Page 78 of Beyond the Lines
It’s Em:
10 mins until lunch. Coast still clear.
I look down at my graphite-smudged hands and the closed sketchbook that now feels dangerous, like it might burst into flames if anyone else saw it. I should rip these pages out and burn them. But instead, I carefully tuck the sketchbookinto my desk drawer, where no one will accidentally find it.
Standing, I pace the room, my skin suddenly too tight, too sensitive under my clothes. My whole body thrums with a restless energy I can’t shake. The drawings were meant to get my mind off him, but instead they sparked something, bringing every touch, every sensation from that bathroom back in vivid detail.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I’ve got ten minutes until I need to meet Em.
I should head right out the door and be five minutes early, for once. Or, failing that, take a quick shower, call Mike, or organize my desk—do literally anything except what I’m about to do. But the echo of Declan’s touch burns through me. My fingers twitch, and my core aches with a hollow, insistent need.
Ten minutes. Or eight, really, because lunch is a two-minute walk away.
After a moment’s hesitation, I retrieve my sketchbook, flip it open to the most explicit drawing—the one that captures the moment right before he made me come, the one that would make meactuallydie if anyone else saw it—and prop it against my pillow as carefully as a mother handling a newborn.
“Just… get it out of your system,” I tell myself, my voice sounding strange in the quiet room. Clinical. Practical. Like this is a routine task to be checked off a list, not a dangerous indulgence that risks yet again blowing my feelings and emotions sky-high. “Just… release the tension.”
I slide my hand beneath the waistband of my leggings, under my panties, and gasp at how wet I already am. Not just a little turned on—I’m practically soaked. Just from drawing,just from remembering. And my fingers glide easily as the memories crash over me?—
Declan’s between my legs, his tongue hot and insistent.
His fingers stretching and filling me.
I close my eyes, lost in the sensations, then force them back open to stare at my drawing. The rough strokes of the pencil somehow capture the desperate hunger of that moment perfectly.
I push two fingers inside myself, trying to recreate the fullness I felt with his fingers inside me. It’s not enough—not nearly enough—but my thumb finds my clit, and electricity shoots through me.
It feels like he felt, but I’m missing something at the same time.
Him.
His name escapes my lips before I can stop it, and shame and arousal twine together in my stomach, each intensifying the other. This is wrong. This is so, so wrong. And so incredibly hot.
My free hand fumbles under my shirt, groping my breast roughly. I pinch my nipple, like he did, then imagine it’s his teeth grazing the sensitive peak, and whimper at the sharp jolt of pleasure-pain.
I work my fingers faster, pressing harder, my breathing turning ragged. My hips buck, seeking more friction, more pressure, and more everything. The drawing stares back at me, its chaotic lines capturing how he looked kneeling before me—hungry, intense, and full of desire.
My heel digs into the mattress as I arch my back, chasing the pressure building inside of me. I’m so close already. Too close, too fast. This isn’t supposed to be so easy, so overwhelming.
Memories collide and blur—the way his hand cradled the back of my head when he kissed me in the diner, the darkness of his pupils when I took him in my mouth, and the reverent way he traced the curve of my breast. Reality and fantasy merge until I can’t tell which parts happened and which are just desperate wishes.
“God, please, please…”
I’m not sure what I’m begging for. For the memory to finally leave me alone? For Declan himself to somehow materialize and finish what we started? The moment is as confusing and hot and raw as the emotions that have been fighting inside me for days.
My phone chimes—Em’s follow-up text, no doubt—but I’m too far gone to stop now. My thumb circles my clit with brutal precision as I pump my fingers faster, harder. My thighs begin to tremble, that tightening coil in my belly about to snap.
Heat rises from my core, spreading through my limbs like wildfire. My vision blurs, the sketch before me dissolving into smudges of graphite as my eyes lose focus. I’m at the edge, teetering, my body wound tight as a bowstring.
The pressure builds to an almost unbearable peak, and then?—
I come with his name on my lips, my body convulsing in waves of white-hot pleasure. My hips buck wildly against my hand as I ride out the orgasm, every nerve ending singing. For a moment, there’s nothing but sensation, nothing but heat and release and bliss.
Then reality crashes back.
I’m alone in my dorm room, hand shoved down my pants, staring at a graphite drawing, with my roommate waiting forme at lunch. Cursing myself, I scramble off the bed, then check my phone.
