A trickle of warm liquid runs down my thighs.
“Can you taste me?” I ask, distantly aware that the question is embarrassing, but finding it hard to remember why or how to care about such things.
He raises his chin and drops it. “Yeah.”
“What do I taste like?”
I’m flirting. There’s no other way to explain it. He knows it, and I know it. Future Me is going to be distraught about this. Present Me doesn’t give a shit about any of that.
“Like trouble,” he replies with a cocky grin.
He fixes himself a sandwich with lashings of prosciutto and several slices of cheese and eats it at the counter. I stand as close to him as I can without it being weird.
“Are you still okay to be here?” he asks, gesturing to the living space once he’s cleaned up and put his plate in the dishwasher.
“Oh yes,” I say, though honestly, I’m not sure if it’s the truth. The space feels too big. Too empty. Too bright. I want to be somewhere else, but I don’t know why or how to describe where I want to be.
I sit on the sofa, feet up and then down. I curl into a ball and straighten out. I turn this way and that. No matter what position I try, I can’t find one that’s comfortable.
Eventually, Branson taps me lightly on the hip. I look up to see him shrugging his shirt off his shoulders. He’s wearing a white tank with a shit ton of muscle and ink underneath it.
It takes my mind completely offline for a moment.
“Here,” he says, offering me a handful of balled-up flannel.
I mean to slap him away and tell him I don’t want it. I mean to wave him off and laugh at him for doing something so silly. Instead, I grab his shirt and mash it hungrily against the lower half of my face, inhaling over and over until his musky scent quiets something in my soul.
I try to take a nap to distract myself from my discomfort, but I can’t. I’m so uncomfortable. So hot. So horny. My clothes are so tight and too itchy. I shouldn’t be here. I’m in the wrong place. I need to be somewhere else. Somewhere closer. And darker. Somewhere safe.
“I don’t want to be here,” I whimper pathetically. “I want to be somewhere else.”
“Okay,” he says, offering me a hand and pulling me to my feet.
I trot behind him as he walks down the hall, his shirt still clamped against my mouth and nose. We get to the end of the hall, and he opens the door of the small bedroom, then stands to the side and shows me in. It’s dark inside, curtains drawn. The only light comes from a string of warm white fairy lights hung haphazardly from the curtain rod. The bed and nightstands have been removed from the room and the mattress has been pushed into the far corner. The bedding is rumpled: a puffy duvet and an assortment of pillows are arranged along the perimeter of the mattress.
“You made a nest?” I can’t help smiling. “For me?”
“Yeah. I thought you might like it.”
Look, I know it’s strange and very hard to explain, but I don’t like it—I love it. I fucking love it. I love it so much my eyes water and my chin wobbles. I close my eyes and inhale. Everything in the room smells like him, and I fucking love that too.
Without thinking, I pull off my top and drop my pants, crawling into the nest in only my boxer briefs. The bedding is soft, and there are so many pillows all over that it feels like curling into a cloud. Everything is close. Warm in a good way. My eyes relax from the low light. I feel so much better here. It’s hard to describe. “I like it,” I babble from under his shirt, “I like it so much.”
For his part, Branson doesn’t react as though I’ve taken leave of my senses. Rather, he looks pleased—and ridiculously proud—that he’s made me happy.
“Can you stay close for a while?” I ask, the last semblance of my pride now a thing of the past.
“Sure. Let me go and get ready for bed, and then I’ll come and sit with you until you fall asleep. I won’t go far, only to the room next door.”
While he’s away, there’s another shift in my body. A change. A lull and a slow drag. A lever clanking. A clutch depressed. A gear slotting into place.
I’m writhing and moaning softly by the time he gets back, and I’m not trying not to.
He stands at the foot of the mattress and looks down on me, brow creased in concern. “Lucy, do you want me to comfort you?”
Comfort me? Comfort me how?The only thing I can think of that might help would be for him to fuck me senseless, but I know he won’t do that because I’m not in full-blown heat yet.
“How?” I snivel as a deep ache claws at my insides and wrings them out.
