Читать книгу Collide - Меган Харт - Страница 9

Hallucinations weren’t new. When I was a little girl, in the first few years after the accident, I’d had a hard time differentiating between the fugue world and the real world. I could tell when I was dreaming, but not when I was having a fugue.

It didn’t help that no matter what doctors my parents took me to, none of them could figure it out, either. The brain is still a vastly underexplored landscape. I wasn’t having seizures, though in the worst fugues I did sometimes lose motor control along with consciousness. And I didn’t have pain, except for the rare few times when I fell during one of the blackouts and hurt myself.

As I got older, I learned to tell when a fugue was coming on. I never learned to notice inside of one if I was hallucinating or not, though I did learn to tell what had been hallucination once I came out of it. And I always came out of it, even if I didn’t always hallucinate. Sometimes I just stayed blank, unblinking, unmoving, for a few seconds while the world passed around me and whoever I was talking to thought my mind had wandered.

Actually, that was how I felt about it. That my mind wandered, while my body stayed behind. I’d learned to catch up quickly in conversations with people who didn’t know me well enough to realize I’d gone blank for a few minutes. I’d adapted.

Most of the time, the hallucinations were boldly colored, often loud. Often a continuation of what I’d been doing as the fugue hit, just slightly off. I could spend what felt like hours inside the fugue and come out of it within a minute, or spend a much longer time dark and have no more than a few seconds’ worth in the dream state.

I’d never, until this early morning, had such a vivid, intense hallucination of such a sexual nature.

I was taking a little time to recover. Wallowing in my bed on a Sunday wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the fact I’d grabbed my laptop and brought it under the covers with me was. Normally I kept my bed a sanctuary, a place for sleep, not work, and though I loved my laptop like it was the conjoined twin I carried in a basket after our cruel separation, I preferred using it at my desk or on the couch. Now, though, I used the track pad to scroll through another list of search results. Johnny Dellasandro, of course. I had the fever. Bad. He had a current website for his gallery. The only mention of his acting past were the three words, “independent film star” in his bio along with a rather extensive listing of his more recent professional accomplishments. There were store hours, a list of upcoming events. A photo of Johnny, smiling into the camera and looking for all the world like he wanted to fuck whoever was on the other side of the lens … thud. Be still my little horny heart.

There were other pictures of him, too, most of the handshake variety. Johnny with the mayor, with a local radio DJ, with a president of some museum. And then, a little more surprisingly, of Johnny with celebrities. Row after row of clickable thumbnails enlarged into shots of him next to some of the biggest movie stars of the sixties and seventies. Rock stars. Poets, novelists. A bunch of familiar faces next to his. In most of them, they were both looking at the camera, but there were a few more candid shots, and in those, whoever he was with invariably looked at him like they wanted to eat him. Or be fucked by him. I couldn’t blame them.

Maybe he wasn’t so ashamed of his dingle-dallying past, after all. More searching turned up a half dozen interviews done on blogs that didn’t appear to have very many readers. Not that I was surprised. Any monkey with a computer can make a blog, and even though Johnny might’ve achieved a certain level of notoriety, it was still within a fairly small realm. He didn’t sound like he regretted anything he’d ever done, at least not in the interviews he’d done in the past few years, and while those had focused more on his current work, inevitably a few questions would slip in about his early movie-making days.

“I don’t regret any of it,” Johnny told me from a video clip taken at some awards show I’d never heard of.

The film was shaky, the sound bad, and the people walking past in the background looked a little scary. Whoever was filming also asked the questions, their voice androgynous and too loud in the microphone. Johnny didn’t seem terribly interested in being interviewed, though he did answer a few more questions.

I settled back onto my pillows, laptop on my knees. Wikipedia did indeed have an entry on him, complete with links to dozens of articles in magazine and newspaper archives. Reviews of the films and entire websites devoted to discussing them. Links to places his art had hung, or was hanging. There was literally a day’s worth of research collected in this one webpage alone. If anyone Googled me—and I did myself a few times a month just to see what was out there—the only thing they’d find would be a list of accomplishments belonging to some other woman with my name. The question was not why there was so much information available about him, but how I’d lived for more than thirty years without being aware he existed.

