90 Days With the Man I Can't Have

The air in my loft was thick with the scent of turpentine and the electric, heavy ionized smell of the thunderstorm rattling the window-panes. I stood there, frozen, the flickering streetlights from the Newark alleyway casting long, skeletal shadows across the floorboards. I didn't breathe. I didn't move. I just stood there like a fool, like a girl who had finally stepped off a cliff and was waiting for the ground to shatter her bones.

​Because that is exactly what Josh looked like. He looked like the end of the world.

​He stood in the center of my studio, his massive frame dwarfing the half-finished canvases and the chaotic stacks of sketches. He was big and hard and scarred and mean. Muscles were everywhere, thick arms that looked like they could snap a man in half, broad shoulders that blocked out the light, and abs that looked like bricks stacked under skin.

Those dark, lethal veins ran down into the sharp V at his hips, leading lower to where the trousers barely held on.

​He just stared at me. His eyes cut through the dim light like a knife, sharp and cold and utterly uncompromising. That stare made my knees shake. It made my skin prickle and my thighs go sticky because it wasn't just the kind of stare two best friends give each other. It wasn't the look we had shared over takeout pizza or when he was helping me hang a heavy frame. This was the kind of stare a wolf gives his prey right before he takes a bite.

​My throat locked up. I was staring too hard, biting my lip until I tasted copper, feeling far too much for a man who didn't belong to me.

​With trembling fingers, I reached for the hem of my shirt. I pulled it over my head, letting it fall into a heap of discarded fabric on the dusty floor. I followed with my jeans until I was standing there in nothing but my black lace lingerie. I felt exposed, raw, and desperate. I crawled onto the edge of my bed, the silk sheets cool against my heated skin, before I stood back up and walked toward him. I leaned in, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, and whispered in his ear. I told him to do all the things I knew he would never admit he thought about during our quiet moments. My lips parted. My breath came in short, shameful pants.

​His gaze dropped. He looked at the lace barely covering me, at the droplets of sweat clinging to my collarbone, at the shape of my breasts pushing up against the wire.

​And he smiled.

​It wasn't a nice smile. It wasn't a friendly one. It was cruel. Knowing. Dangerous. A smile that made me want to scream and run and stay all at the same time. I didn't move. I couldn't. My thighs trembled as the heat rolled off my skin like I was going to melt into the brick wall behind me.

​When he finally stepped closer, he caught my chin with one rough, calloused hand. He tilted my face up to meet his eyes, and I almost cried from the sheer intensity of it. I could see it in him. The hunger. The filth. The fact that he had been waiting for this just as long as I had.

​"You want this," he said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that settled deep in my gut. "Say it."

​"I want it," I whispered. My voice was so small, but it sounded like a thunderclap in the silence of the loft.

​"Say it right, Viv."

​I shivered, the sound of my nickname on his lips feeling like a brand. "I want you to touch me, Josh," I breathed, the words spilling out of me in a rush of honesty. "I want you to do everything. Everything I shouldn't let you do. Everything I've thought about for years. I want you to ruin me."

​He growled. It was a feral, animalistic sound that vibrated through his chest and into mine.

​Before I could even blink, his hands were on me. He grabbed my ass, his large palms covering me entirely, and lifted me like I weighed nothing. He dropped me onto the marble surface of my dressing cabinet, the cold stone a shocking contrast to the fire in my blood. He shoved his knee between my legs, spreading me wide, and buried his face straight between my thighs. He was starving for it.

​His tongue hit me like a lightning bolt.

​I screamed. It wasn't cute or quiet or girly. It was a feral, filthy sound that burst out of me the second his mouth found me. He latched on like I belonged to him. Like my body was the only thing that could save him from the storm outside. His tongue didn't just lick, it devoured. It was rough and slow and deep, sliding through my folds like he wanted to learn every secret I had ever kept from him.

​"Fuck," I cried, my fingers clawing at the cold marble edge behind me. My legs were shaking as he spread them even wider, shoving two thick fingers in without a single word of warning. "Oh my God, oh my fucking God, Josh!"

​I called out his name and I didn't care. I didn't care that he was the Sterling heir. I didn't care that he had a life of duty and expectations waiting for him. I was soaked and desperate. My body arched off the table, caught in the crossfire of his tongue flicking against my clit with a rhythm so perfect it felt like he had studied me in his dreams.

​He didn't respond with words. He just groaned, a deep, rough noise that rumbled against me and made my back slam into the mirror with a sharp cry. I was shaking, panting, so close to the edge that I could feel the tension in my spine. His fingers pumped in and out of me, wet and fast, while his mouth never left me for a second.

