My hand drifts lower before I realize what I’m doing.
I freeze.I shouldn’t…
Then, slowly, deliberately, I let myself breathe. Let myself feel the pounding in my chest, the low heat curling in my stomach, the delicious ache between my thighs that’s been gathering since the moment I saw Nate last night.
I’m allowed this.
No one is watching. No one is being betrayed, certainly not Josh. No boundaries are crossed except the ones I’ve drawn inside myself for too long.
My fingers slide between my legs, silky slick already from thought alone. A shiver rolls through me. “Fuck,” I whisper, leaning my forehead against the tile and let my hips rock forward, chasing the pressure. My free hand cups one breast, pinching the nipple the way I actually like rather than the way Josh inflicted it. Water cascades over my shoulders, my back, my spine.
I breathe in sharply as my fingertips find the best rhythm. It feels like untying a knot that’s been inside me for years., a secret want I kept buried under decency and logic and fear now loosening, unraveling.
Images flicker unbidden.
Nate’s mouth -
No.No.Not that. I’ll loose it entirely.
Nate’s hands, then -
Stop. Still too much.
Nate standing at the bottom of the slope, alive, looking at me like I hung the moon -
God, stop it. I can’t handle it.
Yes I can.This is fantasy, and it’sallowed.
I grit my teeth, but my hips won’t still. My hand moves faster, pressure circling where I’m desperate, needy in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.
Heat coils, low and tight, and my breath comes in short, sharp bursts.
“Shit,” I gasp, head tipped back, eyes squeezing shut as pleasure spikes, sharp and dizzying. I press harder, chasing the swell, the crest, almost there…
A moan escapes me, ragged and low, echoing in the small bathroom. I bite my lip against it.
My thighs tremble. My knees soften like noodles. The orgasm hits me hard with a startled, breathless rush that makes me grip the edge of the wall with my free hand, riding it, teeth biting down on a sound that would embarrass me if anyone could hear. The release unwinds something inside me I didn’t know was tangled.
And then it’s over, a relief and a pity in the same moment.
I stand there, breathing hard, water washing over me, heart thudding. My legs feel boneless. My head feels too light, like it’s filled with helium, and body feels wrung-out and warm, all the sharp, torn, wounded edges softened for a few seconds.
But the guilt, the conflict, arrives quickly afterward. Not because I did anything wrong. I didn’t. No one touched me but me. No one was violated.
But the thoughts I used… The images… They leave a lingering aftertaste.
“Nate Woodruff, you absolute complication,” I whisper to myself.
The water is cooling. I turn it off, step out, wrap a towel around myself, still buzzing faintly.
I stare at my reflection in the fogged mirror. At my flushed cheeks, wet hair, eyes that look like they’ve seen a ghost and kissed it.
Well, no more. This was an exception. Tomorrow I need to get my head on straight. I need distance, even in this cabin. I need boundaries that actually hold. I won’t let a brief rush of blood to the head erase twelve years of good reasons not to let this happen. Like how he used to be family. And how his dad cheated on my mum. And the fact that he’s surrounded by the most commercially beautiful women in the world, and likely saw me as nothing more than a kid sister, his temporary insanity fueled kiss notwithstanding.
I get dressed slowly back into leggings, thermal, and one of Mac’s oversized flannel shirts hanging behind the door. It feels like armor.Don’t kiss me, I smell like your dad.
When I open the bathroom door, steam billows out around me into the hallway. My pulse leaps automatically, stupidly, wondering if Nate is nearby. He isn’t.
