Some habits are so ingrained in people that you could easily label them as compulsions. I was halfway through my routine when she arrived—slightly flustered, barely exchanging looks, smiles, or words with anyone. Determined.

Still, it was enough for me to observe her. And hate the ponytail trapping her hair in that rushed, messy way.

Rich, deep burgundy with stupidly exhilarating reddish-purple undertones. The kind of hair that catches the light too beautifully, throwing off a warm, coppery sheen in the right places—especially toward the tips, especially where the light lands just right. Vivid.

The kind of hair that should be spread across damp sheets. Or fisted tight while she moaned into a pillow. Or gagged on my cock as I held her there.

She put her bag down, towel around her neck. She always hesitated when clutching her wedding band, as if she held secrets not meant for the light. Earbuds and a snarl, a drink of water before she stepped onto the treadmill. Like fucking clockwork. Fifteen minutes she’d be at it, three-minute intervals, steadily increasing tempo. Enough for a dark patch of wet to form where her shoulders met her neck. Enough to make her breath sound a little begging.

Another drink of water.

She did half-assed stretch routines before the glute work. Cursory lunges. A few hip circles. Then cables, resistance bands, that brutal hip thrust bench. Not for show—she loaded the bar heavy, locked in, drove through each rep like her body owed her something.

By then, strands of hair had escaped their tie, clinging to her temples and the back of her neck where droplets of salty dew made her look... edible. Her shirt was damp at the hem, clinging slightly where her waist tapered in before flaring out again.

She stood. Patted her brow with the towel. Another go at the water bottle. She tilted her head back, only the jugular of her throat giving away the pulse building inside her. Endorphins mixing with her own scent of sweat. Her own breath betraying her before she even knew it herself.

And then the machine. The one with padded thighs and silent repetition. Spread. Hold. Close. Ankles planted wide, back straight, breathing steady.

Spread.

Hold.

Her pants gripped her cunt tight, the fabric pulled just enough to show where tension gathered. Every contraction made it worse. Or better. It was hard to tell. Not soaked, but damp. Enough to draw the eye.

I stared. Let her know.

She snarled—a whispered fuck you behind lips and teeth.

Close.

A slight tremor of her lip. A slight tremor in her arms.

Repeat.

Spread. Hold. Close.

I shifted. Just enough for her to catch the outline of my cock through my shorts. Enough for her lip to catch between her teeth. Enough for her to falter—hips giving in, the hold collapsing.

She reset. Shoulders squared, jaw tense, refusing to look. Sweat had started to form along her waistband, soaking into the seam where skin met fabric. She wiped her palms on her thighs, gripped the handles tighter, and began again.

Spread.

This time slower. More deliberate.

Hold.

Her face flushed, the heat rising up her neck. Skin blooming from the effort. From being seen.

Close.

Breath caught in the middle of her chest. That pause where her body wasn’t sure whether to power through or give out.

Spread.

One more time.

The fabric at her hips clung tighter now. Not soaked, not obscene—but unignorable. The suggestion of friction. Of pressure. Of a pulse that had drifted from the pace of the workout.

Hold.

Muscles taut. Ankles planted. Thighs pushing outward.

Close.

I stood. She had maybe four minutes left if her legs held. I walked to the bench. Picked up the towel she’d dropped without looking, the one still warm from her neck. Damp from her breath.

I wiped my face with it. Slow. Deliberate.

Turned just enough to let her see me do it.

She froze. Not a full stop—just one lost beat in the rhythm. Enough to break the set. Enough to betray something.

Her eyes met mine for a second too long. No anger. No surprise. Just the kind of recognition that burns quietly through every layer of restraint.

I folded the towel once. Set it back down exactly where she’d left it. A little too neat. A little too wrong.

Then I left. No words. No smirk. Just the scent of her still clinging to my skin.

Let her finish the workout, wondering how long I’d been watching. Wondering what I’d seen. Wondering what I meant by taking that small, stupid liberty.

Wondering why her thighs were still shaking.

The underground parking—she always chose level B3. So fucking predictable. Easy enough to wait for her in the shadows. Easy enough to clock that she was late.

Finally, the elevator dinged. She stepped out with that little hesitation, like the air was heavier down here. It was. The kind of humid damp that clung to the walls and slipped into fabric. She passed by without noticing. But her body was already giving her away. The way her hands kept moving, couldn’t find a place to rest. The way her steps stuttered. The way her stare shifted, as if she was looking for something she wouldn’t admit to.

I fell in behind her. Footsteps now doubled—hers and mine—echoing across the concrete. She didn’t look back. Just picked up her pace, not quite a hurry, but not casual either.

