A cold blast of air swooshes in, rattling some papers on my nightstand and the T-shirt I have hanging over the arm of the sofa in the sitting area. My body erupts in chills, and I shudder quickly only to push the frame as high as it will go, staring out in the darkness of night.
I know her window is open a little, even if her room is bathed in shadows.
I know because I checked—as I do every fucking night—when I first came up.
I’m obsessed with her. I don’t even know how or when it happened.
I don’t know her, not well anyway, but it’s like something inside her speaks to something inside me, and whatever that something is, it will not be denied.
All my brothers had various girlfriends growing up, and I was no different in that, but I hadn’t found any woman appealing enough to tempt my full attention until I met Reese.
I met her and thought… her. She smiled at me, and I spent the following six years of my life devotedly by her side. We had Stella, and Reese gave up dreams, and I was in school for impossible hours. Yet, our love was never questioned. It never wavered.
It was all that other stuff that challenged us.
There was so much I did wrong. Took for granted. Allowed to happen.
Now… I don’t deserve a now. Certainly not with her. Elle.
She’s had it bad. I don’t have to know the details to know that. I’m the opposite of what she needs. I’m not a good man. I do not deserve someone like her coming into my life. And because of that, I won’t confuse her or lead her on when nothing will ever come of it.
It was a mistake to offer her a ride. Now I’m avoiding her as I’ve vowed to do. But that doesn’t stop me from jerking off with her scarf over my face and visions of her behind my eyes.
I’m the worst sort of pervert.
Guilt… why don’t I feel you? You’ve been my constant companion since the day Reese went into that lake. Maybe even before that. But here, now, doing this? Where is my guilt when I need you most? I am not a worthy man.
Still, I strain, listening while staring out into a dark expanse I have no business searching, wondering about her.
The most tempting of goddesses I’ve ever encountered. My vixen, as I’ve called her in my head.
Guilt?
No, I don’t feel you, and that loss, that ache, might be the most powerful source of my current agony. What happens when I stop feeling it? When I allow the idea of another to intrude? To take over? By letting go of my guilt, it’s like I’m letting go of Reese, and that’s not something I can ever do.
The light flickers on in Elle’s bedroom, startling me out of my darkness. She’s there, walking around, getting ready for bed. I can’t see her all that well, just slightly obscured images through thirty feet and empty branches. But I can see enough. Her hair is down, curtaining her shoulders and the delicate blades of her back. She’s wearing a white tank top and some kind of skimpy shorts.
The sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Infuriatingly beautiful.
I need to step away.
I have no business watching her like this, her scarf still in my hand.
But seeing her like this has triggered something in me. Forcing me past drawn lines I knew I’d eventually cross. Hating the intrinsic knowledge that it was, truly, only a matter of time.
“Elle,” I whisper, and not even two seconds later, her head whips in my direction as if she heard me call her name. Impossible, but there she is, walking to her window. She draws her curtains farther back and opens her window the rest of the way. She’s squinting out into the night, searching for me, and I flip on the lamp on my nightstand, bathing me in soft light.
Her body straightens, her lips parting when she finally sees me, registers what I’m doing.
She doesn’t speak and neither do I. I just stand here, gazing at her, same as she’s doing with me. I move closer, right up against the window, and she does the same, magnets drawn to each other.
Her eyes flicker, her hand coming out to touch the screen.
“I thought you said you don’t do this anymore.”
“I don’t.”
But I am tonight, and we both know it.
“Are you going to stay?”
I shouldn’t, but I can’t make myself leave this window either.
She notes the scarf in my hand, and I bring it up to my face, smelling her while she watches. Another beat passes, and then she steals my breath as ever so slowly her hands grip her tank top, drawing the fabric up and over her head. She drops it to the floor, her deliciously perky breasts springing free, and I involuntarily groan, my cock pulsing with the need of her.
I rip off my white T-shirt, my skin on fire as her hands slip over her breasts, tugging on her nipples before trailing south, over her taut stomach, to the hem of her tiny shorts. My hand matches her motion and before she can, I yank my pajama pants down, kicking them away and sliding my hand into my boxer briefs, squeezing the base of my cock.
“Take them off,” she calls out, and her voice. Her sweet, honey voice is like a shot of lust straight to my balls.
“You first,” I challenge, and she doesn’t hesitate. Her shorts slide down her supple legs, and there she stands in her window, completely nude, bathed in light, shivering ever so slightly. From the cold or what we’re doing, I don’t know.
But fuck, I want her.
I want to tear this house apart. Rip the window from the wall and claw my way into her room. The separation is driving me mad, and I pound the side of my fist into the glass, rattling the upper pane. I stare down at the six-foot fence and the tree that separates our houses and then back up at her, contemplating everything.
Frustration roars through me.
I want the taste of her on my tongue, smell her body in my nose, feel her skin on my fingertips. Not just the remnants of her on her scarf.
But that can never happen. Not again.
Rooted in place, the hand holding her scarf against the window, the other touching myself. I won’t go to her. I won’t pretend this could ever be more than living out a fantasy. Playing an erotic game with a forbidden woman. Our boundaries are set before us, and we’re doing this, both knowing the score before we play.
So I lower my briefs and watch as her eyes cast down, taking me in. I do the same, wishing she were closer so I’d have a better view. I jerk my cock as her fingers glide across her smooth mound, dipping in between her legs. Desperate, I want to call out a million dirty things to her. Tell her every damn thought I’m having, but they’re not words you can shout out into the night when anyone walking by or with an open window could possibly hear.
Instead, we hold our tongues, lost to our own sounds, as we pleasure ourselves to the other. The head of my cock is coated in precum, and I use that for lubrication, wishing it were the cream of her pussy all over me. She’s wet. I’m not close enough, and I can’t smell her, but her fingers glide in and out without resistance, her breasts heaving with her every hefty breath.
She lifts one breast, toying with it, squeezing it, pinching her nipple as her fingers move faster, in and out, then circling her clit. She cups her pussy and grinds into her palm, and my cock pulses as if I can feel the soft, wet heat of her around me.
Her head falls back, and I stroke myself harder, so overcome by what we’re doing—the vision of her—I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out. Pleasure races up my spine, tightening my balls, and I grunt when she bites down into her lip.