Wait
1026 Words
HAZEL
I don't know how long I fought. I don't know how long I scream... Everything blurs together: my breath, my panic, and the sound of my own heartbeat. But by the time I hear his voice in my ear, low and close, and feel his arms completely wrapped around me, I realize that I'm subdued.
I'm in his arms. And I can't turn. I can't shake free. He’s got me.
My body is still moving, still trying to resist out of pure instinct, but then he whispers something into my ear. Just one word. One simple, quiet command.
"Sshhhhhh...!"
I don't know if it's the sound of his voice or the feel of his body against mine—strong, tense, like he's holding himself back from something. Or maybe it’s his smell, both strange and familiar from the last time we kissed and I nearly lost my mind right there in his hands.
I don't know if it's the authority in his voice or the promise of something worse if I don’t stop, but I stop.
I stop fighting.
I stop thrashing.
I just...stop.
He keeps holding me, his arms firm and unrelenting, and I close my eyes because I don't know what else to do. I wait for whatever it is he's going to do next. I brace for it.
But instead… nothing happens.
He waits. He holds me like that for what feels like minutes...long, stretched, unbearable minutes, before he finally lets me go.
I don’t even realize at first that he’s not touching me anymore. My body is still tense, like he’s still around me, still pressing me into stillness. But when I finally notice the absence of his hands, the lack of his heat, I open my eyes.
I open my eyes slowly. I'm afraid of what might happen if I open them too fast.
I almost hope he's gone.
But he’s not.
He's still right there. Standing behind me.
Close enough that I can still feel where his hands had been on my skin.
Close enough that his breath drifts over my shoulder, warm and steady, like he’s not the one who just pinned me still.
I look forward, at myself, and that’s when I realize it. Somewhere in the struggling… I lost my towel.
My body goes cold.... I am stark naked!
My eyes start searching the room, desperate, frantic, until I see it… crumpled near the bathroom door. My gaze flicks back to him, to Axel, wondering if I can move, if moving will trigger something in him.
And he’s silently watching me.
But not my body.
He’s looking straight into my eyes.
And somehow—that is worse.
Worse because I am holding secrets from him.
Worse because I know what Nico told me.
Worse because Axel can smell.
I swallow hard. My voice barely works.
“Can I… get my towel?”
He doesn’t move.
He doesn’t answer.
Just watches.
I second-guess myself and what I should do for a minute, and I move anyway. I rush to the towel, grab it off the floor, and quickly wrap it around myself, but it feels thin and useless, like a paper shield between me and him.
I start looking around the room for something, anything else—clothes, drawers, escape, air...but there’s still no real space between us. Even with distance, his gaze still has a hold on me.
My chest is rising too fast.
I am panicking. And he is still silent.
Silence is so much worse.
“I’m… going to get changed,” I manage to say.
“That can wait,” he replies.
My voice dies.
And when he takes one step toward me, just one, my whole body goes tight. I don’t know why; I don’t know what part of me reacts first, the fear or the memory, but I feel myself trembling.
He walks slowly, like there is no rush, like he has all the time in the world to corner me. Then finally he stops in front of me.
The only space between us is air. Barely. His eyes never leave mine.
I try to look anywhere else—his throat, his jaw, the open collar of his shirt... anything but his eyes. Because his eyes feel like they see everything. Every thought. Every lie. Every secret.
And then he speaks.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?”
His voice is soft when he speaks.
And I don’t trust soft. Not when it comes from Axel. This feels like a trap...a gentle one, the kind you walk into all by yourself.
My mind is running too fast. What is he asking about?
Nico?
Marc—the man at the party he sold me to?
Or Harris?
There are too many landmines, too many wrong doors I could open if I speak. So I shake my head instead.
“No.”
He whispers, closer now, voice warm like a threat with sugar on it.
“Hazel… Is there something you think I should know?”
I shake my head faster this time, almost choking on it.
“No. Nothing. Nothing.”
I try to steady my voice.
“Why? Is there… something you want me to tell you?”
My voice is sharp and defensive. I hear it. I hate that I can’t stop it.
He takes what feels like forever to watch me.
Not my body.
My face.
He studies me the way someone might study a map they already know, just to confirm the weak points haven’t moved. And then...he smiles.
But I don’t trust the smile. It’s a crocodile smile, full of teeth and patience and appetite. And just like that, like the whole moment never happened, he turns and begins to walk away.
For a second, I just stand there, towel clutched tight around me, heart pounding. I should be relieved. I should be grateful he’s leaving.
But something in me won’t let him go, not without something. Not without knowing what this was. Not without understanding what he wanted.
So the word slips out of me before I can stop it.
“Wait.”
- Writer
