My heart rate picks up a dozen beats or so as I again press my nose against the soft fabric of his shirt to breathe him in—and my fingers just graze below my navel from beneath the ends of his sleeves. There’s a heavy throbbing between my legs now, some strange ball of heat in my belly that threatens to spread into my limbs.
I bite at my lower lip as I attempt to swallow, but there’s a lump there now that makes it difficult. I rub my wrist against my belly until the sleeve bunches enough to allow my fingers to delve between slick folds, gasping when they slide across the rapidly swelling bud of my clit.
I hiss between my teeth when I apply a slight pressure, an immediate zing of pleasure that melds with the odd relief Noah’s scent brings to nearly steal my breath. My body rolls until my face presses to his comforter, lying on my side with my nose buried against my shoulder. I keep my eyes shut tight, breathing in deep so that I can pretend he’s here, that he’s touching me.
I roll my fingers against my clit without any pretense, without any type of teasing or buildup—having only the singular mission of slaking the heavy thirst that seems to have control of my senses at the moment. I imagine hands that are larger, a body so much wider—letting the fantasy fuel me until I can practically hear that deep, deep voice of his murmuring praises in my ear. I hear impossible encouragement of how good I am for him, things I’ve never considered outside of porn, things I might have even called laughable before this—but I’m not laughing at the thought of being good for Noah. I’m not laughing one fucking bit.
My breath is little more than desperate panting now, my wrist aching, but I’m so close. I can hear myself beginning to whimper, working my hand as quickly as I’m able, drawing out that friction until blood rushes in my ears. I’m so close. So fucking close, and I—
The trill of my cell phone nearly causes me to jump out of my own skin.
It startles me so severely that I physically jolt—scrabbling to my back and withdrawing my hand from between my legs so fast that my slick fingers curl into the edge of his sleeves to smear my fluids there, making me grimace. My phone continues to ring nearby on the bedside table, and I blink up at Noah’s ceiling in a daze as I try to reconcile it with what I was just doing. It occurs to me that it could be work, and I know that despite the terrible position I’m in, I have to answer it.
I manage to scramble to the other side of the bed and grab for the phone, trying to shake back the long sleeves of Noah’s shirt. My eyes widen for only a moment in surprise before I accept the call in a fit of panic because—
“Mackenzie.” His voice comes through the phone, as low and tempting as I was just imagining.
My clit throbs as if in recognition, still demanding that I finish. “Hey, Noah.”
“Everything okay? You sound out of breath.”
“Y-yes,” I say too quickly. “I was . . . drying my hair.”
“Drying your hair?”
“Yes,” I try again, keeping my voice as even as I’m able. “There’s a lot of it.”
There’s a terrifying moment where I think he’ll press me on the matter, but he blessedly moves on from the subject. “Oh. Well. I was calling to see if you wanted to eat together in the cafeteria on your lunch break,” he asks innocently. “It could appear weird that we never do.”
I might laugh if I wasn’t still so horribly turned on. Here I am abusing myself in his bed, and he’s worried about appearances. It only cements how utterly ridiculous I’m being right now.
“That’s a good idea,” I say airily, closing my eyes as his voice keys me up despite the innocuous words coming out of his mouth. “Sure.”
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he offers contritely, almost like he’s afraid the question is annoying me. “It might be a stupid idea.”
“No, no,” I argue. “It’s a good idea.”
God, how am I still this turned on from such an innocent conversation? Just his voice is somehow both worsening and relieving the feverish quality of my skin.
He laughs a little, a low, pleasant sound that trickles down through me to settle right at the still-throbbing bundle of my clit. “I figure the least I can do is make sure you get lunch since I didn’t feed you last night.”
Mayday. Mayday. Don’t think about last night right now.
“I wasn’t really worried about food last night,” I manage tightly.
“Neither was I,” he murmurs.
There’s a torturous stretch of silence where the prickling in my skin gets worse with every second.
“Okay . . .” My heart continues to pound as I listen to the sound of his breathing, spanning only a moment. “I guess I’ll see you later?”
“You’re . . . okay. Right? You sound off.”
I close my eyes. Surely I can’t tell him that I sniffed his shirt and suddenly lost my mind. He’ll be sending me packing if he thinks I’m over here developing some sort of unhealthy attachment to his discarded clothes.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just a little tired.”
“All right,” he says. “If you’re sure. I’ll just see you when you get here, then.”
I let him go before I completely ruin everything, dropping my phone to the mattress and staring up at the ceiling as I try to come to terms with what I almost did. It’s beyond the realm of what I thought I was capable of, what just happened. I’ve never done anything like that.
But then again, there are a lot of things I hadn’t considered until this . . . agreement.
I don’t touch myself again, even as my body screams that I finish—mostly because I am appalled at myself for getting so worked up over something as simple as the scent of Noah. That stretched sensation is still in my skin, and that pulsing is still heavy between my thighs, and even as I stumble to the dryer on shaky legs, sneaking Noah’s shirt into his laundry—there is still something that feels . . . off. Even if I can’t for the life of me imagine what that something is.
I don’t have to imagine anything, the memory of Noah’s voice whispers. You’re fucking beautiful.
A shiver passes through me. This is going to be a long day.
* * *
?“You don’t look so good.”
I purse my lips, cutting my eyes to my right at a discerning-looking Parker. “Thanks.”
“I just mean, you look sick or something.”
“I’m fine,” I toss back. “Just worry about the computer.”
“Pretty sure they deleted the program icon from the desktop again,” he grouses.
I shrug, looking over the chart in my hand. “Well, I’ve listened to three different nurses bitching about it, so just fix whatever it is so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.”
Parker stops working on the buggy terminal behind the nurses’ station, eyeing me strangely. “Someone’s in a mood. Are you sure you aren’t sick?”
I screw my eyes shut, trying to block out the slight pounding in my head. It’s true that I have felt off since this morning, but what I’d thought was a bad case of being dick drunk had turned into more and more of a puny feeling with every passing hour. Maybe I am getting sick.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “My head is killing me.”
“It’s probably your conscience trying to knock some sense into you about your recent sexcapades,” Parker quips.
“Not today,” I huff. “Not unless you’re offering a big fat ibuprofen.”