Chapter 6

My fingers opened immediately.

I released his leg and stood so quickly the first aid box tipped. Gauze scattered, but I could not bend down with Russell still watching from the stool.

I cleared my throat and pressed the remaining gauze into his hand, “keep that against the cut.”

Russell watched me, water moving over the hard lines of his bare chest.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” I said too quickly, “and put some ice on the bruise. I’m going to bed.”

His eyes dropped briefly over me, as though he knew sleep was the last thing waiting upstairs.

I fled upstairs, feeling Russell’s gaze between my shoulders until the wall hid me.

My bedroom door closed behind me with a sharp click. I pressed my back against it and dragged in a breath, “okay, what the fuck?”

My eyes widened. I didn't know why I thought two grown adults would be immune to proximity.

Rain beat against the window harder than before, filling the room with a constant rush of sound.

My clothes were cold and damp against my skin, yet heat burned beneath my thighs.

“Oh fucking hell, this is ridiculous.”

I had been trapped between the legs of an attractive, half naked man. My hands had been on his body, my face inches from his hard cock, his fingers wrapped around my wrist. Any one with blood coursing through their veins would be turned on right now.

It didn't mean it was because it was Russell.

I pushed away from the door and peeled off my wet coat. It landed heavily on the floor. My blouse followed, then my pants, leaving me in damp underwear and my bare tits as I strolled to my closet.

The day replayed itself in pieces. Sloan dropping my work into the bin. The empty space where the company car should have been and then Russell.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I needed a shower. A long one hot enough to wash off the rain, Sloan and whatever had happened in that kitchen.

My hand went automatically to the overnight bag beside the wardrobe.

I unzipped it and searched beneath two folded jumpers for my vibrator. I checked the small inside pocket, then the toiletry bag even though I knew it would not fit in there. A charger lay tangled beneath my panties, but the vibrator attached to it was missing.

“You've got to be joking.”

I emptied the bag across the bed. My pussy was begging for something, anything.

Clothes, makeup, receipts and one lonely sock landed across the duvet. I searched every side pocket again, running my fingers along the lining in case it had slipped beneath a tea but it was empty.

I kissed my teeth, “great.”

I sat back on my heels and tried to remember the last time I had seen it. I had packed it before leaving my flat.

The ache between my thighs sharpened anyway, “oh fuck it, this is what shower heads are for...”

I stood, grabbed my towel and forced myself towards the bathroom.

The bathroom was already dark when I stepped inside.

Rain beat the small high window and threw a grey smear across the tiles, enough to see the shape of the bath and not much else.

I tossed the towel. It hit the floor with a wet slap I barely registered.

Hot water first. I stepped under it and hissed when it met my cold skin, then reached up and unhooked the shower head from its cradle. The hose dragged against my hip.

One palm flat to the tiles, the other guided the spray straight between my legs.

The first jet caught my clit and a sound tore out of me I did not recognise as mine.

“Fuck--”

I tipped my head back, eyes shut, and dragged that metal face tighter against the swollen little bean, circling, flicking, letting the water hammer me the way the missing vibrator should have. I used the hard edge of the spray in short mean bursts that made my hips jerk.

My pussy clenched around nothing. The heat that had started in the kitchen had only been waiting under my skin.

My free hand went to my tit. I pinched my nipple hard enough to sting and a moan ripped out over the rush of water, filthy, open-mouthed.

“Oh my gosh-- fuck, fuck --”

I rolled my hip into the spray. Russell’s wet chest flashed behind my lids. The hard line of him. His fingers around my wrist. My face inches from his cock while I pretended gauze was the only thing in my hand.

“It isn’t him,” I whispered, and the lie made me grind harder. “It’s just...ah-- Shit--”

The shower head slipped. I caught it and pressed it flat, pulsing the setting against my clit until my knees nearly went.

Another moan tore loose, raw enough to scrape my throat.

Water ran into my open mouth. I pinched the other nipple and held it, head tipped, throat bared, chasing that sharp little edge like it owed me something.

“Please...please, just...”

I was so close it was embarrassing. My thighs shook. The rain and the water and my own voice filled the dark until there was no room left for sense.

And then the lights slammed on.

White, brutal, every tile lit at once.

I screamed.

The shower head clattered against the bath. Water sprayed wild across the floor and up the wall.

Russell stood at the sink with a toothbrush stuck in his mouth. Foam at the corner of his lip. A towel slung low around his waist and nothing else. His hair was still damp.

He stared at me.

I stared back, naked, dripping, one hand still on my tit and the spray still hitting my thigh.

His eyes dropped and then they came back up and that's when I realised he'd been in here the whole time.