If she turned, I’d already be gone. I’d watched her park earlier. Slipped in between the cars. Waited.

She probably found comfort in the idea that keyless entry had made decades of thriller clichés obsolete. No fumbling for keys. No slipping them from the wrong pocket with trembling hands. No dropping them just as the predator emerged. No waiting for the moment safety was nearly within reach.

She even sighed—just breath, but full—as her fingers reached for the handle.

That’s when I stepped out from between the cars.

One hand at her throat, the other twisting her arm behind her back. Her bag dropping to the concrete floor like the first surrender.

“How fucking wet are you?” I whispered against her ear.

“Fuck you,” she snarled, low and feral.

“Don’t worry, honey. You will.”

I tightened at her throat—not cutting off breath, just letting her feel the claim—and pulled her back. Bent her, just enough. Licked the salt where her neck arched into it, where her skin shivered without permission.

“Fucking creep,” she tried again, but her body gave her away. The way her hips pressed back. The way her ass ground against the full, aching throb I wasn’t bothering to hide.

She was already gone.

High on endorphins. Raw with adrenaline. Her mind not ready, but her body begging.

And not this morning, of all mornings. Not when she’d planned the workout like a ritual, like control. Not when she’d told herself she’d drive home dry.

I let go of her hand and throat, expecting her to wrestle back control. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Arms limp at her sides, still leaning into my mouth tracing the line of her neck. Still grinding back against me like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

There was no protest when my hands found the hem of her pants. I think she expected me to yank them down. To take her before her mind had time to catch up with her hunger.

But I didn’t.

Just let my thumbs slip inside. Let them find the heat beneath the sweat. Her pulse thudded against my lips as I pulled her tighter, held her by the meat of her ass, letting the curve fill my palms. Letting my fingers knead at the seam until her breath caught.

Then the first rip.

The sound tore through the stillness, bounced off concrete. I don’t know if it was a moan or a sob she let out—something cracked either way. When I tore her open, she stilled completely.

Her mind was gone. Wherever it had gone, it wasn’t here.

Only her body remained. Heat. Sweat. Tension spun too tight to hold.

I slipped lower, between the cleft of her ass. She didn’t resist. Just shifted wider, offering the barest tilt of her hips, that raw, wordless plea for more. For contact. For confirmation.

For surrender.

Skin on fire. Sweat and filth. But she didn’t flinch when the tips of my fingers found her—held there, trembling against her need.

“You want to, don’t you?” I whispered. “Fuck yourself on my fingers.”

“Fuck you,” she begged. Raw. Broken.

And still, she pushed against me. Back arching. Pulse pulsing around me. Her hands braced on the roof of her car. Her voice caught somewhere between breath and a moan that told me just how close she already was.

I could’ve fucked her like that. Broken. Humiliated. Ruined.

But I didn’t.

I only pushed my fingers as deep as I could, holding her up from the inside. A reminder. A warning. A promise.

“You’ll get in your car now,” I murmured. “Drive wherever you want. The safety of the mall? The police station? Let everyone see your ass bare, your thighs wet, your cunt still pulsing for me.”

I don’t know if she even heard. Or if her mind was so knotted up in want that nothing rational could break through.

“Jesus,” she muttered.

“I’ll follow,” I said. “I’ll be right there in your rearview mirror. If you can see anything at all besides the ache I’ve left in you.”

I pulled out.

Watched her knees give. Watched her grab the frame of the car to stay standing.

Then I slipped back into the dark.

She didn’t move at first. Just gripped cold metal, thighs shaking, cunt empty and throbbing, breath stuttering in and out without ever reaching her lungs.

I sat in my car. Waiting.

Grinned at how long it took her. How stupidly stalled she was by the simple task of getting in, tapping the ignition, and driving away.

Finally, her headlights blinked on—delayed, unsteady. Then she pulled out, cautious, like her legs hadn’t quite remembered what they were for.

I didn’t follow. Not yet.

I imagined her looking. Searching the mirror. That quiet panic of not seeing me—maybe worse than the dread of spotting me there.

I let her crawl toward the first ramp. Gave her distance.

Then I tapped the start button. Slid into gear. Pulled out slow.

She’d cleared the first slope by the time I reached it. I could still see the edge of her brake lights fading around the turn.

I followed. Not too close.

Just close enough for my headlights to find her mirrors again.

Just close enough for her to feel me breathing down her spine.

The ramps began to climb—tight, low-ceilinged spirals where light came in only in hints. Concrete growing warmer the higher we went. She took the first turn wide, slow, her tires kissing the yellow line like she couldn’t decide where the lane ended or where she did.

