CAM GIRL (ON HOLD)

|8| The Stardom

"Wow, is the great Rowan Hayes apologizing? Let me get my camera." Another smack to my behind and I squeeze my thighs tight, too sore to take him again but that doesn't mean I won't try with the right persuasion. "Did I hit a nerve, old man?" I am a glutton for punishment, his kiss is fire when he claims me again.

"What am I going to do with you?" Rowan asks and I give no answer, kissing him once more while he cradles me to him under the heat of the shower. I don't know the answer and I am too afraid to admit my truth. If I stay in the present, then tomorrow feels far away. One word above all else lingers, one I wouldn't dare to say.

Stay.

The cold sheets beside me are the first thing I notice when I wake. It is before I even open my eyes, I can tell that Rowan's large body is gone. The presence fading away and I am left in this empty bed. My hand reaches out to the cold patch and I wring my hands in the sheets.

My body is sore, the muscles of my thighs tight and aching, hips bruised and parts of my body marked by him. My breathing is uneven, the anxiety rising as I realize that I am left with the destruction that he caused. My stupid heart constricts in my chest and I squeeze my eyes tight, how stupid I am to think he would stay.

He told me before not to get attached and here I am, alone with the loss. Thinking that when he told me I was beautiful, that he wanted me, that he couldn't let me go, that it actually meant something. In all honesty, they were just flimsy words that were said in the moment, when the high got to our heads. I was the stupid girl that believed them because no one had ever talked to me so kindly before.

I feel my eyes well with tears but I refuse to cry. Not for something like this, not for Rowan, and not for Adonis. Celeste will wallow in this moment but Envy will move on. She has another show she must do, there will always be another performance, another night, it can't mean anything to Envy. I can't let this sway me.

I cover my naked body with the sheets, overwhelmed when I can smell him still on them. His words from before ring true, after he is gone, he is still able to haunt me, ruin me, and take everything from me once again.

For now, I can clean up the sheets, put away the scene, but I can't take his marks off my body. It is the only thing I cannot erase. Sitting up, my stomach is in cramps, my whole body sore and I find it hard to move. I laugh at myself, the big bad girl of Sin City ruined after one night with a man she barely knows.

Rowan kept to his promise, taking me all over my apartment until I couldn't stand anymore. Almost sleeping in his arms when he cleaned me gently and kissed me softly beneath the water. He washed my body and cleaned my hair, marveling at its texture and telling me I felt like clouds, like heaven.

Far too intimate but I was too stubborn to pull away. To let the moment go, feeling closer to another human being when I had spent years all alone. I got so used to my loneliness, to cold sheets and empty rooms. Always hoping that my life would have turned out differently.

Rowan pissed me off half the time he was with me but that one night with him seemed to make up for everything. When he made me laugh and kissed me until I forgot how to breathe. Refusing to let me go and holding me until I agreed with him.

That crooked grin that came to his face when he knew he had me. I fought it for as long as I could but I couldn't fight the pull. I fell asleep while we clung to each other, his face buried in my hair because he said he loved the way I smelled. Rowan said it was his new addiction, honey, rose, and coconut, I was sweet to him.

It was the first time in my whole life that I didn't sleep alone.

But even after all of this, he was gone.