I debate leaving the mess, but if I don’t deal with it, Margot will have to.
So I clean up the peas.
It takes twenty minutes to find them all—under the fridge, behind the trash can, wedged in the gap between the counter and the wall. By the time I'm done, rage is rolling through my veins and I hate Zero so much I can barely see straight.
Except I don't.
That's the worst part.
Even now, even after that, some sick part of me is still thinking about the way he smelled. The heat of his breath against my ear. The memory of his body pressing mine into green felt.
I throw the ruined peas in the trash, throw the leftovers back in the fridge, grab my notebook, and retreat to my room.
I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling and try not to think about any of them. The heat of Zero's breath against my ear. The way Atlas's forearms looked with his sleeves rolled up at dinner. The way Bane's collarbone peeked out from his henley.
I can't close my eyes without seeing you bent over that bench, making those pretty little sounds while I—
My hand drifts toward my waistband.
I yank it back. Clench it into a fist against my chest.
No. Not again.
I lasted four hours last night before I broke. Four hours of tossing and turning, of sheets that felt like sandpaper against my oversensitive skin, of that hollow ache throbbing between my legs until I couldn't stand it anymore and jerked off again.
Tonight, I'm going to do better.
I make it until midnight before my hand is wrapped around my cock again, stroking desperately in the dark, biting my pillow to muffle the sounds.
When I come, it's with Bane's name on my lips.
I hate myself a little more.
∞∞∞
Saturday morning. I wake up hard and aching–again–the sheets tangled around my legs, sweat cooling on my skin.
The heat is getting worse.
I can feel it now as a constant presence—a low hum of need thrumming through my body like a second heartbeat. It spikes at random intervals, leaving me breathless and flushed, but even when it ebbs, it never fully disappears. It's always there. Waiting. Building.
My true heat–the first I’ll ever experience–must be days away.
I take another cold shower. It helps for about twenty minutes.
By the time I make it downstairs for coffee, the sizzle is back under my skin, and I'm praying the kitchen is empty.
It's not.
Atlas is at the island, laptop open, coffee cup steaming beside him. He's wearing reading glasses I've never seen before—silver-rimmed, slightly professorial—and something about them makes my stomach flip.
He looks up when I enter. "Max."
"Hey." I head straight for the coffee maker, keeping my back to him. "Didn't know anyone was down here."
"I could say the same." I hear his laptop close. "You've been hard to find lately."
"Busy. Midterms."