​"Please," I begged, my head tossing back. "Please don't stop. I'm so close, I swear I'm... fuck!"

​My body locked up. My thighs clamped around his head and I screamed again, a broken, ruined sound. I came so hard I saw stars. My vision went white as my body clenched around his fingers, gushing over his mouth. He didn't stop. He grabbed my hips and dragged me further down the counter, keeping the pressure exactly where I needed it until I was a sobbing, wrecked mess.

​When he finally stood up, his mouth was glistening and his eyes were dark and wild. He let the trouser fall from his hips, and I felt the air leave my lungs.

​He was thick, hard, and veined, leaking at the tip like he was angry. My breath caught. I had always wondered what he looked like under those tailored suits, and the reality was terrifying.

​"I can't," I whispered, my eyes wide. "Josh, it's too big."

​He smirked. That filthy, cocky smirk. "You'll try," he said. He wrapped one hand in my hair, jerking my head back so my spine arched. "Open, Viv. Let me fuck that smart little mouth."

​I did. I let him push in, tasting the salt and the heat of him. He shoved in until he hit the back of my throat, holding it there while I gagged, my mascara running down my face. I let him use me. I let him fuck my mouth like he owned it, like he had waited years to see me drool around him.

​Then he spun me around. He slammed my chest against the cold marble, my ass up and my legs spread.

​"Look at this," he growled, his hand dragging between my legs to spread me even wider. "You really want me to ruin it, don't you?"

​I nodded frantically. I needed to feel him. I needed to know what it felt like to be taken raw and rough by the man I loved, the man who only ever looked at me like a best friend until tonight.

​He slammed into me.

​I screamed as he stretched me wide, pressing past every wall I had. He didn't slow down. He fucked me like I was made for it, his hips slamming against me with every filthy slap of skin on skin. He grabbed my throat from behind, his voice a hot, brutal growl in my ear.

​"Come for me, Viv. Let me feel you ruin yourself for me."

​I came so hard my vision went white for the second time. My legs gave out and my pussy spasmed around him, refusing to let go. When he finally roared my name and flooded me with heat, I felt a sense of completion that terrified me.

​The silence that followed was heavy. We stayed like that for a moment, both of us panting, the only sound the rain hitting the roof. Josh slowly pulled away and reached for his phone, which had been buzzing incessantly on the counter.

​The screen lit up the room.

​Vanessa - Final Cake Selection

​The air in the room turned to ice. Josh didn't say a word as he reached for his $3,000 suit. The spell was shattered. The "best friend" was gone, and the "Billionaire Heir" was back. He dressed with clinical efficiency, not looking at me as he straightened his cuffs.

​"I'll call you tomorrow, Viv," he said, his voice cold and professional.

​He walked out, the heavy door of the loft clicking shut behind him. I sat there on the cold marble, my body still humming from his touch, and looked at the calendar I kept by my easel. I picked up a red marker and crossed off the date.

​89 days until the wedding.

The canvas stared back at me, a jagged, weeping mess of charcoal and bruised violets. My hands were stained, my fingernails still holding the ghost of the night before, but the silence of the loft was a physical weight.

Sleep was an unattainable luxury, a phantom I couldn't grasp while his scent still clung to my skin like a shroud. I couldn't stop the tremors in my fingers, nor could I stop the memory of that morning, the clinical way he had buttoned his shirt, the way he had checked his watch, the way he had looked at the phone screen and then, for a brief, agonizing second, looked at me as if I were nothing more than a temporary fix.

​I picked up the brush, my movements sharp and frantic, trying to bleed the ache out onto the fabric. But every stroke felt like a betrayal. I wasn't painting art; I was painting my own funeral. I was painting the eighty-nine days left until he walked down that aisle and traded his freedom for a boardroom merger.

​My mind slipped, the smell of turpentine fading into the sterile, ozone-sharp air of his executive office.

Twenty-four hours ago. The breaking point.

​I had walked into Sterling Tower like a woman walking to the gallows. I was there to quit. Not my job, not my life, but the role I had played for two decades: the best friend. The confidante. The woman who stood in the shadows while he charmed the world. I couldn't do it anymore. The wedding invitations were in the mail, and the thought of watching him exchange vows with Vanessa, a woman who looked at me like I was a smudge of paint on a pristine rug was a blade to my throat.

​I had confronted him by the floor-to-ceiling glass of his office, the city of Newark spread out below us like a carpet of dying embers. I told him I couldn't be his person anymore. I told him it hurt too much to be the girl he called when he was lonely, only to watch him play the role of the devoted groom-to-be the next morning.