I shut down the computer and set it aside, then lay back on the pillows to think about this. I was deep in crush, the worst I’d had since sixth grade when I discovered boys for the first time. Worse than the secret love affair I’d had with John Cusack inside my head since the first time I saw Say Anything. My feelings for Johnny were a combination of both—he was someone I’d seen in movies, therefore, not “real,” yet he lived down the street. He drank coffee and wore striped scarves. He was accessible.

“Snap out of it, Emm,” I scolded myself, and thought about getting out of my warm bed and shivering my way to the shower. I couldn’t quite make myself.

I didn’t want to think about the three fugues I’d had the day before, but thinking of the hallucination I’d had featuring Johnny in all his bare-assed glory, I had to think about the fugues, too. Two minis and one slightly larger. None had lasted long, but it was the frequency that worried me.

I was thirty-one years old and had never lived on my own before these past few months. I’d never worked farther away from a job than I could walk, because I was either not legally allowed, or was too afraid, to drive long distances. I’d spent my life dealing with the repercussions of those few, fleeting moments on the playground, but now I’d finally had a taste of the independence all my friends had been granted.

I was terrified of losing it.

I knew I should call my family doctor, Dr. Gordon, and tell her what had happened. She’d known me since childhood. I’d trusted her with everything—my questions about my first period, my first forays into birth control. But I couldn’t trust her with this. She’d be obligated to report the possibility of a seizure, and what then? I’d be back to no-driving status, and I couldn’t have that. I just couldn’t.

I did, however, call my mom. Even though I’d only spoken to her the day before, and even though I’d been so happy to move out of her house, to stop needing her so much, she was still the first person I turned to. The phone rang and rang at my parents’ house, until finally the voice mail kicked in. I didn’t leave a message. My mom would panic if I did, and she’d probably just check the caller ID, anyway, note I called and call me back. I wondered where she was, though, before noon on a Sunday. She’d barely ever left the house on Sundays. I liked to sleep in. My mom liked to bake and garden and watch old movies on TV while my dad puttered in the garage.

I’d spent so many hours dreaming of days like this—waking in my own bed, my own house. Nobody around me. Just me, with no place to go and nobody to answer to. Nothing to do but my own laundry, using my own detergent, folding it or leaving it piled in the basket if that’s what I wanted to do. I’d dreamed of being an adult, living by myself, and now that I had it, I was suddenly, unbearably lonely.

The Morningstar Mocha would help with that. There I was part of a community. I had friends. I hadn’t made specific plans to meet Jen there, but I knew a quick text message would tell me if she were going to show or not. And if she didn’t, I could take my laptop and settle in with the bottomless cup of coffee or a pot of tea and a muffin. I could play around on Connex, or instant message friends who were also online.

Oh. And I could sorta-kinda-maybe-just-a-little-bit stalk Johnny Dellasandro.

A quick text to Jen settled the plans. We’d meet in half an hour, just enough time for me to shower and dress and walk to the coffee shop, including the time it was going to take me to shave my legs, pluck my brows and figure out what I was going to wear. Because yes, it was important.

“Hey, girl, hey!” Jen’s greeting made me laugh as she waved across the crowded Mocha. “I saved you a spot. What took you so long? Couldn’t find a place to park?”

“Oh, no, I walked.” My teeth were still chattering. January in Harrisburg isn’t quite the Arctic Circle, but it was cold enough to freeze a polar bear’s balls.

“What? Why? Oh, yeah. Snowplow?”

“I love that I can follow that conversation.” As if parking wasn’t enough of a hassle on my street, when the snowplow came through and covered the cars and people dug them out, leaving behind their empty spots, it could get ugly when someone took one. That wasn’t why I’d walked, though. I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the back of my chair as I tried to casually scan the room for sight of the delicious, delectable Dellasandro. “But no. I just felt like walking.”

