But the moment I wrapped my fingers around my length, my thoughts betrayed me. Every slow, measured stroke, every pulse of pleasure building deep inside me, every ounce of tension tightening in my core—every thought on Jen.
The brief glimpse I saw of her, hidden behind the armchair... the way her lips parted just slightly as she watched me, completely unaware of how badly I wanted to drag my thumb across them, coax them open. Have them wrapped around my cock.And in that final, shattering moment, when pleasure ripped through me and my body gave in to the release it craved...
It wasn’t Mina’s name that left my lips.
It was Jen’s.
The way she looked at me when she realized what I’d done...
Yeah. She wasdefinitelygoing to kick me out in the morning after she’d had time to stew over it.
And so, I lay in bed, wide awake, my emotions twisting into knots, my gut clenching with anxiety, unable to enjoy what wassurelygoing to be my last night with a roof over my head and a warm bed to sleep in.
Maybe I could plead my case? She still needed help with her manuscript—maybe if I offered to let her out of our bargain, gave her the time to focus solely on her writing, she’d let me stay.
And if I was being completely honest, I was relieved at the thought of dropping my side of the deal. A small part of me—every damn part of me—was grateful for an excuse not to go back into town and attempt to find a date again.
That had been, without a doubt, one of the most painful, excruciatingly awkward experiences of my life. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that Jen was so determined to help me, I never would have gone through with it in the first place.
At some point—I don’t even know when—finding a date had gone from being at the top of my priority list to getting scratched off completely. Because now, the idea of flirting with another woman didn’t feel exciting... It feltwrong.
But the walk home with Jen felt so right.
I’d never been so completely myself with anyone outside of Lochran, Ambrose, Blaise, and Jasper. With Jen, it had been effortless, so natural that I hadn’t even realized I’d let my guard down until my stomach ached from a mixture of long-overdue laughter and an entirely different kind of pain. A deep, unwavering hunger for her.
Not just to feed from her.
But to feedonlyfrom her.
And yet... she certainly didn’t want me in that way.
The moment I’d come to my senses, realizing it was her name I had groaned as I came undone, she had looked at me like a deer caught in headlights. And while I had sat there—cum-covered, breathless, shame pooling heavy in my stomach, my hand stillwrapped around my dick—Jen had jumped up, grabbed her notebooks, and bolted up the stairs just to get away from me.
But she hadn’t said the safe word...
A small spark of hope flickered in my chest. If by some miracle Jen decided not to kick me out in the morning, I was going to have a shit-ton of making up to do. I just needed to ground myself, to shut down every intrusive thought and stop thinking about Jen in a sexual way.
My stomach growled in protest.
I clenched my jaw, trying and failing to steel my mind against the images assaulting me. Jen, beneath me, her breath ragged, her body arching into mine. The way her lips looked, so soft, so utterly kissable. How sweet she’d taste as I’d drag my tongue through her folds, savoring the way her body responded to my touch.
The vision was so vivid that I could almost smell it—the intoxicating scent of amber and jasmine. Another loud, insistent growl rumbled in my stomach as I inhaled deeply—
And froze.
That wasactualdesire flooding my room.
My eyes flew open, nostrils flaring as I instinctively drew in another breath, letting it curl inside me, heady and addictive, before I realized what I was doing.
Rule number one: keep your senses dampened.
Lost in my own turmoil, I hadn’t even noticed when my control slipped, when the hold on my senses weakened just enough to let her desire flood through me. And now I was overstepping again—crossing yet another one of Jen’s boundaries.
My mind fought back, logic screaming at me as I forced a vise-like grip over my senses, shoving them back into submission. But my body rebelled, desperate to feed from her, to soak in the pleasure that radiated from her room.
A voice in my head murmured temptingly,She mustn’t be too upset if she’s touching herself right now...
I gritted my teeth, smothering the thought before it could take root. Even with my senses now tightly locked down, the phantom trace of her still clung to me, a lingering imprint of amber and jasmine. And no matter how much I willed myself to resist, I didn’t trust myself not to give in.