​I had turned to leave, my chin held high, my heart shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. But I never made it to the door.

​Josh had moved with a predator's grace. He reached out, his hand snapping out to lock around my wrist, and yanked me backward. He didn't say a word. He pinned me against the cold, expansive glass of his office window, fifty stories above the earth. The world felt dizzying, tilted, and far away. He was there, towering over me, his tailored jacket discarded, his tie hanging loose around his neck like a noose.

​"Don't you dare walk out on me," he had growled, his breath hot against the shell of my ear.

​"I have to," I had cried, my voice cracking. "I love you, Josh! I have always loved you, and it is killing me to stand here and watch you throw your life away for a merger!"

​The confession hung in the air, raw and terrifying. I had finally said it. The unrequited love that had defined my entire existence was finally out in the open, naked and hideous. I waited for him to push me away, to laugh, or to tell me I was insane.

​Instead, he kissed me.

​It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a collision of years of pent-up starvation. He crushed his mouth to mine, his hands roaming over my back, his fingers digging into my shoulders as if he were trying to imprint himself onto my soul. The best-friend rule, the invisible, sacred line we had danced around since we were children snapped. It didn't just break; it evaporated.

​When we finally broke apart, gasping for air, he had pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes dark with a desperate, frantic intensity. He didn't offer me a future. He didn't offer me a life. He offered me a countdown.

​"Ninety days," he had whispered, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip. "We are both dying, Viv. We have been dying for years. I am shackled to that woman, to that company, and to that name. I can't escape it. But for ninety days, I want the truth. I want you."

​He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy silver chain. Attached to it was a small, ornate key not for a lock, but for a memory. He didn't put it around my neck. He took my hand and pressed it into my palm, his grip firm and proprietary.

​"Wear this under your clothes," he had commanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum. "Every time you feel it against your skin, remember that you are mine. Nobody knows. Nobody sees it. In public, you are the best friend. You are the girl who keeps my secrets. But when you are behind closed doors, you belong to me, and I belong to you. No strings. No jealousy. No love. Just these ninety days."

​I had accepted the key. I had accepted the bargain. I had agreed to the terms: We would meet only in private. Not a soul on this earth would know the depravity we shared behind locked doors. In public, the mask would never slip. We were best friends, nothing more, nothing less.

​He hadn't mentioned love because, to him, love was the complication that would ruin the arrangement. He didn't know that I had already given him every part of my heart years ago, and that he was simply playing with the wreckage.

​I looked down at my chest, where the silver key rested against my skin, cold and heavy. It was a secret mark of possession, a silent promise that he owned the parts of me that he wasn't allowed to see in the light.

​I turned back to the canvas, my heart aching with the sharp, rhythmic pulse of the secret chain against my sternum. Eighty-nine days of stolen darkness left. Eighty-nine days to pretend that the touch of his hand wasn't the only thing keeping me alive. I dipped my brush into the paint, the red smear looking too much like fresh blood, and began to paint the face of the man who was currently planning his wedding to someone else.

​I knew the rules. I knew the stakes. And I knew that when the ninety days were up, I wouldn't just be losing my best friend. I would be losing the only version of myself that had ever truly felt real. The bargain was struck, the ink was dry, and the countdown had begun. And God help me, I was going to burn for every second of it.

The air in the gallery was thin, recycled, and suffocating. It smelled of expensive perfume, damp wool, and the bitter, metallic tang of artificial prestige. I adjusted my dress, a simple black slip that felt like a costume and gripped the stem of my champagne flute until my knuckles turned white.

​Around me, the elite of Newark moved like sharks in a feeding frenzy. They didn't see the art; they saw investment portfolios and social capital. And then, there was me. The token "struggling artist" allowed to display a single, small piece in the corner of the room, as if to prove the gallery had a soul.

​My eyes kept darting to the entrance. I knew he was coming. I could feel the atmosphere shift before I even saw him.

​The crowd parted. It wasn't just a entrance; it was a coronation. Josh walked through the double doors with the effortless, devastating grace of a man who owned the very ground he walked on. He was wearing a charcoal tuxedo that fit him like a second skin, his dark hair perfectly styled, his jawline carved from granite. And hanging on his arm, draped in enough diamonds to fund my studio for a decade, was Vanessa.

​She looked like a winter morning beautiful, cold, and entirely devoid of warmth.

​They were the picture of a corporate dynasty, the perfect merger of bloodlines and bank accounts.