“I’ve heard of taking a cold shower, but that’s a little overboard.”

I blew into my hands to warm them and slipped into my chair. “I need to work off some of this ass if I’m going to keep eating muffins for breakfast.”

“Girl.” Jen sighed. “I hear you.”

We commiserated in silence for a moment about the collective size of our butts, though frankly I thought Jen had a supercute figure and had nothing to worry about, and I knew she thought the same of me.

“Love the top,” she said after the moment had passed. Then she laughed and lowered her voice. “I bet he’d like it, too.”

“Who?”

“Don’t you even pretend you don’t know who I mean!”

I looked down at the shirt, a simple sweater of soft knit that buttoned all the way to a pretty scoop neck. “I like the way it makes my collarbones look. And it’s not all cleavagy, like I’m trying too hard.”

“No, not at all,” Jen agreed. “And that color is awesome on you.”

I beamed. “I love your earrings.”

Jen fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Are we finished being gay for each other? Because if not, I was going to say I think your necklace is pretty.”

“This?” I’d forgotten what, exactly, I was wearing on my throat. I wasn’t usually the sort to switch out jewelry. My job at the credit union meant I had to dress nicely for work every day, with a strict dress code, and I’d gotten tired of trying to coordinate every day. As I tugged the pendant so I could see it, the chain broke and slithered into my fingers. “Oops!”

“Oh, shit.” Jen grabbed at the pendant, catching it before it could fall onto the table. She handed it to me.

“Damn.” I studied it. Nothing special, really, just a small, swirled design. I’d picked it up on the bargain table at my favorite thrift store. I cupped it now, the metal curiously warm in my palm. “Ah, well.”

“Can you get it fixed?”

“Not worth it. I don’t even think it’s real gold.”

“Too bad,” Jen said brightly. “Otherwise, you could take it to one of those places that buys gold for cash! I got invited to some home party thing my mom’s neighbor’s having. It says they’ll take gold fillings … teeth attached!”

“Gross!” I put the necklace into my coat pocket.

Jen laughed and seemed about to say something else, but her chuckle caught and broke. She looked over my shoulder, eyes wide. I knew better than to turn around.

I didn’t have to. I knew it was him. I could feel him. I could smell him.

Oranges.

He eased past us. The hem of his long black coat brushed my arm, and I turned into a fifteen-year-old girl. The only reason I didn’t giggle out loud was because my throat had gone so dry I couldn’t make a peep. Jen didn’t say a word, either, just stared at me with raised brows until Johnny’d passed.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, leaning close. “You look like you’re going to pass out. You’re all pale!”

I didn’t feel like I was going to. I didn’t feel pale. I felt redhot and blushing. I swallowed the cotton on my tongue and shook my head, not daring to look over her shoulder to watch him place his order at the counter. “No. I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Jen put her hand over mine to squeeze. “Really, Emm, you look …”

Just then, he turned around and looked at me. I mean, really looked. Not a quick glance, eyes sliding past me like I didn’t exist. Not a double take, either, like the sight of me had frightened him. Johnny Dellasandro looked at me, and I was already half out of my chair before I realized I couldn’t just get up and go to him.

Jen glanced over her shoulder, but he’d already turned back to the counter to take the plate with the muffin on it from the counter girl. He wasn’t looking at me any longer, and I didn’t know how to tell her he had been. If he had been—it was easy in those few seconds to convince myself I’d imagined it.

“Emm?”

“He is so fucking beautiful.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded hoarse and harsh and full of longing.

“Yeah.” Jen’s brow furrowed and she glanced at him again.

He’d moved to a table toward the back and looked up at the sound of the bell over the door. Jen and I both looked, too. A woman about my age, maybe a year or two older, moved directly toward the back of the room without stopping even at the counter. From my place at the table it was easy to see her slide into the chair across from Johnny and to watch her lean forward so he could kiss her in greeting. My stomach dropped all the way down to the toes of the boots I’d spent twenty minutes agonizing over.

