“Wait, you said you did itten. You said ten was enough to make you okay.”
“Yeah, and I rounded down so you wouldn’t be scared.”
“And you thinknowI will beless so? Seth, I need to get off so badly I can feel it in my fucking teeth. I think these hormones might be boiling my brain. And right at this moment I’m in a situation where I can’t even do it once. Never mind dozens of times,” she said—both because all of it was true, but also because it was something to do instead of murdering him.
But unfortunately for them both, what he said next made her want to murder him even more. “Just rub yourself against me like you were doing before,” he said. As if that were a real and normal possibility.
“I am not going to consciously use your innocent thigh to get myself off.”
“My thigh isn’t innocent. In fact, all it currently wants to do is jam itself against your pussy, and the only thing that is stoppingthat from happening is me using every bit of strength I have left to hold it in place.”
She looked down. She couldn’t help it.
But god, she regretted doing so. Now she could make out his thigh muscle, trembling with effort, through the denim of his jeans. She could see his hands on himself. Both hands, on his leg, actually forcing it to stay down. Then after a long, agonizing second of this, he smacked one of said hands against the wall of the wardrobe, above her head. Like he needed to steady himself. Or force some other part of himself to stay away from her.
He wants to grind himself against me,she thought blankly.
Then got an urge to do just that for him, strong enough that she almost couldn’t fight it. The idea simply gripped her and wouldn’t let go. And worse—it seemed for a second that there was no argument against it. He wanted to, and she wanted to, so why not, her body wanted to know.
And it was only remembering who they were—and what that would look like in practice—that forced her to talk sense. “That still doesn’t suggest I should. Or can. I mean, you’llseeme,” she said. But all he did was sigh in response.
“If being seen is what you’re worried about, then stop. My eyes are already closed. They’ve been closed for the last ten minutes. In fact, I’m not sure I am ever going to be able to open them again.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because looking at you before was bad. But looking at you while you are this fucking horny is actual hell. It almost makes me wish I didn’t have werewolf night vision, just so I don’t have to see your hazy-with-lust gaze, and your flushed cheeks, and the tongue you keep using to lick your pouty, parted lips.”
“Oh god, I can’t possibly look that bad,” she groaned.
But he offered her no consolation. He just made a despairing sound. “You look worse. But I don’t want to describe the other things.”
“Maybe you should. I might be able to stop doing whatever they are.”
“Cassie, you can’t stop your nipples straining through a fucking sweater.”
“I can hold the fabric out. Like this.”
She demonstrated with her hands.
So of course he looked. Why wouldn’t he? She was supposed to be showing him something less revealing. Something safer, for him to look at. She really didn’t mean to give him an unobstructed view, directly down her top.
“Ohhhh my god. Oh my god, you’re not wearing a bra. You don’t even have a bra on. How do you not have a bra on?Whydo you not have a bra on?” he asked, as he whipped his face away, and screwed his eyes tight shut again.
While she scrambled to cover up. And give him some kind of answer.
“I don’t know. Wearing one feels really uncomfortable now.”
“Fuck. Fuck, donottell me why. In fact, say nothing else.”
“It’s not that bad. Everything just feels kind of super sensitive.”
There, she thought.That will clear everything up in a nice, innocent way.
But she should have known it wouldn’t even before he let out an agonized groan.
“So you can’t stand tight material brushing over those hard little nipples. You just want something gentle on them, something soft, maybe something slick and teasing that makes you—ohfuck, I told you not to tell me,” he said, reasonably enough at first. But as his sentences ran on, he sounded more and more panicked and breathless until finally here they were, in hell.
In a terrible, terrible hell that she somehow didn’t even want to escape from.