As they glided through the room, people bowed their heads like worshippers at a shrine. I felt the familiar, crushing weight of the silver key against my sternum. It burned. It was a secret brand, a silent claim that felt impossibly heavy under the weight of a thousand eyes.

​"Vivian," Vanessa's voice cut through the hum of conversation, sharp as a glass shard.

​I turned, forcing a smile that didn't reach my eyes. "Vanessa. Josh."

When Josh's gaze finally locked onto mine, the air in my lungs turned to lead. The professional mask he wore was absolute, a fortress of granite, but his eyes, those dark, predatory eyes didn't lie.

They stripped away the gallery, the cameras, and the woman clinging to his arm. They pinned me to the spot with a raw, savage intensity that felt like a physical strike.

​He didn't greet me. He didn't smile. He just stared, and in that silence, he reminded me exactly whose mouth had been on mine three nights ago.

​

​"Viv," Josh said, his voice a low, steady rumble. He didn't offer his hand. He didn't pull me into a hug. He kept his hands at his sides, as if he were afraid that if he touched me, the secrets in his blood would leak out for everyone to see.

​"Your little display is.... quaint" Vanessa said, casting a dismissive glance at my painting a raw, frantic piece of abstract heartbreak I'd titled The Midnight Bargain. "It's so cute that you treat your little hobby with such seriousness. It's like watching a child play with finger paints."

​The condescension rolled off her like a wave, thick and suffocating. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, a sharp, stinging shame. Josh's jaw tightened, the muscles in his neck cording, but he didn't say a word. He let her insult me. He let her treat me like a footnote in his life.

​"It pays the rent," I said, my voice steady despite the way my heart was hammering against my ribs

.

​"Barely, I imagine," Vanessa laughed, a brittle, hollow sound.

​Suddenly, Julian, a rival painter, charming and infuriatingly persistent stepped into my orbit, his hand finding the small of my back. "Vivian, darling, that piece is breathtaking. The way you captured the, uh, agony in the brushwork is truly profound."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a teasing, flirtatious register. "You look radiant tonight. Far too interesting for a place like this."

​I felt Josh's attention snap to us. He wasn't looking at the art anymore. His gaze was fixed on Julian's hand resting on my waist, and the look in his eyes was lethal. It was a dark, possessive hunger that had nothing to do with the "best friend" dynamic he was forced to play.

​Under the cover of a high-top mahogany table, away from the prying eyes of the press and the wandering gaze of his fiancée, Josh's hand shot out. He grabbed my wrist, his fingers curling around it with a force that bordered on painful. He pulled my hand beneath the table, his skin burning against mine. He didn't just hold it; he pressed it into his thigh, his fingers interlacing with mine in a silent, violent warning. Back off. She's mine.

​"Vivian," Josh said, his voice dropping an octave, smooth and dangerous. "I've been speaking with Vanessa about the wedding. We've been discussing the aesthetic. We've decided we need something... specific."

​I tried to pull my hand back, but he held on tighter, his thumb tracing the delicate bones of my wrist in a way that felt like a caress. "Oh?" I managed, my breath hitching as he squeezed my hand, a silent, possessive command.

​"We want you to paint our wedding portrait," Josh continued, his eyes locked on mine, defying the distance between us. "Eight hours a day, in the studio. I want you to capture us perfectly."

​My stomach turned. Stare at them for eight hours a day? Watch them plan their life, their future, their everything, while I was relegated to the canvas? It was torture. It was a slow, agonizing death.

​"I... I'm not sure if I have the time," I stammered, my heart breaking all over again.

​Josh didn't let go. He leaned in, his shadow falling over me, his scent expensive bourbon and cold winter air invading my senses. "You'll make the time, won't you, Viv?"

​The request hung in the air, weighted with the unspoken rules of our bargain. He wasn't asking; he was demanding. He wanted me to witness his surrender. He wanted me to be the silent observer of his betrayal, a spectator to the life I couldn't have.

​Vanessa, oblivious to the war being fought beneath the table, beamed at me, her eyes bright with a patronizing, glittering joy. She took a step closer, her hand clutching Josh's arm, claiming him in front of everyone.

​"We'd love to have you, truly," she said, her smile wide and artificial. Then, her eyes narrowed with a sudden, devastating thought. "And actually, Viv, since you're Josh's oldest friend... you simply must be my Maid of Honor."

​The room went silent. The music faded into a dull, rhythmic thrumming in my ears. I looked at Josh, but he was staring at me, his eyes dark and unreadable, his hand still gripping mine with the strength of a drowning man.