Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time I get home, my nerves are raw. The street feels too quiet. The stairwell echoes too loud. My keys shake in the lock before the door finally clicks shut behind me.
I kick my shoes off and peel my blouse away, every seam sticking to my skin. The air inside feels no different than outside—heavy, damp, clinging. I want it off me, all of it.
The shower hisses to life, steam rolling against the mirror. I step under the spray and close my eyes as the heat needles over my scalp, down my spine. For the first time today, my body unwinds. Shoulders slack, heartbeat easing. The pounding water drowns everything.
I scrub shampoo through my hair harder than I need to, but it doesn’t wash him away. The picture branded under my eyelids.
It should disgust me. It should make me hate him.
Instead, it’s gasoline. My thighs press tighter together under the spray, and my chest burns.
Because I remember how his mouth felt on me.
How his cock stretched me until I shattered.
And the sick part? I imagine myself in that picture. On him. Around him.
I towel off, slip into a robe, and head straight for my bedroom. The sheets are still unmade from this morning, tangled like I wrestled with dreams and lost. I drop onto the mattress, tugging the robe loose until it slides off my shoulders.
The vibrator waits in my nightstand. My fingers hesitate on the drawer, then pull it free. Smooth. Familiar. Too damn necessary tonight.
I settle back against the pillows, spreading my thighs, letting the robe fall open. My nipples harden in the cool air, a contrast to the heat building between my legs.
A porn website flickers on my phone screen. I need something raw, unpolished. A girl on her knees, a man gripping her hair. The sounds bleed through tinny speakers, syncing with the beat of my pulse.
But my mind rewrites the faces. The voices. It isn’t strangers.
It’s him.
Rook’s smirk, his voice rough with cocky swagger.
The way he’d pat his thigh like I belonged there, lean in close to sniff my skin like I was his favorite sin.
My hand slips over the curve of my breast, down my stomach, lower and let the vibrator hum to life.
I press it to my clit, the shock immediately making me arch my back against the mattress. Heat floods, hips roll.
“God,” I whisper, chasing it, faster, harder.
The fantasy spins wild: his hands pinning mine, his mouth at my throat, his cock sliding in deep while he growls that filthy nickname against my ear—Storm.
Pleasure builds, the edge so close I’m panting, almost there—
A grunt echoes. It’s barely a sound or audible.
Not from my phone.
From my right, the closet.
My whole body jerks. The vibrator slips from my hand, buzzing against the sheets like a wasp. My breath stutters out, ragged.
I don’t move. Don’t even blink.
The sound had been small. Human. I close my eyes and pretend to ride the wave but I notice the door cracked open just enough to peak.
Every hair on my arms lifts.
I force my body to move. My phone slips from my fingers, and for a second, I nearly drop it in my panic. Then I type fast, no filter.
Me: Someone’s in my apartment.
I stare at the screen, waiting, heart in my throat. Then my thumb hits Rook’s name before I can think. The line rings once, twice—
“Storm.” His voice is low. Rough. Alive. The sound nearly undoes me. Relief and terror crash together so fast my eyes sting.
“I—” The word dies in my throat. What do I even say? That I’m naked and shaking, and I swear there’s someone hiding three feet away? That I’m terrified but too ashamed to admit how bad it’s gotten? So I swallow it down. “Couldn’t sleep,” I say instead, voice thin, raw.
His growl cuts through, pure steel, “Don’t move. I’m coming.”