6. Ryan
Ryan
The worst part is I can’t remember how long I’ve been standing at the window.
How many helpless minutes I’ve spent with my forehead mashed to the glass, breath fogging a translucent oval onto the pane. Inside, I am buzzing, molten, stunned with a need so raw it aches.
I take two steps backward and almost trip over my own feet. My heart is racing in dramatic thumps, and my hands are shaking because they want to touch, touch, touch.
I’ve never been hungry like this before.
I strip off my pajamas and stand a moment in the middle of the room, catching my breath. My chest is rising so fast it makes me dizzy.
I thought bringing my favorite vibrator across the Atlantic was stupid and embarrassing, especially when the TSA agent fucking stared at it when checking my bag, but now I could fall on my knees with gratitude to my own foresight.
I fumble it from the pocket of my suitcase; it’s been living in there ever since my arrival in France, and collapse backward onto the bed with it.
I run my hands down my chest, a whimper slipping from my lips as I brush over my nipples.
My body doesn’t look like his; I’m not even sure he’d be attracted to it. But I can pretend, at least for a few minutes. I drag my palm up between my legs, and there’s a rush of wetness that surprises me because I haven’t been this drenched and horny for literal years.
I rub the toy against my folds, not yet turning it on, just warming myself up to the feel of the fake dick. God, it’s not even close to the size of that monster between Camille’s legs.
No, Camille’s cock has to be genuinely the largest I’ve ever seen. Granted, that pool is limited to Paul and porn, but some porn stars have some pretty massive dicks.
I can’t even imagine how a cock that size would feel going in. I bet it would hurt.
Is it fucked up that turns me on even more?
The fact that he’d make it fit?
Fuuuck.
When I finally turn the toy on, the vibration guns straight to my dick. I grip the sheets and muffle a gasp. My hips roll upward, greedy, needing more friction, more pressure, more of everything. The sound is louder than I remember—too loud—but I need it, I need it so bad.
I part myself and slide the vibrator in, slow at first, then faster, until I’m arching, toes curling, desperate and unashamed.
Camille’s face floats behind my eyelids, his gloriously plump lips parted, his eyelashes so thick and dark I just want to reach up and tug them between my teeth.
I fuck myself with the toy, imagining it’s Camille’s cock, huge and demanding and pounding into me, my hole slick and stretched so agonizedly wide around him.
I’m so wet the sheets are damp under my ass. I bite my knuckles to keep from moaning too loud. My other hand goes to my chest, pinching my nipples hard, wishing I was enough, but the ache is good; it skyrockets the need.
He’d pin me down if he ever touched me. That’s what I want—his hands holding my wrists, his teeth on my throat, his cock splitting me open, filling me so deep I go dumb.
He’d be cruel about it, I think. Not mean, well, maybe a little, and relentless, with no patience for my shyness, only predatory hunger and heat and the kind of low, dangerous laugh that makes my stomach flip.
I fuck myself harder, chasing the feeling, my mind a blur of limbs and tongue and muscle and spit.
I want to taste him, want to bite his shoulder, want to see him lose control for once.
I want him to want me, not the way I am, but because of it, because I’m small and awkward and loud in bed, because I shake from wanting him, because I can barely look him in the eyes in daylight.
Oh God, I want him to take me. I want him to push me against that stupid fucking wall between our yards, rip down my pants, and shove himself inside of me so brutally that the village can hear my screams.
The orgasm comes so fast it almost scares me. My body locks, every muscle burning, and I moan into the pillow, riding the aftershocks as the toy buzzes inside me. I stay there, legs splayed, chest heaving, for a long, shivering minute. The ceiling spins a little.
When I can finally breathe, I peel the toy out and toss it on the bedspread. There’s cum all over my thighs, and I can feel the flush on my face, the trembling in my hands. It’s embarrassing how wrecked I am. It’s even worse that I immediately want to do it again.
I sit up and hug my knees to my chest, swiping a palm through the wetness between my legs. My body feels loose and electric, but my head is already filling with doubt. Would he even want to touch me if he knew? Would he flinch away?
I don’t even know what Camille’s type is, let alone his sexuality.
I try to reconstruct the way he looks at me—if he’s even looked, really looked, at me.
I remember the way his gaze sometimes snags on my bare collarbones, the taut lines of my neck when I swallow, but it’s always so brief I could be hallucinating it.