“Well, fuck,” I said miserably.

Jen looked back at me. “I don’t recognize her.”

“No. Me, neither.”

“She’s not a regular,” Jen continued, affronted. “Jesus, at least he could go with a regular!”

I didn’t feel like laughing but I couldn’t help it—her logic was so very flawed. “Why don’t you go over there and challenge her to a dance-off or something.”

Jen shook her head and looked at me seriously. “I don’t think so.”

I opened my mouth to protest that I was kidding, but the way Jen looked again back at Johnny and the woman, then at me, stopped me. She wasn’t smiling. I felt studied. A different kind of heat crept up my throat and cheeks, somehow guilty this time.

“No,” she added. “I don’t think so.”

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. “It’s my mom.”

“Go ahead and take it. I’m going to grab some coffee and a piece of cake or something. You want a muffin and a bottomless cup, right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” I dug in my purse for a ten-dollar bill she waved away, and I couldn’t argue with her because I was already thumbing my phone’s screen to take the call. “Mom. Hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong—why do you always think something’s wrong?” I should’ve felt more annoyed by her question, but the truth was, it was good to hear the concern in my mom’s voice. It was good to be so loved.

“You called me before noon on a Sunday morning, that’s why I think something’s wrong, Emmaline. You can’t lie to your mother.”

“Oh, Mom.” Sometimes she sounded so much older than she was. More like a grandma than a mother, and yet I knew from photos and stories that she’d been a true child of the sixties. More so even than my dad, who wasn’t above getting a little tipsy at Christmastime and who’d confessed to me once that he thought pot should be legal. “So. Tell me?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I assured her. My eye caught Johnny again, but he wasn’t looking this way. He was in intense conversation with that woman, both of them leaning in toward each other in a way that could only mean intimacy. I tore my gaze from them and focused on my call. “I just thought I’d see what you’re up to.”

“Oh.” My mom sounded nonplussed. “Well, your dad and I went out to breakfast at the Old Country Buffet.”

“You … went to breakfast?”

At the counter, Jen was only a few feet away from Johnny, but she didn’t even look like she was trying to take a peek, much less not-so-casually overhear their conversation. It was still going full-force, based on his expression and the set of his companion’s shoulders. I couldn’t see her face, but her body language told me everything I needed to know.

“Sure. Why, aren’t we allowed?” My mom sounded a little strange, a little shorter in her response than I was used to.

“Of course you are. Mom, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m supposed to be asking you that,” she said.

And there it was, the subject that would never go away. It wasn’t fair to call it an elephant in the room. You were supposed to be able to ignore those.

For one long instant I thought about telling her. Not the bits about the sex on the train and being some sort of 1970s Italian movie queen. I was sure my mom didn’t want to hear about that. But the small blank moments, the scent of oranges. I didn’t, though. Not only because I didn’t want to worry her, but because I didn’t want to prove her right.

“I’m fine, Mom. Really.” My throat closed on the lie, and my eyes smarted. I was glad we had the distance of satellites between us. I’d never have been able to get away with it face-to-face.

“Where are you? I hear a lot of noise.” “Oh. The coffee shop.”

My mom laughed. “Again? You’re going to turn into a cup of coffee soon.”

“Better that than a pumpkin,” I told her as Jen wove her way back to our table balancing two plates and two empty mugs. “People who love coffee say they can’t live without it. Pumpkins just get made into pie.”

“Oh, you crazy girl,” my mom said fondly. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Sure, Mom. Bye.” We disconnected just as Jen sat down, pushing my plate and mug toward me.

“Your mom must be pretty cool,” she said.

“She can be. Oh, God. Chocolate fudge chip with fudge icing? This isn’t a muffin. This is a new pair of jeans in a bigger size.”

Jen licked a fingertip. “It’s what he likes.” I didn’t have to ask her who “he” was. I wondered if I’d ever have to ask again. “Yeah?”

