I wasn't just fixing a machine. I was touchingher. I was inside the ghost I had been chasing for ten years. The girl I had drawn in the margins of my notebooks, the mystery I had tried to solve with graphite and ink. She felt incredible. The heat of her, the velvety texture of her interior, the way her body milked my fingers, it was the most addictive tactile sensation I had ever experienced.
I hated how good it felt. I hated that my own body was responding, my jeans suddenly too tight, my Alpha instincts roaring at me to shove my fingers deeper, to replace my hand with something more permanent, to bite, to claim.
You spectator,I thought viciously, watching her face flush darker.You voyeur. You're enjoying this.
I pushed the self-loathing down, focusing it into energy. I let the rhythm shift. It wasn't clinical anymore. It became something else. Something heavy. Something... worshipful.
I used my thumb to work her clit, dragging it through the slick heat in circles while my fingers thrust inside her. I watched her face intently, memorizing the way her lips parted, the way the pulse jumped in her throat. I needed to capture this. Not on paper, but in the dark, permanent gallery of my mind.
"That's it," I murmured, leaning closer, my face inches from her thigh. The scent of burnt sugar and dark chocolate poured off me, mixing with her brine and berries, creating a new, heady compound. "Let go. You have to crash."
"I can't," she whimpered, her hips bucking against Daniel's restraint. "It's too much. The eyes. Everyone is watching."
"No one is watching," I lied, my voice rough with the lie. "Just me. Just Simon. Look at me, Tessa."
She didn't focus on me, but she turned toward the sound of my voice.
"Simon?" she breathed, the name a question.
"Yeah. I'm right here." I pumped my fingers faster now, twisting my wrist to hit the nerve again and again. "I'm not in the bleachers. I'm right here in the mess with you."
Daniel shifted his weight, his large hand coming up to stroke her hair back from her sweaty forehead. "170," he murmured, his voice sounding relieved. "It's dropping. Keep going, Si."
I didn't need the encouragement. I couldn't have stopped if I wanted to.
Her body was taking over. The cramps were transforming, the pain signals transmuting into pleasure signals as the dopamine began to flood her brain. She clamped down on my hand, hard, her inner muscles shuddering.
"Oh," she gasped, her back arching, her ribcage expanding as she finally took a full breath. "Oh, please."
"Come on," I urged, scissoring my fingers inside her, feeling the ridge of her cervix, feeling the wet heat drenching my hand. "Give it to me. Break."
I watched the flush spread up her neck. It was beautiful. It was a masterpiece of biological art. The way the blood rushed to the surface, turning her pale skin to rose, then to crimson. The way the veins in her neck stood out.
I increased the pressure, my thumb moving in a blur against her clit.
She shattered.
It wasn't a gentle release. It was a detonation. She screamed, a high, keen sound that shattered the tension in the room. Her body convulsed, violently bowing off the floor, lifting my hand with her. She clamped down on my fingers so hard I thought she might break them, pulsating around me in wave after wave of crushing heat.
"Yes," I hissed, watching her eyes roll back in her head. "That's it. Scream. Let it out."
I kept moving through the pulses, riding out the aftershocks, refusing to let her come down too fast. I held her through the peak, letting her wring every ounce of release from the contact.
Slowly, agonizingly, the tension left her frame.
Her back completely relaxed, melting onto the cold concrete. Her legs, which had been fighting Daniel’s grip, went boneless. Her hands uncurled.
The room fell silent, save for the sound of her ragged, wet breathing and the persistent drum of the rain.
I didn't pull out. Not yet. I stayed inside her, feeling the final, fluttering spasms of her muscles against my fingers, feeling the heat slowly begin to ebb from "critical" to merely "high." I rested my forehead against her knee, breathing hard, the smell of her release, sweet, salty, absolute, filling my lungs.
"Heart rate," I croaked, not lifting my head.
There was a pause, the silence heavy with the things we weren't saying.
"120," Anders said. His voice was quiet. Shaken. "115. She’s stabilizing."
I closed my eyes, a wave of exhaustion hitting me. My hand was cramping. My fingers were slick with her fluids and smeared with the ink from my own skin, marking her inside and out. I had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed. I had put my hands on the client.
