“That’s my room.”
“Whoops. Silly me.”
I feel my face getting hot. I’m blushing. I’m literally blushing like a teenage girl because she almost set foot in my damn bedroom.
“Paige’s is over there.” I gesture vaguely behind me.
She moves past me, and I hear her footsteps pause in Paige’s doorway. I pull myself together enough to face her.
“Goodnight, Zach.” She reaches for the handle and steps into the dark room. “Sweet dreams.”
“Uh, yeah, um, goodnight.”
I fall back onto the couch as soon as the door closes.
This is going to be a long, long night.
Six
Zach
APERITIF: an alcoholic beverage meant to be consumed before a meal, with the purpose of stimulating hunger
I wake up with a hard-on.
Of course I do.
I resisted the urge to jerk off like a pervert last night, even when I heard the shower turn on just after I got into bed. The knowledge that DeeDee was naked in the same apartment as me made it next to impossible to get any sleep for the rest of the night.
I must have dozed off at some point, because here I am facing the reward of being polite and not creepy: a near-painfully hard case of morning wood.
I feel like a guilty teenager.
I also feel like I’m going to start smashing furniture if my dick doesn’t get some kind of release soon. I haven’t heard any movement in the apartment. It’s only 9AM, and considering we went to bed past four, it’s safe to say DeeDee is probably asleep.
I shift in bed, and even the weight of the sheets is enough to have me holding back a groan.
This is bad.
I lay as still as I can for a few more minutes, but the situation doesn’t seem like it will be improving anytime soon.
“Dammit,” I mutter.
Fine. I’ll get off, but I won’t think about her.
I start with one of my trusted go-to’s: the hot female gym teacher at my high school. It doesn’t help with the guilty teenager vibes, but picturing her pulling me into the back seat of her Dodge Grand Caravan—yes, for some reason I never try picturing a sexier car than the one she actually owned—holds my attention for the first few strokes.
I clutch the sheet with my free hand, straining not to make any noise. I’m so damn hard.
And then she would reach back and take her bra off. It would probably be hard to do that in a minivan. She might hit her head. Maybe she’d be really flexible. I wonder if DeeDee is flexible...
“No,” I order myself. “No, no, no.”
Okay, her bra is off. She wants me to put her tits in my mouth. Yeah, that’s good. I wonder if she still works at the high school. Wow, she must be like, fifty years-old by now. Do I really want to have a fifty-year-old’s tits in my mouth?
Maybe I should take this fantasy off the go-to list. Truth be told, it doesn’t matter how many times I start off picturing someone else. When it’s late at night or early in the morning, when I’m aching for release, when I’m about to hit the edge and let go, all I have to think about is wrapping that candy pink hair around my fist as her hips rock back onto mine, and I’m gone.
“Dammit,” I pant. “Fuck.”
I want to know what she sounds like. I want to be the one to make her feel good. I want my name on her lips.
I want my cock inside her.
I stroke myself even faster, the fantasy of her skin on mine spurring me on until I can’t hold back anymore. I come all over my hand and let my head drop back, the muscles of my neck unclenching as my breath and heart continue to race.
For something that should be so bad, this feels way too good.
I lay there for a few minutes before finally hauling myself out of bed. I get cleaned up as best I can and pull a pair of sweatpants on to head to the bathroom.
I can probably have breakfast ready by the time she wakes up. Maybe I’ll even spell ‘Hope you didn’t hear me jerking off to the thought of screwing you senseless’ in pancake letters.
I’ve just stepped into the living room when a cheery greeting rings out.
“Good morning, Zachy Zach.”
“Holy fucking shit!”
I jump a foot in the air when I turn to the couch beside me and see DeeDee sitting there.
Right. There.
As in, right there on the couch that’s against the wall of my bedroom—the bedroom in which I just came while thinking about her.
The situation gets even worse when my leap of terror sends me crashing into a bookcase behind me. The corner jabs into my shoulder blade, and I swear again as my bare feet somehow slip out from under me. My back rakes along the bookshelf’s edge as I slide to the floor and land right on my tailbone. I let out a long groan as pain shoots up my spine.
DeeDee gasps and rushes over. She’s wearing the same tight black pants and crop top as last night, but her feet are bare like mine, and when she squats down in front of me, I see she’s got next to no makeup on—or what I think is next to no makeup; makeup is a mysterious thing.
It’s those details that make the moment feel intimate, comfortable even, despite the splitting pain ricocheting up and down my back. Her face is pinched with concern where it’s only inches from mine, brown eyes warm and gentle. She looks younger without all that black stuff ringed around them.
It takes me a second to realize she’s jabbering away in French too fast for me to follow. I catch the words ‘let me see’ before she puts a hand on my shoulder and presses lightly, urging me to bend forward a few inches.
That’s when I remember I’m not wearing a shirt. Her fingers on my shoulder send a shiver running through me.
“Merde, Zach!” she shouts after getting a glimpse of my back. “You’re all scratched up.”
“Feels like it.” I can’t help hissing when her fingers graze a tender spot and set off a sharp stinging sensation.
“Désolé!” she yelps. “Sorry, sorry. It’s pretty fucked up. Come on. Can you get up? We should get it cleaned.”
She hooks a hand under my forearm and places the other on my bicep to guide me to my feet beside her.
“There we go, Monsieur Hastings. Just like that.”
I search for something—anything—to focus on besides the warmth of her fingers twined around my bare arm. That’s when I notice she’s got a pair of headphones tangled around her, one side still nestled in her ear while the other hangs loose, all caught up in her hair.
“Uh, DeeDee, I think your headphones are trying to strangle you.”
“What? Oh.” She reaches for the cord and then laughs. “I guess I pulled them right out of my phone when I got up. I was listening to music before you decided to come out and put on a show.”
“You had headphones on?” I clarify as she starts to lead us to the bathroom. “All morning?”
“Ouais. Why?”
I let out a small sigh of relief. “Uh, no reason. What were you listening to?”
We make it to the bathroom, and before I know what’s happening, DeeDee’s sitting me down on the closed lid of the toilet and turning me around so she has access to my back. I couldn’t resist her hands if I tried, and I need the distraction of obeying orders if I’m going to continue ignoring the fact that I’m shirtless and she’s touching me, so I let her carry on.