“Are you awake?” I whisper, not wanting to wake her if she isn’t.
“Yes,” she whispers back. “Do you want me to rub your back now? It’s only fair.”
Do I?
I hadn’t thought she would reciprocate, but if she’s offering…
“Sure, why not.”
Eliza moves, rolling to her side before sitting up, cross-legged on the mattress as she waits for me to take her spot.
I remove my shirt.
“Easier to rub me down this way, yeah?”
“Um, yeah.”
I grin as I lie face down, wondering if that made her blush. Eliza isn’t your usual twenty-year-old; she’s not flirted with me since she moved in, if you don’t count that snog in the kitchen—the one she put a swift end to after it happened.
No nonsense since.
Pity that.
Shut down by the first girl I’ve wanted as a girlfriend since…well, you know who.
Eliza’s hands are delicate, not leveraging enough pressure to make an impact on my muscles, but it feels good just the same. They wander, beginning a more exploratory mission than a massaging one, and I wonder what she’s doing up there roaming—that was not the point of her switching places with me.
Does she just want to touch me, or is she actually trying?
I lie still as her palms skim my flesh.
So gently it almost tickles—and I’m not ticklish.
She’s next to me, still cross-legged, fingers trailing lightly over my ribcage before making their way over to my traps. Deltoids.
My lower back where the curve dips into my boxer briefs.
I feel her nails.
Then…
“Is that your hair?”
What’s she doing? It’s hard to tell, what with my face in the pillow and all.
“Maybe.”
Maybe? Damn, I wish I could see her. Can definitely feel her, but that isn’t the same.
I feel like a defenseless animal playing dead, not wanting to cause alarm to the predator—although I would kill to be eaten alive by Eliza.
My dick stiffens a little from the thought and the contact of her hands on my body. I have zero control of my lower half; it controls me.
I shift uncomfortably, wishing it would go away but wishing—
“Why don’t you roll over and let me do your front side,” she suggests graciously.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“Why not?”
Because I have a hard-on? Because my limp dick is now at half-mast? Because you’re turning me on?
Obviously I say none of these things—I don’t want to scare the shite out of her or make her feel vulnerable considering she’s in my bed, in the dark, during a storm that already has her scared shiteless.
“Flip over. Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird.” But I really don’t want to admit why I won’t roll to my back.
“You are.” Her hands are on her hips now, even though she’s sitting on the bed.
Cheeky little thing.
“Just do it.”
Bossy too.
“Fine,” I relent, grunting as I roll from my stomach to my back, dick relieved it’s no longer being crushed mercilessly into the mattress.
If Eliza notices my erection, she doesn’t comment on it, setting to work learning my front side. Hands taking the same route they took while I was on my stomach, at the same methodical pace.
It’s torture, really, and I do my damnedest to forget I have a penis and it’s excited, to not think about how the blood flow to my brain is rapidly moving south.
It’s not my fault she turns me on.
She’s not even trying—and if she is, she hides it well.
Every so often, she hums while her palms glide along, aimlessly drifting here and there about my upper torso, lollygagging without a care in the world.
Oblivious to the racing heart beating inside my chest.
My skyrocketing blood pressure.
Okay, she’s right: I am being dramatic.
None of these things are accurate, but they feel accurate, and I’m incredibly uncomfortable with her rubbing my body. Last thing I need is her judging my involuntary stiffy.
“Hold still,” she demands, her thumbs pressing into the curve of my neck, still not hard enough to make an impact. “You feel stressed.”
“Me? Stressed? Never.”
“You’re stressed out about the rugby team enough to land on the ground and pretend to hurt yourself.”
“Um, why would you bring that up? We were having a nice bonding moment.”
“A bonding moment?” She laughs. “You goof.”
Never in my life has anyone called me a goof.
“We’re not bonding?”
More humming from inside her throat. “I suppose.”
Eliza’s fingers graze over my pecs, one of her hands brushing across my nipple.
And again.
Circles once, twice, before moving along.
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa—hold up. What was that all about? There was nothing professional about that nipple drive-by she just pulled, and now I’m on high alert, body keyed up another notch.
Shite.
Not what I need right now: more sexual awareness.
The air crackles, and it isn’t from the bolts of electricity outside—there is more energy in this bedroom than beyond these walls.
Eliza’s finger makes its way toward my belly button, down the center of my chest, over my abs, unhurriedly dipping inside of it.