In the Heat of Red

The bathroom smelled like smoke and beer, but the second Dylan walked in, I couldn’t smell anything else. Just him.

He didn’t even look at me at first — head turning with the music outside, the red light catching against his skin, making him glow like something I shouldn’t touch. But I was done pretending. My back hit the sink, arms crossed tight, every muscle straining to keep from pulling him into me before he even closed the door.

When it finally slammed shut, I let go.

Two steps — that’s all it took — and he was in my hands. His waist fit under my palms too perfectly, his shirt riding up just enough to make my pulse kick hard. The mirror above us caught flashes of us in the broken red glow, and I wanted to burn the sight into memory: Dylan, mine, trembling already.

“Dylan…” His name cracked in my throat. I wanted to tell him everything — how long I’d been starving, how much he drove me mad — but words weren’t enough. Not here. Not now.

So I kissed him.

It wasn’t neat. It was fire and teeth, his mouth parting under mine, his breath spilling hot as I dragged him closer. He kissed back like he’d been waiting for it too, like we’d both been dying of thirst and only now found water.

When I lifted him onto the sink, the sound of the creak nearly broke me — I didn’t care. His thighs opened for me like instinct, pulling me in, and the rest of the world didn’t exist anymore. Just his tongue against mine, the grip of his hands at my neck, his taste sinking into me until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.

I broke away only to taste his throat, to bite down just enough to hear the sound I craved spill from him. My hands gripped his waist hard, claiming, anchoring, because if I let go, I wasn’t sure I could hold myself back anymore.

“Do you know what you do to me?” I whispered against his skin, my voice rough, almost breaking.

But he didn’t answer. He only dragged me back into another kiss, swallowing my words whole. And I let him — because in that bathroom, under the red light, I wasn’t Jun the careful one, Jun the strong one. I was just his. Hungry. Burning. Lost in him.