Page 1 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
1
IVY
He slides his dick into me like he’s done it a hundred times before, confident, precise, mechanical. His hands find my hips with practiced pressure, guiding a rhythm that feels more routine than passion. Each thrust is deep, consistent, almost careful. It could pass for tenderness if there were anything behind it. But there isn’t.
The headboard knocks against the wall, like even it knows not to interrupt. I arch under him out of habit. My breath catches, not from pleasure, but from the force. My fingers clutch the sheets because that’s what they’re supposed to do. He touches me the way a man remembers instructions, not the way a man remembers desire. I shift beneath him, my body moving out of muscle memory more than heat, but nothing inside me responds. There’s no heat, no longing, not even a glimmer of recognition, just hollow space where emotion used to be.
He groans, low and practiced, against my neck. One final push, and it’s done. He lets out a breath and rolls to the side without a word. His chest rises and falls in the slow rhythm of someone who’s satisfied a routine. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t speak. Just turns toward the window like somethingoutside might explain what we just did better than either of us can.
I stare at the ceiling, the silence between us heavier than his body ever was. The air is thick with the remnants of something that once meant more, now reduced to a ritual neither of us believes in. I shift onto my side, the sheets clinging to my skin. They’re damp with sweat, but not the kind that comes from urgency or desire, just exertion, like we both finished a chore.
His scent lingers, clean, sharp, faintly spiced, but it does nothing to stir me. It used to undo me. Now it’s just familiar, like background noise I’ve learned to ignore. I wonder if he notices the difference. If he feels it too, that absence where connection used to live.
I run my fingers along my arm, searching for something to ground me. Nothing. Not even a flicker. The ache I feel isn’t between my legs, it’s behind my ribs, in the cavity where love used to sit. I miss being wanted. Not just touched. Not just fucked. Desired.
I think of someone else, someone who looked at me like I was the only thing in the room. Someone who made silence feel like a conversation and suddenly I want to cry. Not for what just happened, but for what didn’t. For what’s been gone so long I almost forgot how it felt.
He shifts beside me, pulling the sheet over his waist. Still not looking. Still not speaking. The only sound is the dull hum of traffic below and the occasional creak of the bed frame as he adjusts.
"Good night," he says, finally. No tenderness. No glance.
"Good night," I echo, my voice small and foreign to my own ears.
But I don’t close my eyes. I lie still, my legs parted and my skin cooling in the aftermath of everything we didn’t say. The sheets are tangled beneath me. The scent of sex hangs in the air,cut with the lavender linen spray we picked up on a weekend in the Hamptons, back when we still picked things out together. Now, everything arrives clean, wrapped, and carefully chosen. Just like me. Curated to fit a version of this life that no longer feels like mine.
The ring on my finger catches the light. The diamond is flawless and cold, gleaming with a precision that feels more calculated than sentimental. My grandmother’s bracelet slides along my wrist, cool and delicate. It used to anchor me. Now it just reminds me, of who I used to be, of the stories I told myself to stay.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and sit for a beat. The floor is cold. There’s a faint red mark on my thigh where his hand was. It’s already fading. I watch it like I’m studying evidence. Like I’m trying to remember what this was supposed to feel like. When did something that used to feel electric become so mundane?
Derek used to be spontaneous in ways that surprised me, and fun in ways that made everything feel lighter. He once spent a rainy Sunday building me a makeshift photo studio in the spare room, rigging up lights with lamps and bedsheets, just because I mentioned missing natural light. He left notes tucked into my coat pocket. Bought street art from unknown vendors because it reminded him of me. There was a time when it felt like we had rhythm, something raw and personal and ours. I can still hear our laughter in that old apartment, over burnt toast and cheap wine. It felt real. Imperfect in the best way. Unfiltered and undeniably alive, like we were building something that didn’t need to be rehearsed or refined.
There were mornings I woke up tangled in him and thought: This is it. This is love. Not the grand kind you write about, but the quiet kind that holds you steady. I would’ve chosen that overfireworks any day. I would’ve fought for it if I thought it still existed.
Now he brings me orchids pre-trimmed and tagged, arranged to match the kitchen. They’re pretty. Meticulously perfect. And unmistakably cold, like a gesture meant to impress rather than connect. They sit on the island like a press photo, composed but empty. Even the kitchen doesn’t feel like ours. It feels staged, like something out of a lifestyle magazine.
There’s a drawer in the kitchen that still sticks. A warped little thing that resists being closed, no matter how hard you shove it. Derek always said we’d fix it. That drawer’s been broken for three years. Like a small rebellion hiding beneath the quartz countertops and stainless steel. I run my fingers along its edge every morning, just to remind myself that not everything in this apartment is polished into compliance.
He used to notice things. A chipped nail. A change in perfume. A silence that lingered too long. Now I could disappear into the wallpaper and he wouldn’t blink. Maybe that’s what I’ve become, something easy to ignore, easier to display.
It’s not that he doesn’t see me, it’s that he only sees the version he’s decided I should be. Polished. Gracious. Camera-ready. And I’ve gotten so good at playing her, I’m not sure who’s underneath anymore.
I pull one of his shirts around me and walk barefoot through the apartment. Everything gleams. The espresso machine polished to perfection. The floor spotless beneath my feet. The artwork that looks expensive because it is. It should feel like success. Instead, it feels sterile. Like I’m walking through a display unit with my name on it.
I pour a glass of water and lean on the counter. The silence is thick. Heavy. Like it’s trying to tell me something I already know. I glance at the barstool across from mine. We used to sit there for hours, letting conversation drift fromsimple observations to the big, messy questions of life. Talking about nothing in particular, yet somehow covering everything that mattered. Now we barely speak without an agenda. Our conversations reduced to schedules and practicalities. Calendars that map out every hour. Logistics that leave no room for spontaneity. Guest lists that grow with every obligation we pretend to care about.
I picture the wedding in full detail: the champagne towers, the floral arch that cost more than my first year of college, the orchestra warming up in the background like the event is a symphony rather than a promise. It’s all beautiful. Excessive. Picture-perfect, but beneath the beauty, I feel nothing.
The guest list grew every time my mother opened her mouth. I try to picture myself walking down that aisle and feel something, anything. But I don’t. Not even fear, just static. A numb buzz where emotion should be.
I think about calling my mother. Maybe to ask if she knew. Ifeveryoneknew. She’d probably remind me what this marriage is supposed to protect our family’s reputation. Our ties to Derek’s legacy. She’d call it a union of vision. She’s said it before, in ways she thought were subtle, that Derek’s name comes with weight, with access and that we were always meant to be a pair.
I told myself it was love. I wanted to believe it. I even convinced myself that loving Derek would be enough. That what we lacked in heat we could replace with harmony. But love without intimacy is just a contract. And a contract doesn’t make you feel anything.
The dress hangs in the guest room, white and unwrinkled, its structure rigid, its silhouette seamless, crafted to be flawless, yet hollow of warmth. I stood in it once and watched my mother cry. I told myself it meant something. But I didn’t cry. Not even a flicker. As if my body already knew this wasn’t a moment meantfor tears. Not even when they said I looked perfect. Because perfection isn’t the same as right.
I hear footsteps approaching, quiet, bare, deliberate. The kind of footsteps that used to come with a gentle touch to my waist, a slow kiss to my shoulder, intimate rituals that once meant something, but now feel like memories borrowed from someone else’s life. Now they’re just noise.
Derek walks in, jaw tight, voice low. “You’re not coming back to bed?”
