Chapter Six
Cameron
I couldn’t sleep.
I’d folded out the sofa bed as though I was defusing a bomb, with slow, careful movements, terrified of making noise. The springs creaked once, traitorously loud in the hush of Theo’s flat, and I froze, listening for movement down the hallway.
Nothing, only the low hum of the fridge and the city night outside.
Everything in the flat had edges, surfaces, a precision that screamed Theo Sinclair. The shelves were neat, the coffee table lined up exactly with the rug’s border, the remote parallel to the coaster.
The kind of order that told you how someone survived their own thoughts.
I don’t belong here.I knew that. But I also couldn’t remember the last place that had felt even close to safe.
Now I was alone, I took stock of my surroundings. The sofa bed wasn’t the only seat in the room.Thank God. Theo mightactually have to sit next to me.There was an armchair near the fireplace, a small table beside it. A TV screen sat against the wall.
I wonder what he likes to watch?
That was stuff I didn’t need to know.
I probably won’t be here long enough to find out either.
I brushed my teeth in Theo’s bathroom, using the spare cup, aware of the faint scent of cedar soap and the aftershave I remembered from that night at the bar, something dark, smoky, and probably expensive. I remembered Theo’s words from that night too. How they’d stung. I’d told myself it didn’t matter.
But ithadmattered, way too much.
I lay in the middle of the sofa bed, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling and counting the cracks in the plaster.
Theo’s bedroom door was closed, but not far. The flat was small enough that every tiny sound carried. When Theo moved—a restless turn, a sigh, the soft groan of mattress springs—I heard it. Felt it, even.
Every time I tried to close my eyes, my mind betrayed me.
It was full of Theo.
I turned over, pressing my face into the pillow. It smelled faintly like linen and Theo’s laundry detergent. I hated how that made my stomach twist.
When I finally drifted off, the sun was already pale through the curtains.
Theo
I lay in the dark, aware of every noise that filtered through the door. My mind provided images of Cameron nude between white sheets, and a shiver rippled through me. I slid my hand beneath my own sheets, brushing over my nipple in a languid motion, moving lower, lower, until my fingertips grazed the elasticated waistband of my briefs.
How does Cameron touch a lover? Is he gentle? Rough? Passionate?
I trailed my fingers over my burgeoning erection, squeezing it through the soft cotton, feeling it harden, lengthen. My breathing quickened as I pictured Cameron lying naked beside me, his hand wrapped around his own shaft, coaxing it to full capacity.
I swallowed and rolled onto my front. In my imagination, I pinned Cameron to the mattress, our cocks sliding over each other. I squeezed my arse cheeks, thrusting against the mattress, humping it, rocking, my mind supplying delicious details of Cameron beneath me, meeting my movements with his own, his hips pumping, moans falling from his lips.
I removed my briefs and stuffed a pillow under my hips, thrusting into it, loving the friction, the imaginary slide of slick flesh against equally slick, heated flesh. I clutched the bottom sheet in my fists, hips rolling as I pushed my cock into the pillow, breathing shallow and rapid as I neared orgasm, Cameron’s face filling my head, the flush on Cameron’s chest, his wide eyes, his parted lips.
And when I got too close, I flipped onto my back, dick pulsing cum onto my belly, my body shaking, fingers tweaking nipples to give an edge to my climax.
Fuck.
I lay in the dark, chest heaving, breathing ragged and harsh in the quiet. I scrubbed a hand over my face, hating how warmmy skin felt, how sensitive. My pulse throbbed in my throat, in my fingertips, everywhere I didn’t want Cameron to exist.
The heat hadn’t faded yet, the raw, startling pleasure of it, and that was the problem.