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I keep typing, barely noticing autocorrect throwing angry red lines beneath half the words, then send the message before I can erase it.

Emma: I wnat yur mouth o n me.

I drop the phone facedown onto the pillow and squeeze my thighs together until stars burst behind my closed eyes.

I try to breathe my way through it, hoping the ache will ease, but it keeps building instead, and when my phone vibrates I reach for it almost before I realize I’m moving.

Bane: I want to see you come apart. Show me where you want me most.

My breath leaves in a rush that almost becomes a moan. I lift the phone with fingers made clumsy by anticipation, switch to the camera, flip it to the front facing lens, and study myself in the blue wash from the screen.

My hair has escaped in every direction, my cheeks burn, and my lips look fuller from biting them.

Without giving myself time to hesitate, I angle the phone down and frame the shot just above my cleavage so he sees the soft dip between my breasts and the pale sweep of skin against the navy blanket.

I send it without a caption, and a new message appears almost at once.

Bane: Don’t stop.

I hook my fingers beneath the blanket and push it down, shivering as coolness skims across my skin and goosebumps race over my arms.

My hand catches the neckline of my sleep shirt, an old college tee that has never tried to be sexy, and I gather the fabric until my chest is bare for him, for myself, for the camera bright enough to catch every detail.

I take another picture, more explicit than the last, my nipples drawn tight from the cold or excitement or both, aching so fiercely that I can’t remember how I ever manage to ignore discomfort.

My hand slips between my thighs and presses there without moving. I keep my eyes half closed, my phone raised and the camera waiting as I hold myself exactly like this instead of taking the next photo.

I want him imagining it. I want him filling in the space before I ever show him.

My phone vibrates. Then again.

Bane: You’re beautiful when you’re desperate.

Bane: Tell me how you want me to touch you.

My body clenches at the second message before I even realize I’ve read it. The answer surges through me all at once.

I want it hard. I want it careful. I want it like he means every touch, like wanting me this badly matters more than dignity ever could.

My fingers slide beneath the waistband of my leggings, working through tangled fabric until they find my own heat. I thumb out a reply that barely resembles coherent typing because I hardly notice autocorrect anymore.

I’m chasing the next shiver, pushing myself farther, wondering whether I’ll really be bold enough to send it.

Emma: I want your tongue, first. Slow, just enough to drive me insane. Then your fingers. I want you to make me come before you fuck me.

The words appear inside their neat blue bubbles, a perfect transcript of my own unraveling. I wait for shame to catch up with me, yet it never arrives.

Instead, I feel untamed, burning from the inside out, like an animal pacing the edge of a floodlight, fully aware of what she wants and hoping someone’s watching.

Bane: I could make you scream with just two fingers.

Bane: I want to tie your hands so you can only beg.

Bane: Would you like that?

The third text steals the breath from my lungs. “Fuck,” I mumble into the empty room as I wet my lips and press my thighs together, rocking against my own palm until the ache grows almost unbearable.

Emma: Yes, fuck yes