Fantasy hijacks my brain. Ivy on her knees in this steaming sanctuary. The way she'd gaze up, eyes wide, mouth soft and parted, that innocent curiosity driving me insane. Fingers trailing up my thighs, slow and teasing. Breath hot against my skin. And then those perfect lips wrapped around my cock, turning worship into exquisite torture.
I fuck into my fist with the rhythm she sets in my head, imagining her taking me deeper, mascara streaking down her cheeks as she swallows around me. Craving it. Obsessed with making me come. Her fingers dig into my thighs for balance, nails carving crescent marks I'd wear like a badge.
My body convulses, cock pulsing as I spill into trembling fingers, her name ripping from my chest.
I sag against the wall, heart jackhammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape what I just did. I crank the water to cold because I deserve it—deserve worse, actually, for getting off to thoughts of her while she's sleeping twenty feet away.
What kind of fuckingcreep does that?
My throat's raw from choking back her name, and my head spins like I've taken a hit of something I shouldn't have. Bliss in the moment, now nothing but hollow and shame.
The worst part? Guilt churns in my gut, shame burns up my spine . . . and I'm still half-hard.
I lean my head back, let the icy water sting my eyes. Punishment for being the worst kind of friend. For taking something pure and turning it dirty. For letting ten years of carefully buried want explode in my hand.
When I finally step back into the bedroom, I'm almost certain she'll be sitting up in bed, somehow knowing exactly what I did. Ready to look at me with disgust, with judgment, with that disappointed expression that would be worse than any anger.
But she lies there, lost in sleep and soft little snuffles while I melt down three feet away.
The couch creaks as I shift, trying to find a position that doesn't feel like penance. Not that I don't deserve it. Call it karma's way of rubbing it in.Next time, maybe don't be such a horny idiot.
This week will be my personal hell, complete with a front-row seat watching Ivy sleep while I try to forget how good it felt to come apart thinking about her.
I am so monumentally fucked.
My alarm blares, andI dive for my phone before it can wake the sleeping beast on the couch. Not that it matters—Caleb could sleep through the apocalypse.
The memory of last night sits heavy in my chest. Virginia in his lap. The way she'd known how to touch him, how to make him respond. How she'd turned flirting into an art form while I'd fled the room like some kind of startled deer.
Not because I was jealous.
Notexactly.
It's more about how easy she made it look. How natural. As if desire were something to wield instead of something to carefully pack away. As if wanting didn't terrify me.
For one wine-drunk moment, I'd tried to mirror that energy with Carter. Attempted to be bold, to lean into his space the way Virginia would. But each move was too precise, and every laugh rang hollow. Amelia's always telling me to be more daring, to "put myself out there," but there was something in it that didn't sit right.
The bedsprings creak as I push myself up, and—oh.
Caleb's sprawled on the couch, blanket shoved to his feet, wearing nothing but boxers. His broad shoulders eat up most of the space, his chest and arms soft but solid in that completely unfair way some guys pull off without trying. Dark blond hair trails from his navel into his waistband, and I force my eyes away before they can follow it further.
That crush I thought I'd buried years ago stirs, dangerous and familiar. The one I've been shoving down so long it's become reflex. Because sometimes, in moments like this I remember why sixteen-year-old me fell so hard.
"No," Caleb mumbles, face scrunching adorably. "That's . . . not how you make pizza."
The familiar sight of him sleep-talking about work should snap me out of this trance. Should make me stop staring. Stop wanting. Stop imagining the heat of his skin, the weight I ache to sink beneath. But it doesn't. Not even close.
"Pineapple is a crime," he mutters, turning his face into the cushion.
My body burns, desire a living thing under my skin. I want him. Have always wanted him. But girls like me don't end up with guys like Caleb Miller. We linger at the edges, invisible, while they fall for someone else. They always pick wild over steady. Sparks over softness.
Anyone but us.
The bathroom light is stark after the soft morning glow, and I'm halfway into my yoga clothes when the memory blindsides me. I'd drifted awake in the night, disoriented by the unfamiliar shadows. The shower was still running, steam curling under the door. Then his voice . . . a low groan that melted straight through me.
And maybe—this is where it veered into full-blown delusion—I'd heard my name.
I'd stared at the shower, my heart performing somersaults in my chest. My half-asleep brain must've twisted the sound of rushing water into something filthy. Because the alternative? That Caleb had been in there, thinking about . . .
