time: day thirty / night.
location: main villa / smoking area.
At this point she needs more than a cigarette. For what feels like the hundredth time in the less than two weeks she’s been here, she wants out—can even imagine the camera angles, the music, the heels she would wear to stomp through the front doors with a haphazardly packed suitcase to irish goodbye the shit out of this place. She’s being irrational, knows that she wasn’t into dante enough to justify feeling this upset, but the villa’s doing her head in. things that would barely phase her on the outside are devastating blows to the ego in here, and her usual coping isn’t an option. She can’t exactly don her skimpiest dress and grab an uber to the club, rail a couple lines in the bathroom and find someone to go home with. but she can do the next best thing.
Two beers are gripped in one contorted hand as she does a quick scan, locating him exactly where she expects, where they always seem to find each other, almost as if he’s waiting for her. Her heart skips a beat, resigned to her fate and soothed with a small sip. then she’s moving, determination lacing every step as she kicks off her heels and begins the march to the smoking area. She briefly wonders if she looks crazy, if her eyes betray how feral she feels right now, zeroing in on jude like a predator on its prey, needing him in some kind of base, primitive way that she can’t keep under wraps around him. It usually slumbers just below the surface, but not now. Not with him. There’s not a religious bone in her body, but she’s praying to god that like really does call to like. That the reason she wants him so badly is some instinctive knowing that he’d understand this feeling like no one else in the villa could, this clawing desperation for something wild and unrestrained and physical to pull her out of her head. Praying that the bits of herself she finds in him aren’t just her own loneliness mirrored back, but proof that she’s not making a complete ass of herself right now. That when she climbs onto him he isn’t gonna just laugh and shove her away.
It’s not a long walk, but enough to work herself into a frenzy by the time she’s close enough to see the details of his face illuminated by the lights despite the dark—the freckle on the high point of his cheek, the creases in his forehead, the hair coming in just above his lip ( she can imagine how that would feel, teasing along her mouth, down her body, between her legs. ) fuck. she’s doing this then, not so much as a greeting before she’s ditching the drinks to hitch a leg up to straddle his lap, hair flipped over one shoulder as she plucks the cigarette from between his lips and pops it between her own. it’s only then that she really has the courage to meet his gaze head on, heart thundering in her chest as she takes a drag, long and deep, letting the anticipation build. there wasn’t time to relish in the tension last time, too many eyes and too much pressure. and while they’re far from alone right now, she’s so laser focused on him it’s easy to let everything else fade. in the end, this has nothing to do with dante. or romi. not for her. they may have been the catalyst, but she’s wanted this from the second she laid eyes on him, that same heat she saw the first day locking her in. her lips part, smoke curling up between them, still spilling out when she takes that final plunge, free hand snaking up behind his neck to tilt his face up in a searing kiss.
