Page 90 of Between the Lines

It haunts me because it’s not a fantasy. It’s a memory. The sweetest goddamned memory I have, and it hasn’t faded from so much use. If anything, it’s even more vivid now than a mere day after it happened.

My need for her grows every fucking day. It shouldn’t, but it does. And I keep thinking there’ll be a peak sometime. A point when I won’t be able to keep wanting this much, where it’ll become physically impossible, but I never reach it.

I’m rock hard.

Stroking lazily, I continue just enough to edge me closer but not push me over the edge. I’m already leaking a bit at the tip, all from the memories of her.

Memories and regrets. Because there are so many things I lament not doing during our night together. I didn’t memorize all the little sounds she made, not like I would now. There are positions I want to see her in, and even more ways to make her come that we didn’t explore.

I’ve thrown back the covers. It got too hot beneath them, even with the AC on. My boxer briefs are gone, too. I’d tossed them off the minute I realized I was too fucking horny to sleep and only had one option to drain the longing out of my system. At least enough to be able to fall asleep.

I grip myself tighter and bring myself back to the brink of release. The alarm clock reads 2:37 a.m. and I’m going to have a hell of a day tomorrow on so little rest. I should get this over with, and try to catch some Zs.

I grit my teeth and hold back a groan.Fuck.I picture Charlotte in my arms. Charlotte on the bed, naked and knees gently parted, looking at me. Begging me for it. I’m so damn close.

Then I hear it.

The faint sound I’ve been listening for. The padding of feet, and then… a timid knock on my door.

If I hadn’t been awake, if I hadn’t been listening for her, it wouldn’t have registered.

I stop just shy of release. Intense fire surges through my body, forces a groan out of me.

Another knock. Slightly louder this time.

I push out of bed and reach for a pair of gray sweats from the dresser. “Coming!”

Pulling them over my angry cock, I hesitate just by the door. The best I can hope for is that she won’t notice the obvious outline.

“Aiden?” she asks through the door.

Her soft voice is like another shock wave through my too-heated system, and I take a deep breath before opening the door.

She’s standing in the still-dark hallway. A too-large T-shirt is over her frame, skimming the tops of her thighs. Her hair is a wavy waterfall around her shoulders.

Her face is clean of makeup. Just soft, lightly freckled skin, and a rueful smile. “Hey,” she says. “I’m so sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No.” My voice comes out harsher than is warranted, and I clear my throat. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s an alarm going off.”

“Where?”

She walks down the hall, toward the large staircase that’s closer to her bedroom than it is to mine. And then I hear it. The beeping of the tripped alarm.

It’s not the main security alarm. That one would have been blaring, and the security guys would already have arrived.

“I’m sorry. I figured it might be important and started to head downstairs to investigate. But then, I thought?—”

“You didn’t.”

She shakes her head. “No. I didn’t.”

“Good. If you ever hear an alarm here, you stay in your room, okay?” My voice isstillharsher than it needs to be, but I’m too tightly wound, in too much pain, and the idea of her coming face to face with burglars alone…

Charlotte nods quickly. “Yes. I’ll do that.”

I pull up my phone and look at the security notifications. It’s a faulty battery in one of the outer perimeter sensors, and that has the main security system downstairs alerting the residents to get it fixed as soon as possible. It’s designed to be a low, discreet beep. Sufficiently annoying to prompt action, but not enough to ruin someone’s eardrums.

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