She had to cover her eyes with her free hand to stop the embarrassment overwhelming her, but he wouldn’t allow that either. The second she did it he told her not to.
“I want you to look at me,” he said, which seemed like the most unbearable thing of all. She had to rub through all of this mortifying mess, while he watched her and she watched him?
She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
“I can’t.”
“You can. Here. Here. Like this,” he said, then covered her hand with his and urged it over her slick mound. Of course, the effect was immediate. That little bud swelled beneath her fingertips, pleasure jerking upward from it too quickly. Her toes curled, her back arched, she tried to tell him no again.
But he just pushed her hand down harder, until she couldn’t stop herself from circling that stiff shape. Just a little—no one would have to know. Except for Van, of course, who seemed to be breathing far, far too hard.
He was practically panting by the time she’d gotten up a rhythm. And she could feel him getting closer and closer, as the pleasure wound tight and threatened to do something horrible to her.
She was going to die of it, she knew. Those little pulses from the point of connection were just too much—almost like burning—and he didn’t seem to want to let her up. He wanted her to carry on, and the faster she circled, the worse it got until she couldn’t speak or move or think.
Great, racking trembles went through her, as shameful as the rest of the experience. And yet somehow she found those cares slipping away the moment it claimed her—because by God, no one could be ashamed of this. She called out his name and didn’t mind in the slightest, body bowing under its pressure. That hand of his working and working over hers, and his mouth, oh Lord his filthy mouth.
“That’s it, honey,” he said. “Give it up. Come all over yourself.”
He sounded so gratified too. It was almost funny, until she managed to open her eyes and saw his face.
His lower lip kept making a sort of bow shape, and every time it did it crushed the upper one into a thin stripe. He had that line of pain down his face, but this time she suspected it wasn’t about the bad kind of torture. It was about the good kind, the leg-jostling, anticipatory, dying-to-have-someone-touch-you kind.
He looked caught, she thought. Caught between being gentleman and doing something absolutely disgusting to her. Of course, the notion only brought two possible words to mind.
“Go on,” she said.
Because he could, if he wanted to. The idea wasn’t half as terrifying as the thing he’d just made her do. She’d masturbated in front of him, for God’s sake. What did it matter if he wanted to rub his cock over her pussy, or sink it in to the hilt?
Clearly, however, it mattered to Van.
“Where’s your bathroom?”
The image of him doing himself in the alley behind the house flashed up behind her eyes.
“Van…” she started. She could hardly talk. Her body felt like soup and she knew she looked like an absolute disaster. But by God she was going to get this out. “You know, you don’t have to keep going away. I get—”
“Bathroom, Evie. I really, desperately need the bathroom.”
She thought of million ways she could possibly say to him that it was okay. That she knew what he wanted to do, and that was cool. But the problem was, she barely had the words to describe her own bedroom habits. She definitely didn’t have the words for this.
“It’s down the hall, on your left,” she said, then just lay there, feeling helpless, as he got up and left the room.
Of course, he didn’t do it easily. But then, she suspected most things were hard when you had what looked like a hot bowling ball between your legs.
Chapter Six
When she heard the purr of a motorbike coming up on her right, it didn’t even occur to her that it might be him. Today was Monday. She was outside the house, cycling down Narrowfoot Lane with nothing but trees on one side and the lake on the other. He had no reason to be anywhere in the vicinity.
But that purr stopped too close to her, all the same. In fact, it stopped so close that she kind of veered off the road a little and almost into a bush, before he cut the engine and called out her name.
“Hey, Evie, seriously. See a doctor about your ability to balance.”
Plus, you know. He said some other things too.
“I can balance fine when I don’t have someone riding a motorbike up my ass.”
She immediately wished she hadn’t used the word ass. Or motorbike. Or any of that sentence whatsoever. When she turned, flustered, a sprig of something now attached to her skirt and her bicycle unwilling to stand up straight, he just looked soooo…