I flop backward onto my pillow, then picture him standing at the edge of my bed, eyes narrowed, and I feel a weird prickle of shame. Like I’m disgusting for wanting it so much. For not even being able to hide it.
If I’m honest, I want him to see it. I want him to look at the mess between my legs and know it’s his fault.
Maybe he already does.
Maybe that’s why he keeps insisting I need him, that I should come to him if I need anything, anything at all.
Maybe the only thing more annoying than his ego is that he’s right.
Except instead of needing him for work around the cottage and grocery runs and help with my French, I need to crawl inside his skin and see if I can infect him with this hunger, this gnawing, ugly wanting that makes my hands tremble, and my voice go high and thin whenever he gets close.
I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, breathing in the sour-sweet smell of sweat and old detergent, and groan.
This is a problem, no doubt about it. Not a catastrophic problem—technically speaking. Camille isn’t married, as far as I know, and I’m single.
We’re both adults.
But it is a problem. Mainly because the prospect of looking at him again makes my stomach convulse. I groan, louder this time, and kick one foot against the thin mattress.
Maybe I don’t have to see him. Maybe my solution is simple—stay inside this dilapidated cottage for the rest of my natural life, subsist on stale bread, moldy cheese, and hope Camille eventually moves away or dies.
I lie on my back for another minute, listening to the vibrator still humming against the rumpled bedspread.
At last, it becomes impossible to ignore.
I snatch it up, yank out the batteries, and carry it downstairs like contraband, clutching it to my stomach even though the cottage is utterly deserted.
The bathroom here consists of a chipped claw-foot tub that sits beneath a single cracked skylight, a toilet that only flushes if I hold the handle down, and a pedestal sink with separate hot and cold taps—because apparently in rural France, moderate water temperatures are considered an affront to God.
I rinse myself off, scrub the toy clean, then stand naked before the spotted mirror over the sink.
My reflection looks guilty as sin. My cheeks are still flushed; a strand of hair sticks out at a ridiculous angle; my lips are pink and raw where I’ve bitten them. A faint red mark crosses my chest where I pinched myself too hard.
“You are never going outside again,” I mutter.
The naked idiot in the mirror doesn’t look convinced.
Despite my plan of never leaving the cottage ever again, I still get dressed, just because walking around naked in here seems like a great way to add tetanus to my growing list of problems. I pull on loose cotton shorts and an oversized shirt, then head downstairs, my face turned away from every window that might face Camille’s property.
For almost an hour, I stick to my plan, but then I hear the choked roar of a diesel engine, idling in the narrow lane.
I freeze halfway through prying a warped strip of trim from the sitting-room wall. The engine cuts off, and a car door slams as distant voices carry through the thin wooden walls.
One of the voices is Camille’s.
“Fuck my life.”
I drop the pry bar with a clatter, heart hammering so hard I barely hear the three raps against the wood.
“Ryan?” Camille calls expectantly through the door.
My windows are open, my music still playing upstairs. He knows I’m here; I can’t pretend otherwise.
“I’m coming.” My voice cracks.
I hate everything.
I cross the room and open the door just far enough to poke my head through.
The afternoon light slants over Camille Moreau, standing on the dusty flagstones in charcoal trousers and a pale blue shirt whose sleeves he’s neatly rolled to his forearms. Behind him stands another man in his late fifties with stocky shoulders and sun-browned arms, wearing faded work trousers and a cheap polo. A white van rests by the roadside.
Camille’s eyes sweep over my face slowly, pausing a fraction too long.
I want to die and also punch him.
“Good afternoon,” he says, voice calm.
I narrow my eyes. “Hi.”
A ghost of a smile curves one corner of his mouth. I want to throttle him. Or climb him. Not sure which.
“This is Monsieur Barthes. He repairs roofs.”
I glance past Camille to the other man, who gives me a quick nod. “Oh. Okay…?”
“I reconsidered our conversation with Monsieur Duret,” Camille continues, “and I could not, in good conscience, entrust the job to someone who disrespected you so blatantly. Therefore, I brought a more capable workman. No thanks necessary.”
What the hell?
“I said I needed to figure out if the roof could be repaired,” I answer, my jaw tight.
He tilts his head. “Yes.”
“That wasn’t me asking you to set it up.”
“I understand.”
My eye twitches. “So you set it up anyway.”
Camille’s face remains immovable. “Yes.”
Monsieur Barthes shifts from foot to foot, starting to look uncomfortable. Damn it.
I step aside. “Well, since he’s here…”