The words were out before I realized that the room was empty.
And then it wasn’t empty. Reeve stepped out of his bathroom, his hair wet, wearing nothing but a towel around his hips. “What was that?”
“Oh.” My eyes slid down, across the sculpted planes of his chest, to the deep creases at his waist that angled and disappeared under the white terry cloth. Inches and inches of bare skin before me, wet and glistening, begging for my tongue to dart along his dips and bends.
My fingers tingled as though from muscle memory. I could practically feel his toned body beneath them.
Except my hands weren’t holding him – they were holding plastic bottles full of narcotics found in the bedroom of the woman who really should be holding him.
I turned, averting my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were in the shower. I’ll come back.”
“I’m not in the shower now.” His smirk was apparent without looking at him.
“It’s fine. This can wait until tomorrow.” I started toward the open door, my feet seeming to move through molasses. Had the distance doubled since I’d walked in?
I’d barely made it three steps when he said the word I both dreaded and longed for – “Stay.”
I shook my head, but my feet were planted. “I need to leave.”
“I told you to stay.”
He’d used that voice, that one that rasped with demand. That one that turned my insides into jelly and made my pussy throb. That one I couldn’t even dream of denying.
But I had to deny it. I had to be strong.
“Reeve…” It was a plea, but I didn’t know what I was asking for. For him to let me leave? Yes. But, also, no. Because no matter how much I believed that was the right thing to do, I didn’t want to beg for that. It was one thing to walk away. It was quite another to ask him to send me. And I couldn’t do that – could I?
It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t listen if I could.
“Turn around,” he commanded, and like a trained performer, I did.
I kept my eyes down, studying the tile beneath his feet. Unglazed ceramic-like throughout the rest of the house, but there were more grays and dark browns in the flooring here, while the flooring elsewhere stuck to the color of sand.
“Look at me, Emily.”
I lifted my gaze, slowly, as if it were heavy, as if the weight of it took all my strength to hoist. In reality, I just knew what I’d find when I raised my eyes high enough, and that knowledge made me hold the reins and sent shivers down my spine. Shivers of fear because I didn’t want to see what he wanted to show me. Shivers of anticipation because I didn’t want to see anything else.
Then I was there, staring at his bold erection, the towel abandoned on the floor at his feet.
My breath slid out in a slow sigh. Just the sight of him, naked and hard in front of me, and I was instantly aroused. My nipples tightened and rose into sharp peaks, and the thin cloth at my crotch felt damp and oppressive. And the night that had felt almost too cool just a moment before was suddenly hot and stifling.
Reeve brought his hand down and slid it down his length before circling it at the base of his cock. “Watch me,” he said in that tone that forced me to comply. That voice that wasn’t even necessary because I was already glued, my focus cemented to his rhythmic stroke.
“Should I tell you what I’m imagining while I do this?” His voice was like an intruder, an unwanted narrator in an already hard-to-watch scene.
I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t move. But I could manage one faint word. “No.”
“I think I should.” His teasing had an edge of cruelty that ratcheted up my desire another ten degrees. “Don’t you want to know what gets me this hard? What kind of thoughts?”
“No. I don’t.” More than anything I wished that I meant it.
“Hmm. I don’t believe you.” His hand slowed, this time tugging all the way to his crown where his palm rubbed across a drop of pre-cum before sliding down his length again.
God, it was so hot. And the door was wide open. Anyone could come in. She could come in. What kind of person was I to be even more turned on by that possibility?
“You want to watch,” he said, his stroke adopting a lazy tempo. “But you’re not sure if you want me to say I’m thinking of you while I’m touching myself. Or if you want me to say I’m thinking of Amber. That’s it, right?”
I shook my head, unable to even say no anymore.
“Well, this might be a disappointment. But I’m not thinking about Amber.” He took a step toward me and automatically I took one back. “I’m not imagining her lips wrapped around my cock.” Another step toward me, another away from him. “Or her tight pussy milking me to orgasm. It’s not her blond hair I’m picturing twisted in my hand.”
His stride sped up, and each step pushed me back, back, back until I hit the wall behind me and couldn’t go any farther.
He gave a smug smile that reminded me of a cat about to pounce on a caged canary. “It’s not Amber making that sweet little sound in the back of her throat.”
I shuddered every time he said her name, my eyes darting to the open door, half-expecting to find her standing there, half-disappointed when she wasn’t.
“That soft one that’s completely a cry of pleasure but it’s so near the sound of pain – you know which one I’m talking about. Do you even notice when you make it?”
Was I making that sound now? I had no sense of myself anymore. All I knew was everything about this moment was pure torture.