34. VirtualVoyeur #2
I’ll just wait here for him. I sit, my holo-image making a dent in the end of his perfect bed. My stomach turns when I realize the dilemma presenting itself. I blink, and for a second my plan to speak to him, to be impersonal, and accusing, collapses into something messier.
Something very, very dangerous.
No, Lyra...don’t you dare. Go back now, cut the holo-feed, and wait for him.
I go back to the door, stepping ever so softly, not to make a sound. He’s turned away, shoulders broad under the sheet of water cascading from the ceiling. The muscles of his back flex with each breath and each movement of his arms.
I bite my knuckle. What am I feeling? Curiosity? Excitement? Oh, shit, it’s arousal. Most definitely.
A chance to even the score, to know a secret about the very private Dr. Kael Ryudon. What’s the worst that could happen?
I nudge myself further into the doorway and peer into the clear spot in the mirror above the vanity. Still there, back turned to the door now. Steam curls around my face as I peek around for a better view.
My blood stirs. Kael, in the shower, stripped down to nothing but the hard lines of his body. His tattoos are speckled with water droplets, moving beneath the spray like the water itself obeys him. He turns to the side, and I can see every part of him.
His back and arm muscles flex as his hands brace against the tile, head bowed, water pouring from his jaw. Every line of him looks perfectly sculpted.
He drags a hand back through his wet hair, water sluicing down his chest, over the rigid line of his stomach.
I follow it down the cut of muscle that disappears into a low V pointing to his hard cock.
My breath stumbles when his hand doesn’t stop, when it lingers on his length.
He’s touching himself, slow, controlled, the way he does everything.
I should look away. Stars, I should go, but I don’t. My fingers twitch against the edge of the doorframe as if it were my own skin, my throat dry, my holo-panties soaked with arousal. I choose to stay a trespasser in the corner.
He slides his hand up and over the tip, just a small, private motion, not clumsy or rushed.
The way a man unwinds himself when there’s no audience and no rules.
The sound he makes is a small, unguarded growl.
It curdles my insides. It’s obscene and intimate all at once.
The private human that hides behind the architect’s precision working himself into pleasure.
Allowing himself, for once, to feel something.
His strong hand moves faster, stroking feverishly. The other still braces the wall for support. His breathing struggles, fast, faster.
He tips his head back, water cascading over his cheeks, and the sound that breaks from him, low and guttural, is like an animal. It hooks into me so deep I can barely breathe.
“Lyra...” A raspy moan. My name struggles to escape his lips. There’s no mask here, no perfect restraint. Just Kael, completely undone by his own hand.
I’m left with the threat of coming undone as well.
Heat floods my cheeks. I resist the animalistic urge to touch myself. Fury and longing tangled so tightly I can’t tell them apart. He’s the one who made me ache in the RedRoom, the one behind the mask, and now he’s here, real and bare.
And I’m just a ghost in his walls, watching.
Guilt flares hot and immediate. He tilts his head as if listening to a sound only he can hear, and for a heartbeat I think he knows.
Dammit! Cut the feed, Lyra. Move your ass before he sees you stalking him. Move now. My mind races.
The water cuts off. Silence drops like a brick, broken only by the sound of Kael’s breathing on the other side of the steamed glass. I jolt back from the doorway as though distance could save me, as though my pulse isn’t thundering loud like a storm in the room.
I pull back slightly, hiding the glow of my holo behind the door.
When I look around again, the shower door swings open, fog curling around him.
He steps out, water dripping down his skin in rivulets, a towel slung low on his hips.
Every move is unhurried. A man who knows he owns whatever space he walks into.
Kael removes the towel and rubs it over his hair, drops of water continue sliding down the strong line of his inked throat, across the expanse of his chest. He pauses, gazing into the steam-laden mirror. Not directly at me, but enough that my stomach flips.
Look away, Lyra...for fuck's sake, look away.
Does he know? I freeze in place.
“Still restless.” I can hear him mutter to himself, wiping the mirror. He runs the towel over his stomach, every movement pulling my gaze where it shouldn’t go. “Clarity, Kael.” He stares at himself and lets out a deep breath.
I back away swiftly, my hand hovering over the bed to catch me. Every nerve screams at me to sit, look casual and unbothered before he comes out. But I don’t.
I can’t.
I am so strung out on this man at this moment, part of me wants to run to him and throw my body onto his. The other half wants to flee and never speak to him again.
It’s no use. I was never good at lying to myself. My other half wants him on me, inside me. Now.
He’s still talking to himself, small affirmations, polite self-conversation. For a breathless second, it feels like he’s actually speaking to me. Like he knows I’m here and wants to reveal the hunger in his eyes is only for me.
My arousal gets away from me, filling the monitors with pink heartbeats and flickering static. A loud ping betrays me by showing an anomaly has been detected on screen.
It’s me. I’m caught.