Chapter 22 #2
I glance over at the camera instinctively, even though the audio’s still scrambled. “Serious enough to call you after three years.”
The fact is I don’t have many friends, let alone ones who would be both insane and curious enough to help me with this. He and Lane are both scientists. If I’m going to trust anyone to kill me and bring me back from the dead, it would be them.
There may also be something a little satisfying about going to the man who owns the only research laboratory on the West Coast capable of going up against Bellrose Institute.
If Malcolm thinks he can take full control and ownership over Ascension and all the research that comes with it, I’ll make sure every secret ends up with someone more worthy than him.
There’s another long pause, and the moment I can sense he’s going to give in, my heart stutters and flips and starts to race.
“Give me the weekend,” he says. “I’m not agreeing to anything yet. I don’t do experiments like this without research first.”
Not a yes.
But not a no.
“That’s fair. I can work with that.”
“I’ll call you next week. Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime.”
The line goes dead, and I lower the phone from my ear to stare down at it in my hand, a little shocked that I actually managed to go through with it.
“I think we’re already past that point, Doc,” I mutter before tossing the phone to the end of the couch.
The faint hum of the interference device still buzzes in the background, cocooning me in just enough privacy to think. I tilt my head at the camera. My pulse is still all over the place. My hands are less than steady. My brain feels like it’s been put through a blender on puree.
So, naturally…I choose chaos.
Pushing myself off the couch, I walk over to my desk and flick the device off. The hum dies instantly. Just like that, the silence becomes heavy.
“Wouldn’t want you missing anything,” I whisper under my breath.
I head back to the couch, dropping onto it and leaning my head back against the cushions as though I’m exhausted. Which…okay, yes. I am. But that’s not the point.
The point is the camera.
Or rather, who’s on the other side of it watching.
I drag my left hand slowly down my chest, exhaling a soft moan as my eyes flutter shut.
Stopping at my right pec, I knead it before moving to the left and massaging it too.
Already feeling a little warm, I sit up and remove my shirt, tossing it onto the floor before leaning back again.
I go back to massaging my chest, letting slip another moan as I pinch my nipple.
Don’t ask me where the idea came from. All I know is that I want him to see me.
I don’t think the goal is to hurt him. I don’t think I can. If I could, great. But…I don’t think he cares enough. If I can just convince him that I don’t want him anymore, that I’ve moved on, that’d be enough for me.
Hell, if I could just convince myself…
But the act isn’t entirely fake, and that’s the problem. Because my body doesn’t really care about context. About trauma or hate. It just remembers—touch, more ghosts than skin, the way his shadows felt…
My stomach twists.
It’s as though they’re here now. Dread and something darker curl together in my gut in a way I don’t want to unpack right now.
So I don’t. I lean into the performance instead, letting my head roll across the cushions, letting my breathing shift, slower, heavier.
Letting my hand move lower, lower, lower…
Even though it was Reese’s touch I wanted, I can’t deny that feeling all those hands on me drove me fucking wild.
If I hadn’t been freshly tortured and quite literally willing to die to feel Reese’s touch, then I easily could have sunk so deep into theirs that I would’ve had a hard time finding my way back up.
That may or may not be the reason my cock is already rock fucking hard by the time I take it out of my jeans.
My brain wants to forget the other effect they had on me, so I let it.
I spit in my palm, then fist my shaft, squeezing tight as I stroke up until a bead of precum leaks from the tip. I stare, remembering what it felt like to be so fucking full of his shadows. Looking back on it now…fuck. I didn’t hate it.
At least when it was my cock, not my fucking lungs.
Groaning, I sink a little deeper into the sofa and start to stroke myself with purpose.
My glasses slip a little low on my nose, but I don’t bother pushing them back.
I thrust my hips up, fucking into my hand.
My eyes close, and everything else starts to fade away as I jerk my cock, twisting my hand around my head and smearing precum up and down my length.
For a while, I forget that I’m supposed to be putting on a show.
Oh, right.
I moan again, bringing my other hand up to rub across my chest, pinching one nipple, then the other. Then I let a name slip from my lips, drawn-out and breathless. But it’s not the one I’ve been thinking about.
“Harrison.”
Nope.
Abort. Abort. Abort.
Wow, that felt really fucking wrong.
Sorry, Lane.
I turn my head away from the camera to hide my grimace. That nearly ruined everything, and I have to stroke myself a little harder to keep my dick from going soft.
It’s not that Harrison isn’t attractive. Like Reese, he’s walking sin. But…he’s not Reese. That and I’m not in the business of trying to steal another man’s man. Besides, Lane might not kill me for trying, but Harrison would.
Okay. Pivot.
Reese.
And just like that, my cock leaks more precum. Apparently, that’s all it takes now. Just his fucking name in my head, and my dignity is gone. Pavlov’s dog but make it horny.
When it’s his face silently swimming through my mind, my balls get tight. My palm rubs harshly against my chest before moving up, my hand wrapping around my throat. I squeeze, just enough to make everything fuzzy around the edges. I imagine it’s his hands on me, stroking my cock, choking me.
Then I imagine there’s his hands and more…
My whole body tightens without warning. The orgasm breaks through me, abrupt and intense. Tension snaps as a rough, unfiltered sound leaves my mouth.
Reese would hate how quickly I made myself come, but fuck him. I’ll defy him any chance I get.
Both my hands ease their grips, leaving me breathing hard, my head lying back on the cushion, eyes closed. It’s all I can do to piece myself back together as quickly as possible. And even as I scramble to pick my shirt up off the floor and clean up the mess I made, it doesn’t feel fast enough.
I stand to my feet, exhaustion catching up now that the adrenaline and arousal have burned off. My limbs feel heavy again, my legs resisting as I take a step toward the bookshelf.
Finally pushing my glasses up my nose, I stare into the camera, really looking at it this time, as though I’m peering right through it, to him. Then I let my expression settle into something firm and determined. Final.
“That’s the last time you get to see me,” I say quietly but loud enough for him to hear. “I’m over it.”
Over you.
The words settle in the air between us, between me and a lens and the man I wish I could pretend isn’t on the other side of it.
The lie tastes bitter, clinging to the back of my tongue, like my body knows better even if my mouth doesn’t. For a second, only one, I almost take it back. Almost laugh it off, deflect, make a joke like I always do when something gets too real.
But I don’t.
Instead, I hold his gaze through the camera, jaw tight, shoulders squared, forcing myself to sit in it. To let it stick. Because if I say it enough, if I wear it like armor long enough, maybe it’ll start to feel true.
It doesn’t.
Not yet.
My eyes drift shut. Behind them is a room in a lab that doesn’t exist yet, not to me. Bright lights. Cold metal. A countdown that hasn’t started but I can already feel ticking somewhere deep in my chest.
Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe whatever happens in that space—whatever misfires, whatever rewires, whatever snaps—it’ll take this with it.
I need him burned out of me like a bad circuit, every trace of him wiped from my head, from my nerves, from whatever part of me that keeps reaching for him even when I know better.
A reset.
A clean slate.
The weekend. I can make it through. And then…
Maybe I’ll come back different.
Maybe I’ll come back free.