. I dig my fingers into his hair.
His hands slide from my hips and up my back, until he meets the clasp of the halter strap around my neck. He pauses, waiting for me to object, and then he unhooks it. The dress slides down my chest a few inches, and he tugs it the rest of the way until I’m exposed to him.
Any insecurity I might have felt is wiped away when I hear his gasp, followed by the groan that seems to come from somewhere deep inside him. He’s staring at my body like the candlelight reflecting off it has him under some kind of spell.
“You areperfect,” he growls, and then his mouth is everywhere—biting, licking, and sucking until I’m moaning and squeezing his shoulders so hard I know I’m going to leave marks.
His teeth graze my nipple and I hiss, letting out a string of French expletives when he reaches up to pinch the other one, hard. Before I know what’s happening, he’s got me pinned underneath him on the bed. The skirt of my dress has risen up so high that my lacy pair of underwear is showing. Ace notices, straightening himself onto his knees and telling me to stay still as he hikes my skirt up even higher.
He drags the back of his hand along his mouth. “God, even justlookingat you...Fuck.”
“Take your shirt off,” I tell him, before adding a hesitant, “please.”