Her brake lights pulsed now and then. Not enough to stop. Just enough to feel like maybe she wanted to.

Level B2.
Then B1.
Each ramp rising into heat. Into exposure.

She didn’t look back. But I knew she felt it. Felt me.

At the top, the garage spat us out into the morning glare like we didn’t belong in daylight. She drove into it half-blind, hand lifting instinctively to shield her eyes. Sun in full assault. No wind. No shelter. Just the morning traffic starting to pack up against the dryness of the desert, the slow shimmer of heat starting to rise from the boil of asphalt, rising up against the facades of glass, steel, and cement. The panic creeping up her neck that her face might betray it—her need to be used. Fucked. Ruined. Her need to come apart.

She turned out, tires crunching onto sun-bleached asphalt.

I followed.

No sudden moves. No sound but the low hum of the engine. The tires ticking once over a seam in the pavement. A single correction of her steering wheel.

She veered.

Barely. A twitch of the wrist. Just enough to make her feel it. The pull in her thighs, the pressure between her legs, the ache still raw where my fingers had left her.

Whatever she'd been trying to outrun in that garage hadn't stayed behind. It came with her. Still pulsing.

Still wet.

Still mine.

The red light gave me the space to move close—close enough she could feel my breath against her. One look. A disturbed glance in the mirror. My eyes steady, locked to her. She couldn’t hold it, just a shudder through her shoulders.

The light changed.

She pulled forward. Hesitant, off balance, like the motion surprised her. I stayed behind, a few car lengths back, letting the city recede around us as the buildings grew shorter. Wider. The shine of glass replaced by faded awnings, heat-stained stucco, the tired rhythm of intersections blinking yellow to red with no urgency. Stop signs replacing streetlights.

The lanes stretched longer between the intersections. Another stop sign. The cruiser pulling up beside her. Her shifting glance in the mirror, knuckles white upon the wheel. Her brake lights lingered a beat too long as the cruiser turned left, and she was supposed to move on.

A slowed motion. Fewer cars to interfere. Fewer signs of anything except endurance. Asphalt peeling at the edges. Palm trees leaning dry and brittle toward a sky too white to be kind.

She kept driving. Slower now. Not aimless, but not present either. Her hand hovered at the air vent, pulling nothing but heat.

Side streets opened without invitation. She turned down one. Then another. Houses repeated themselves. Gravel yards, squat shapes with sealed windows, garage doors closed like mouths that had given up speech.

She pulled into a driveway. Braked hard, like she wasn’t ready to stop, but had run out of excuses to keep moving.

I parked on the street. Knowing she knew I was watching her.

Knowing she had to get herself out of the car, into the house, while her cunt pulsed wet, open. It took her a flustered moment as she reached for her bag.

She broke the trance just long enough to wrap her towel around herself. Managed to feign decency as she hurried toward her door. Futile, of course. She knew as well as I did—she was bleeding need down her thighs.

No keyless entry to save her this time. The fumble through her bag to find the keys. The tremble of her body, the exposure as she felt my eyes on her back. The sweat. The fucking wet of her.

Finally, she found the right shape of metal in her hands. It took her three breaths to steady enough to make the key fit. She entered, leaving the door slightly ajar.

I stepped out and crossed the street. The heat of the desert unrelenting, the sound of wet asphalt, then dry gravel crunching underfoot, hot and loose. Scattered stone, sun-bleached. Sparse bursts of green clinging to the base of squat desert shrubs, trimmed into obedience. A rusted metal sun hung crooked on the stucco wall near her door. No wind. Just the baked hum of stillness and the soft crack of heat expanding in the stone.

The scent of dust and mesquite drifted up as I walked. Nothing grew here unless it learned to hurt first.

She was inside. Ruined by heat. Wet with ache. Longing. Not just for cock, but for the undoing she no longer could escape.

And her door was ajar.

Her house met me with a rush of cooled air—dry, tinged with the mechanical sharpness of recycled freon. That faint metallic tang of air-conditioning pushing back against the heat soaked deep into drywall, tile, and carpet. A house sealed tight all morning, its stillness stitched into every seam.

Layers of scent.

Drywall dust and desert. Baked stucco. The sweet linger of incense fighting to mask the dryness outside. Synthetic lemon trying to cloak the slow creep of dust and sand that seeped in from everywhere.

And then the sharp smell of her.

She stood with one palm pressed to the hallway mirror. The towel abandoned on the floor. Her eyes caught in her reflection. Hips buckling. Back arched.

Fucking herself on two fingers that weren’t nearly enough to feed her.