feel—it. Maybe she’s fighting herself as much as I am? It doesn’t matter because I gave her a vow and fuck if I’m not going to live up to it. I’ve never forced myself on a woman and I’m not about to start now—even if this particular one is like a raging fire in my blood.
“No problem,” I growl, frustrated with my arousal that won’t be tamed. I turn around and inhale and exhale slowly.
“Where are you going?” she asks, surprised—talking to my back. I keep walking, cursing myself silently with every step.
“To take another shower. Do yourself and me a favor, Cassie. Turn the damn television up… loud.”
“I… Michael?”
“Just do it,” I order.
“But—I don’t want to watch TV,” she answers.
“If you don’t do it, you’re going to hear me jerking off in the shower. It’s your choice,” I growl, just laying it out for her because I don’t have the patience to be gentle at this point.
“I.” Silence stretches on. “Oh. Wow…” she whispers, and I look over at her in time to see her body jolting with surprise.
For a second I think she might walk over to me. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I thought I saw want—desire. Instead she reaches for the remote control on the nightstand and turns the TV on. I close the door, filled with disappointment, but most of all hunger for her.
A hunger that won’t be filled tonight.
Chapter Six
Cassie
I can hear my heart beating fast and hard, almost painfully. The wall of pillows between Michael and me is burning a hole in my side. I can hear him breathing softly and I wonder if he’s awake as well.
For the last hour I’ve been lying here, thinking about him in that shower, trying to picture him under the spray of water as he jerked off. My body is heated, has been for the last hour as I imagined him holding his erection, stroking himself, calling out my name.
God, I’m burning up.
I shift slowly and push the blanket off of me, not wanting to wake him if he’s asleep. I rise up slightly and look over at him. He’s on his side, his big, muscular body facing away from me, the lines of his muscles calling out to the feminine side of me. My pussy is wet, my nipples hard. I want to give myself to him fully, want to say screw the fact we hardly know each other, that he’s a stranger who could have deep, dark secrets that would scare me. But at the end of the day, I don’t give a shit about any of that.
The chemistry between us is too powerful, too intense. I can feel the electricity as I stare at him, lay beside him. The wall of pillows is a shitty barrier and one I want to get rid of.
“You need to sleep, Cassie,” he says in a low, deep voice.
I feel my eyes widen at the fact he knows I’m awake, that I’m watching him.
“You need to sleep because knowing you’re awake, that you’re watching me, probably wet between those pretty thighs of yours, is testing my self-control.”
The air leaves me but I find myself frozen, not able to respond or move.
He turns around and even in the darkness I can see—sense—his penetrating gaze. I feel it down to the very marrow of my bones. I become even wetter, my panties getting soaked, my nipples stabbing through the thin material of my nightgown. I keep picturing him in the shower beating off, imagining what it looked like—what he looked like.
The air shifts, changes. I feel it become hotter, thicker. We both start breathing heavier, our chests rising and falling.
“What’s happening?” I ask softly, my voice no more than a whisper.
He shifts on the bed so he’s sitting up now, the sheet pooling on his hips. He’s shirtless, the lean, yet defined muscles of his abdomen in perfect view as the moonlight streams through the partially opened curtains.
I clench my thighs together as I stare at him, the shadows semi-blocking his face. But still, I know he stares at me, watches me.
“You know what’s happening,” he responds with a harsh, almost animal-like quality in his voice.
I don’t—yet I do.
“I don’t,” I lie—kind of—wanting to hear him tell me exactly what is about to happen.
He smirks and that one expression has yet another gush of wetness leaving me. God, I want him between my thighs, want him stretching me, filling me until the pleasure and pain combine as one.
“Come here,” he all but demands of me in this still, silent room.
I should say no, maybe even pretend to go back to sleep, but instead I find myself pulling at the pillows that block me from him. I toss them to the floor until I hear a light thud, and move closer.