I came, hard and humiliatingly fast, the sharp, undeniable release slamming into me before I could do a damn thing to stop it.
My hand hit the wall behind me to keep my knees from buckling. My pulse thundered in my ears. Shame and pleasure tangled together in a mess I didn’t have words for.
Across from me, Clara was breathing hard, skin flushed and glowing, her hand still between her thighs, eyes wide and dark as they locked on mine.
I was wrecked. She was wrecked. Every line we’d drawn felt thinner than paper.
And for the first time in a long time, even wrapped in the embarrassment of losing control, I felt something under it that I hadn’t expected.
Alive.
My breathing was a mess, rough and uneven, like I’d just sprinted instead of standing frozen against a wall while she remained on display for me.
The front of my sweats was damp and humiliating, my pride in tatters, but none of it could compete with the sight of her. Clara lay there, knees apart, flushed and soaked, chest lifting in shallow pulls. Every inch of her was soft curves and sharp edges, holy and obscene all at once.
I couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. At her thighs. At the slick, unmistakable evidence of what I’d just done to her without laying a single hand on her.
Something in her gaze shifted as she watched me—taking in my wrecked breathing, the death grip I had on the doorframe, the way my hips had jerked just once when I lost it. Her lips curved, slow and dangerous, like she’d just figured out the answer to a question she hadn’t wanted to ask out loud.
She tilted her head, eyes dark and soft and a little wicked.
“Did you want a taste?” she asked.