I pull myself together. I slowly bend down to leave the container of chili by her door. I’ll text her when I get home, telling her that I dropped it off but didn’t have time to knock because I had to hurry to a hockey meeting or something.
Gingerly, I step down the stairs, not wanting to make any noise and alert her to my presence. If she knew what I just overheard, she might be so embarrassed that it tanks all the progress we’ve made in feeling more comfortable around each other.
When I get to the bottom step, a thought pierces past the flimsy sheet of my better judgment.
What if I marched back up and knocked on her door?
What if, while she was bringing herself to release with her own hand while thinking of me, while moaning my name, she heard me pound on her door and announce my presence, asking her—tellingher to open up for me, so she could get the real thing?
It wouldn’t even have to be sex. I could just replace her fingers with my own.
I could fill her with one digit, maybe two. Have her show me how she likes having her clit rubbed. Watch her fall apart under my touch.
This might be the perfect moment.
The sheer plausibility of it makes me feel on fire. A hot knot of lust pulls unbearably tight at the base of my balls. My heart is erratic behind my chest.
Suddenly, it feels like there’s a physical force tugging at me, wanting to pull me back to her door.
I’m burning with desire from the inside out. In a rash move, I snatch a big handful of snow from the ground and slap it on the back of my neck, letting the harsh cold of it trickle down my sweater.
The chill snaps me back to reality. It’s enough for me to get my feet pumping. I walk past Cindy’s house, back on the sidewalk. But lust is still firing through me, and I haven’t escaped the magnetic pull that wants to draw me back up those stairs.
There’s a big pile of clean, white snow from two nights ago. It’s fluffy and soft and hasn’t yet acquired a hard, icy surface. Needing to douse the last embers of temptation sizzling through me, I let myself fall into it.
My temperature plummets, my cock mercifully deflating.
It would have been wrong for me to intrude on that moment. To take advantage of something I never should have been privy to.
But I’m sure as fuck not going to forget it.
That shell of Carmen’s is starting to crack.
She wants me just as bad as I want her.
Okay, that’s still probably not true. I don’t think it’s possible for her to want measbad as I want her.
But she still wants me enough to moan my name while getting herself off.
Damn it, that’s a start.
19
JAMIE
Awistful smile lifts on my face as I watch Sebastian and Harper on the other side of the room.
While the house party is raging around them, they’re in their own little world. It’s like they’ve lost themselves, drowning in each other’s eyes. Fuck, I want that with someone. I want it so much that it hurts.
But lately, that ache doesn’t hit with quite the same harshness that it used to. Because, for the first time in my life, I actually believe I might be close to finding it.
My heart leaps when I feel a vibration in my pocket. For the last hour, Carmen and I have been texting. I’m trying to coax her into coming to this party that we’re throwing at the house.
She keeps telling me that she’s not in the mood to leave her apartment tonight, but beneath her words, I can feel her softening. Something tells me that soon enough, I’m going to be seeing her in my house for the first time.
And if I do, I have another feeling that it won’t be the last.
I open my messages to find that she sent me a picture of a mug sitting on her coffee table.
