It didn’t help.
My mind took over, providing a private strip show where Pim shrugged out of her t-shirt and wriggled out of her shorts.
I groaned, digging my fingers into my eyes.
Turn around.
Touch her.
Kiss her.
I locked my knees and ripped my shirt off, giving my hands something to do.
She didn’t move for a moment, but then the softest sounds of her t-shirt and shorts cascading to the floor echoed in my ears as loud as Big Ben. Her breath hitched and the damn silver walls reflected a wavy, distorted figure all skin tones and willowy bending down to step into green bikini briefs.
Goddammit, even looking like a Salvador Dali painting, she was still stunning. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as her reflection reached up and wound her hair into a temporary bun at the base of her skull before tying two triangles over her breasts.
Just knowing how beautiful she was naked made denying myself all that much harder.
She was right.
She wasn’t the one with nakedness issues. It was me. And it wasn’t an issue but an obsession. I could turn and stare at her. I could move and touch her. I could undo the tiny bows and turn her naked all over again. I could sit in the middle of this tunnel, pull her onto my lap, and be inside her within seconds.
We could be joined, connected, instead of on opposite ends of this godforsaken chamber.
I wanted her so much it hurt.
But I didn’t move.
I won over the rampant desire and somehow managed to extract my hands from the twisted swimming shorts that I’d brutalised until I lost circulation.
Staying away from her was getting harder every day.
A few moments ticked past before Pim asked quietly, “Everything okay?”
I nodded curtly. “Fine.”
Her voice broke the spell, and I quickly unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans then shoved them down with my boxers in one go. I was barefoot and kicked the offending material away as if it burned.
The most erotic moan met my ears.
Did Pim find me as attractive as I found her? Did she stare at my naked ass and not deplore my male flesh but actually want me as much as I wanted her?
My throat went dry as my cock—now free and no longer restrained in denim—stood to full mast.
The exhibitionist part of myself wanted to turn to face her. To show her the state she put me in. But if I did that—if she looked at me with the same heat from our kiss, if she came toward me and, heaven forbid, grabbed my length and squeezed…
Fuuuck, I almost came just thinking about it.
Trembling, I stepped into the board shorts. I struggled to shove my over-eager erection into the bathers and fasten the Velcro. There would be no hiding my reaction, but it served her right.
She knew the way I thought about her. She understood how much I wanted her. She’d tried to make this easier on me, yet it had made it that much fucking harder.
Kicking my discarded clothes into one of the small partitions, I muttered, “Come on. I need to get out of here.”
She padded closer, looking far too gorgeous and bruised in the strappy green bikini. Acres of delectable flesh painted in a multitude of colours from the asshole who’d caught her stealing. The globes of her breasts sat above ribs darkened by a boot, the swell of her ass creamy apart from a fading mark.
I wanted to commit murder as well as worship her for never complaining, never being less than invincible.
My fists curled as I did my best to curb my temper. No one would hurt her again.
No one.
Drinking in her beauty rather than her injuries, I cursed that everything I wanted to see was kept secret by emerald Lycra and tightly knotted bows.
Her cheeks pinked as I struggled to tug my gaze away.
Her voice turned breathy. “I agree. I’m suddenly feeling rather claustrophobic.”
She was feeling claustrophobic? Try being in my skin when all I wanted to do was attack her. Having her in such a small room—utterly soundproof, completely people proof—made my instincts to climb inside her go berserk.
Spinning the dial on the opposite door, I focused on the sounds of multiple locks slipping from their casings to break the seal and grant us entry into the most surreal place imaginable.
“Oh, my God, Elder.” Pim bowled past me.
I let her, moving aside and closing the door after me.
This room was nothing but extravagance.
Canaletto walnut and polished rosewoods added depth and warmth to eggshell walls. A sprawling couch with a palate of cushions ranging from earth to magenta begged to be lounged upon. A white bar glittered beneath spotlights holding bottles of expensive liquor.
An elevator rested next to the door we’d come through—non-operational but available for when I stopped being so paranoid about infiltrators or flooding. It wasn’t fair for such an incredible space to have access only through the storage area.