Okay, so THIS is now officially the most intense chapter. Had a hell of a time trying to write this one, hence the delay.

Chapter 54

My brain didn't have any thinking left inside of it. I slipped off everything, my coat and my sweater, my pants and my socks. I stood there in my blue bra and my Monday underwear. I stood there on the cool, white plastic tiles as Santana sang into her own tears.

I stared at the toilet beside me. On the water closet was a three-quarters-empty bottle of Bacardi, the cap loose and jagged.

I rubbed a finger over my turtle's foot.

Good luck, good luck, good luck.

My bra came unlatched, tugged off of my shoulders and pooled to the floor like water. The roundness of my breasts deflated just a little, the air bringing my nipples to a point and then swallowing them back to normal. My breathing quickened. I tore off my underwear and slid aside the shower curtain.

"Brittany, what the fuck?" Santana exclaimed, bending into the wall and wrapping her arms across her chest.

But I could still see her. I could see everything, all of the marks her mother had left behind.

"I heard you," I said over the roar of the shower. "You were singing that Stevie Nicks song again and crying."

"So you just decided to take your clothes off and jump in here with me?" she shouted.

I could see everything, even through the steam. Her straight, caramel line of a body. Her skinny legs and the bones that came out of her pelvis so perfectly. The muscles of her biceps, bulging ever so slightly as she hugged herself.

I took a step forward, my bare feet sliding up along hers. I pulled her arms away from her breasts and held them out in front of me. Santana's eyes fell, her chin sinking into her shoulder, into a tangle of wet black hair. I pressed my stomach into hers.

"Get off me," she hissed.

I could feel the vibration of her lips on my skin, but her body didn't move. Her hands didn't strike me.

"Get off me, Brittany," she repeated.

Her arm came out this time. She jerked, elbowing me in the side. I grabbed it, I grabbed her, smashing her hips along my own. We fit into each other like Lego blocks. SNAP.

She looked up at me, her lower lip quaking. She looked so young without her makeup on. Her eyes seemed so small and so far away. It was wrong what I was doing. It was mean.

I swiveled her around, rolling my arm over her chest and gripping her across the ribcage. I pushed her forward, my breasts smashed along her spine, the backs of her thighs rocking against my knees. A cloud of mist burst out to surround us, but I could still see everything, everything she didn't want me to see. My fingers danced over the ring of bruises on Santana's hip.

"Stop it," Santana plead, her low growl of a voice drowned out by the shower.

I lodged my stomach into the purple marks. I covered her like a blanket. The water from the showerhead pounded along my shoulders as I forced Santana into the side wall. I was waiting for a fist. I was waiting for her to punch me in the arm and escape. But she cocked her hip to follow me instead. "You're still beautiful," I spoke into her ear. "Even like this."

"Shut up," she cried, her voice filling up with tears. "Just stop it."

I placed my leg between hers, pushing her feet apart. I slid my hand down her stomach, grazing the thin line of black hair between her thighs. She'd just shaved. I could feel the prickly points stabbing me as I pressed deeper.

Santana's head came back with a moan. She threw an arm up and backwards, digging her nails into my neck and gripping me in a scratch. A firework shot through me. She was in me again. She was all of me. Her fingers trailed upwards, twisting themselves through my hair. She tugged at it as if she were searching for the perfect spot to stay put and, as her nails hit that hollow space at the back of my neck, I gasped.

She arched her back, her foot rising to rest on the edge of the bathtub. I heard her knee crash into the tiles of the wall.

"Are you okay?" I breathed, my words barely audible over the hum of the shower.

She didn't answer. I wasn't sure if it was 'cuz she hadn't heard me, or that she just didn't care to respond.

"Santana?" I asked, if only to feel her name on my tongue, if only to be able to swallow down a part of her.

Her hand smashed into mine. "Fuck me," she whispered. She squeezed my wrist and guided me inside of her, bending my index and middle fingers so forcefully I thought she might break them in half. I felt her short nails clawing as she shoved me inside of her. And then she cried out again, "Fuck," and my name, "Brittany," breathed in a tiny whimper. She clenched me with her thighs as tightly as she could without allowing her foot to slip off of the bathtub. She was warm and wet, and the water streaming out of the showerhead went cool by comparison.

She groaned as I moved my fingers in and out, hard and fast the way I knew that she wanted it. She fell forward. Her chin struck the wall, her rough sighs bleeding all over it. I buried my face in her wet hair. She smelled different, like hotel shampoo. It burned my nose and set me on fire.

"Don't stop," Santana said, exhaling loudly as I curved my fingers in deeper.

I wrapped my left arm over her breasts to hold her in place. Her arm slid out of my hair and down the tiles, leaving behind the hot streaks of five fingertips. She was bent over now. She couldn't stand up, my hand thrusting harder and harder until she grabbed at the fingers I had draped across her breast. She gripped them in a tiny fist and brought them to her mouth. When she bit down, I felt it through every inch of my body, the space between my legs flooded with little sparks. I swallowed her shoulder in a kiss and the clean, sweet water from her shower bled across my tongue.

Her ass struck my thighs in a slap. "Don't stop," she whimpered, her slim fingers left curled around my own.

She held my heartbeat in both of our hands. She couldn't let go.

I pushed myself inside of her as far as my knuckles would let me, the tip of my water-soaked thumb dancing across the outside place between her legs. I knew how to make a girl come, grinding my thumb down deeper and deeper until Santana arched her back into me and cried out like her body was dying. The sound of her moan, spit along the tile walls, made me grab for her in a panic.

She pulled me down with her to the bottom of the tub. The water came rushing out upon our shoulders like bullets. I squeezed my eyes shut, rolling us both into an almost-dry corner.

Santana panted. She gripped my arms and forced herself into me, curled like a ball along my stomach. She was hot and soft and wet. Her fingers tore at my skin as if she wanted to make herself a part of mine. "Thank you," she breathed. "Thank you, Brittany."

I ran one hand down the length of her hair. She started crying and the sound was so loud that I thought I was being shot, and I couldn't tell the difference anymore between the shower's bullets and Santana's tears.