16
Callum
I shouldn’t have been there, but she’d been avoiding me since she’d found out and I needed to talk to her.
It had been painful to watch her in class. I tried to focus, but the pain in her eyes was too hard to ignore. And behind that pain was heat. A fiery tension so strong, I could feel it. It was as if we’d been bound together by honesty and now that we’d seen it, we couldn’t hide it away anymore. I didn’t think I wanted to.
Our friendship shifted to a different path in the office that night. The hurt had thrown us off course, but the truth of our feelings set us on a different one, still together. At least I hoped. Once the possibility of losing her friendship hit me, I realized how much I’d come to need her. It hadn’t just been Voyeur and watching her. It had been her laugh and bright presence in my office. Her smile from across the desk as we shared a sandwich.
I didn’t want to lose that, and I wanted to explain, but she’d bolt from class as soon as it was over.
I had another opportunity when I walked in to find her in the copier room. I’d closed the door and stared at her back. She didn’t react, didn’t turn to look at me, or make any eye contact as she brushed past me to open the door. I turned to follow, and the palm of my hand pressed to the wood and held it closed.
She didn’t immediately jerk away, so I stepped in close. Not pressing into her but letting her feel my heat. With my heart thundering in my ears, I tried to get her to listen to me.
“I’m so sorry, Oaklyn,” I whispered down close, my words moving her hair. It felt like a punch to the gut when her breathing hiccupped, choking me, but she needed to know. “I meant what I said in the office. You are beautiful and smart and funny. The kiss we shared? That was us. Not Voyeur.”
Her body sagged, slightly leaning back into me, and for the first time, I felt like I could take a deep breath again. Leaning down, I grazed my nose along her hair. “Please forgive me.”
A moment later, she’d stiffened again. “Let me out.”
And with that, the breath left my body again. But I’d stepped back and let her leave. When I came back into the main office she was gone. Donna told me that Oaklyn had left because she was feeling sick.
I knew it was a lie. I also knew, from my obsession over the last two months, that she worked almost every Friday night. That admission alone should have had me turning the other way. It should have been the big flashing sign that I’d gone too far. But every time I thought of her, my heart hurt a little less. My anxiety slipped further away. For the first time in nineteen years, I’d felt hope, and I wasn’t letting it go so easily.
As soon as I walked into the main area, I spotted her by the bar.
There was a direct line of sight to her standing off to the side gathering drinks on a tray. She wore tall black boots that went over her knee. A patch of her thigh was left bare before a short purple skirt swayed around her legs with each movement. Above that was another patch of skin baring her belly button before black lace covered the top half of her abdomen and barely encased her breasts.
She was beautiful.
My heart thundered in my ears as I weaved my way in and out of people, ready to make her listen to me. Scared that she wouldn’t. She could easily call security, say that I was stalking her and have my membership revoked. I doubted her success if she went that route, but it would at least buy her more time.
As I approached, I watched her push her long wavy hair behind her ear and I wanted to lean down and suck on the stud secured on her lobe.
“Oaklyn.”
She froze at my gravelly voice, but eventually turned. She didn’t say anything, just stared me down, and I did my best to decipher the swirl of emotions I saw in her eyes. Hurt, mixed with nerves and heat. So much heat. Out of my periphery I could see her breasts rising and falling as her breathing sped up. Somehow, I fought from staring and held her gaze, opening my emotions for her to see as much as I could.
I wanted her to feel my own hurt, my own desire, my own nerves, because, fuck me, I was nervous. Nervous that she would slap me and walk away. Nervous that she would stay, and I’d have to face everything after that.