5. Rowe
ROWE
The ceiling of my trailer has a water stain shaped like Idaho, and I've been staring at it for forty minutes.
The show was good. Caesar hit every mark.
Brutus did the bit where he sits up on his hindquarters and pretends to wave, which always makes the kids in the front row lose their minds.
Rome held court like the old emperor he is.
The crowd roared, the lights flared, and Elias cracked his cane against the boards and said something charming about beasts and the men who tame them, and I walked off into the dark and stripped down to my boxers and crawled into bed.
That was an hour ago.
I haven't moved since.
The wall behind my headboard is thin. Logan's trailer is parked close enough that the awning slats almost touch mine, and the woman he found tonight has a voice that carries.
She's loud.
“Right there—fuck, right there—”
Bedsprings. Logan's low murmur, the thud of a knee against a wall, then her again, climbing toward her climax.
“Logan—oh god—Logan—”
I close my eyes. Open them.
The Idaho stain hasn't moved.
Any other night, this would be working for me. The sounds of someone else's pleasure usually get me going.
Tonight, nothing.
She moans through the wall again, and my dick stays soft against my thigh, and I can't even pretend to be irritated about it.
Because all I see when I shut my eyes is Wren.
Her crouching next to me on the floor of the tent.
Her ponytail slipping over her shoulder when she leaned over Peanut, the cherry scent of her shampoo hitting me hard.
The little furrow between her brows when she listened to his chest. The blush across her nose when she stepped back from me.
The carrot in her palm. Domino's muzzle against her wrist. Her laugh, small and surprised, like she doesn't do it often.
Her body.
Christ. Her body.
I roll my head against the pillow. The trailer is dim, just the slatted light from the carnival glow seeping through the blinds, throwing yellow bars across my chest.
Curves she couldn't try to hide if she wanted to. Her jeans molded to her hips. The way her stethoscope rested against her chest. The line of her waist under that field jacket. The roundness of her, the softness, the shape of a woman made to be worshipped like some ancient pagan goddess.
My cock twitches.
I should ignore it.
I should roll over and go to sleep and let this pass, because nothing about this is smart.
Logan groans through the wall. The woman keens. The trailer next door rocks on its blocks, and I lie here with my hand fisted in the sheet and my breath getting shallow and the heat starting to build in my stomach.
For her.
For her.
My hand drifts before I decide. Down my stomach, over the cut of my hip, the elastic of my boxers.
I wait for a moment, anticipating the guilt I usually associate with pleasure.
When it doesn't come, I push the waistband down and free my cock, already half-hard, thickening fast against my palm.
The gothic ink up the shaft is barely visible in the slatted light as I wrap my hand around the base and squeeze, a breath shuddering out of me.
I close my eyes.
She's there.
She's standing at the foot of my bed in the dark. Wearing the same clothes from earlier, her ponytail loose now, dark hair spilling around her face. Brown eyes on me. Her hand on the strap of that field kit, then sliding off, letting it drop.
I stroke up slowly, thumb the slick precum already gathering at the tip, spread it down the shaft.
Don't move, she says in my head, in that quiet register she used on Peanut. Just let me look.
She steps closer. Not close enough to touch. She knows. She just stands there at the foot of the bed and watches me, her eyes tracking my hand, her lip caught between her teeth.
Show me, she says.
I tighten my fist. Stroke down. The drag is rough and I make it rougher, the way I like, the way I never let anyone else do for me because no one else is going to.
In my head, she lifts her hand to the top button of her shirt.
Unbuttons it. Then the next one. Her skin appears in inches, pale and soft, and freckled across the chest in a way I'd kiss if I could ever bring my mouth to anyone's skin.
Then there's the lace of a plain bra. And the roundness of her tits pushing against it as she breathes.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
The woman through the wall is whimpering now. I don't hear her. I hear Wren.
Keep going, she says. I'm not done watching.
Her hand goes between her own thighs over her jeans. She presses the heel of her palm down, and her mouth opens a little, and I see the moment her hips push into her hand.
She's putting on a show for me.
My hand speeds up. The slick sound of jerking off fills the trailer, and I don't care. My heels are digging into the mattress, my abs are clenching, and my balls are drawing up tight.
She unbuttons her jeans, and her fingers slip inside. I can see the shape of her hand moving under the fabric, the way her wrist works, the way her breath catches.
Are you close?
I nod against the pillow like she's actually here.
Me too.
In my head, she lowers herself to kneel at the foot of the bed, her hand still working between her thighs, her tits half-exposed where the shirt hangs open. Her hair is in her face. Her brown eyes never leave my cock.
Come for me, she says. Softly. Like she’s speaking to something small and frightened that she’s trying not to spook. Come on, Rowe. Let me see.
My fist pumps faster. My hips are lifting off the mattress now, fucking up into my own grip, and the ink on my shaft is a blur in the dim light, and her name is on the tip of my tongue.
“Wren—”
It rips out of me, low, ragged, guttural.
I come hard.
The first pulse hits my stomach. The second hits my chest. Three, four, five, my cock kicking in my fist, my hand slick with it, the inside of my wrist soaked. My thighs lock. My lower back arches off the bed and stays there, suspended, trembling.
Through the wall, the woman cries out. Logan curses, long and guttural.
I don't listen to them.
I'm shaking.
My hand falls open against my stomach, wet and messy, and I lie there with my chest heaving and my cock softening against my hip and the Idaho stain blurring above me.
For a long minute, I can't think.
When I can, the first thought is that I want to do it again.
The second is that I want her here. Not in my head. Not at the foot of the bed in a shirt I imagined unbuttoned. Here. Curled into the hollow of my arm the way Peanut was. Her hair on my pillow. Her breath on my skin.
The third is that I don't know how to want any of that and survive.
I drag a hand through the mess on my stomach and stare at the ceiling and breathe.
Tomorrow she comes back.
For Peanut. Not for me.
I close my eyes.
Through the wall, Logan laughs about something, low and warm. The woman laughs with him.
And I'm still thinking about the pretty veterinarian.