There was no way he could actually know; it was just a fantasy. But as the words replayed in my mind, heat tore through my core.
I was close, so close.
And I couldn’t believe my first orgasm in weeks would be because of that deranged psycho clown.
Zero.
Alpha.
My scent match.
My muscles tightened, and I moved my fingers faster, chasing release.
The sooner I got this out of my system, the sooner I could go back to sleep and definitely not dream about Zero again.
ZERO
I woke to the sound of a faint, shaky breath. It made no sense why it ripped me out of my dream; I was a fairly deep sleeper.
But there I was, wide awake, waiting for the whisper of a sound to come again.
Heightened alpha hearing had its pros and cons. Eavesdropping was often a perk, but being woken by someone sighing in their sleep definitely wasn’t a benefit?—
There it was again. A soft, trembling exhale.
My eyes popped open, and I stared at the panel over my bed. Just enough faint light seeped in through the privacy curtain that I could make out the design I’d carved into it. The image was a carousel, the one featured in the Knotty Sideshow, created by the little divots left by my knives when I got bored on the road. It was the third panel I’d replaced because the last ones got so weak that they broke, but I didn’t care. Practicing kept me distracted, sane.
I froze, holding my breath, straining to hear in the silence.
I’d ridden this bus for so long that I knew everyone like the back of my hand. I knew who mumbled in their sleep, who snuck an occasional midnight snack, who’d suffered with insomnia,and who could sleep through a tornado. I knew everything and everyone, but these little breaths were unfamiliar.
Could they belong to…
Before I could finish the thought, I moved the privacy curtain open just enough to glimpse Arina’s bunk, careful not to make any noise. Hers was still drawn, and I waited again, listening hard against the silence.
This time the breathy exhale came with a slight moan, what most people would mistake as sleep noises, but I wasn’t convinced.
Was she…
There was no way…
Was she touching herself?
All the blood in my body rushed to my dick, and it throbbed painfully. I stared at her drawn curtain, my thoughts already racing with images of her splayed and naked, fucking herself with her fingers.
It had been a while since I last got laid, and I didn’t bother jerking off because it seemed like there was always someone around. It seemed that notion didn’t bother Arina, or she thought she was being quiet enough that no one would hear. That was probably true for everyone else on the bus, but not for me. I could hear her unsteady breaths growing faster.
Fuck.
I palmed my cock and found my shorts already damp with precum. Okay, maybe it had been more than a while since I’d gotten off.
Was I really about to jack off to her pathetic whimpers and heavy breathing while imagining it was me inside her?
I answered my own question by slipping my hand into my shorts and wrapping my fingers around my shaft. I was painfully hard, the veins of my cock bulging on the sides. On her nextexhale, I stroked down to the base, sliding over my slowly inflating knot, and then tugged upward.
Slowly, silently, I jerked myself to her noises, my mind wandering into darker, more dangerous territory.
What would she do if I hopped off my bunk and slid into bed with her? If I offered to help her get off with my fingers or tongue? What if I fucked her right now, slowly, carefully, with my hand pressed over her mouth to keep her quiet?
