AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” he says. “I’m just not used to, uh.”
He doesn’t finish the thought right away, and I study him as he thinks. His hands flex where they rest on top of his thighs, as if he’s physically trying to conjure the words.
“You don’t have to explain,” I say. “I get it.” Because I do. Neither Carter nor I is used to being anything other than cool and composed. We’ve always been so alike.
But that blush on his cheeks? I put it there. Me.
That feeling, as well as the whiskey, keeps me warm for the rest of the day, and well into the night.
12
CARTER
Angela might have insomnia,but she looks like an angel in her sleep. It’s just past 10:00 p.m. now, but because we started drinking in the middle of the day she’s already passed out on the futon, her hair spread around her head on the pillow, her mouth slightly open.
I can’t help myself—I just stand there in the dim light of the cabin and stare at her.
Her top lip has the most perfect, delicate cupid’s bow, and her bottom lip is full in contrast, making her mouth look like a rose bud about to open up. A smattering of freckle graces her nose and cheeks, one slightly darker than the others, positioned right above her mouth. Her long, brown lashes are fanned against her skin.
I’ve been haunted by her face for years, and I memorized her beauty years ago.
I’m a man obsessed.
I wasn’t lying to her when I said that I’d been cataloging her. But it’s more than that. I’ve been cataloging her in desperation. In my obsession, I’ve had a tendency to latch on to the smallest new thing about her and turn it over in my mind until I have it memorized.
She wore a white shirt to O’Malley’s months ago, and I happened to be there at the same time. For weeks after my brain replayed her walking to the bar to pay on a constant repetitive loop. The swing of her hips. Her heeled boots clacking on the floor. Her hair swept back into a bun.
Was she coming from work? Did she tie her hair back because she had to or because she liked it that way? What would it feel like if I ran my hands through it? Would it be as soft as I remembered? Would she slap my hands away like she used to, telling me not to mess up her curls?
I haven’t been on a date in a year. I went on my last one the week before she moved back to Harborview.
I haven’t been with a woman in a while longer than that.
There’s no point—no one compares to her. And I know it wouldn’t be fair to any other woman, to subject them to my obsession over someone else.
Angela in a white shirt ordering takeout was enough to fuel my fantasies for weeks. Being in this cabin with her for the past two days has been the sweetest torture.I feel like a man stranded in the desert finding a rainstorm. She makes me want to tip my head back and drink her all in.
And when she licked my neck earlier?
I almost didn’t survive it.
I stare at her for a moment longer, and then I get settled down on the floor in my makeshift bed. As I lay there, my mind replays her touching me earlier. The cool feel of the drop of whiskey sliding down my neck. Her hands pressing into my thighs—gripping them. Her tongue, pink and wet, darting out and caressing my skin.
I had to ball my hands up into fists just to keep from touching her, from pulling her in even closer. But I know Angela—she’ll only get scared if I go too fast.
Which is fine. More than fine. Anything Angela wants, I’ll do. Whatever it takes.
But I still should have jerked off in the woods earlier when I had the chance. Because the images flashing through my head—her tongue, her white teeth, her hands, her hair, her hips, her eyes—have my cock thickening and hardening in my pants.
My brain continues to torture me with visions of her, until I finally drift off to sleep, hours later.
I wakeup cranky and tired, with a dry mouth from all the whiskey we had yesterday. We drank almost the entire bottle, and definitely forgot to drink any water. By the time we went to bed we were both pretty plastered.
I pull myself into a seated position, and see that Angela is already awake, stretching her arms above her head and yawning.
“Did you sleep okay?” I ask, worried that her insomnia kept her up.
“Not really. I woke up a lot,” she says. “And I had really weird, drunk dreams.”