She grinned. “Some stalker you are.”

Our conversation turned from the tantalizing topic of Johnny Dellasandro, maybe because he was actually there and could’ve overheard us, or because he was with a woman, therefore making any fantasies about him sort of lame and pointless. Or maybe because we had other things to talk about, me and Jen, like our favorite television shows and books, about the cute guy who delivered pizzas in our neighborhood. About all the things good friends talk about over sweets and caffeine.

“I should get going,” I said with a sigh when I’d polished off that sinful muffin and finished my third mug of coffee. I patted my stomach. “I’m going to burst, plus I have laundry to do and some bills to pay.”

“Nice quiet Sunday afternoon.” Jen sighed happily. “The best kind. See you in the morning?”

“Oh, probably. I’m sure I’ll swing by here for a coffee to go. I know I should make my own at home, but … I can’t ever get the brew to taste right. And it seems like a waste to make a whole pot when I can only have one cup.”

Jen grinned and winked. “And the eye candy here is so much nicer.”

There was that, too.

She ducked out before I did, and not because I was lingering overlong trying to get a look at Johnny. I did take one last glance over my shoulder at him as I pushed the door and made the bell jingle. I was hoping he’d look up, but he was still locked deep in conversation with that woman, whoever she was.

It wasn’t until much later that night—bills paid and laundry washed, dried, sorted, folded and put away—that I thought to look for the necklace in my pocket. I searched them all, even the ones of my jeans, though I knew I hadn’t put it in there. No necklace. Somewhere, somehow, I’d lost it.

Like I’d said to Jen, it was no big deal. It wasn’t a piece I’d had any sentimental ties to, and I was sure it hadn’t been expensive. Still, the fact I’d lost it disturbed me. I’d lost things before. Put them down when I was having a fugue and didn’t remember it. I’d found things that way, too. Once, I’d walked out of a store clutching a fistful of lip balms I must’ve grabbed up from a bin. I’d been too embarrassed to tell my mom I stole them. Every once in a while I found one in a pocket of a coat or a purse. They’d lasted me for years.

I hadn’t lost the necklace in a fugue, I was almost certain of that. I’d walked home from the Mocha with the wind so cold in my nostrils it had frozen my nose hairs, making it possible but not likely I’d missed any scent of oranges. On the other hand, it was possible I’d had a fugue without that warning sign. Lots of people with seizure disorders never had any warning, or memory, of what had happened.

This thought sobered me faster than a high school kid pulled over by the sheriff on prom night.

Blinking fast to keep the tears suddenly burning my eyes from slipping out, I took a long, slow breath. Then another. By the time I’d focused on the third, in and out, I felt a little calmer. Not much, but enough to slow the frantic pounding of my heart and quell the surging boil in my guts.

I’d discovered alternative medicine a few years ago when traditional techniques could no longer diagnose whatever it was the fall had done to my brain. I was tired of being stuck with needles and taking medicine that often had side effects so much worse than the benefits they provided, it wasn’t worth taking them. Acupuncture couldn’t diagnose my problem any better than Western medicine could, but I found I’d rather use it than fill my body with potentially toxic chemicals day after day. Guided imagery and meditation didn’t get rid of my anxieties altogether, but the practice of them definitely kept me in a better mood. And since I’d discovered through lots of trial and error that I was more likely to experience a bad fugue when I was overtired, overstimulated, overstressed or overanything, I’d incorporated meditation into my daily routine as a preventative measure.

I thought it worked. It seemed to, anyway. I’d been fugue-free for the past two years, anyway, until just lately. And even these three had been so minor, so inconsequential …

“Ah, shit,” I said aloud, my voice harsh and strained.

My reflection in my bedroom mirror showed pale cheeks, shadowed eyes, lips gone thin from the effort of holding back a sob. The fugues had never been painful, yet having them hurt more than anything in my life.

I blew out another breath, concentrating while I changed quickly into a pair of soft pajama bottoms and a worn T-shirt with a picture of Bert and Ernie on it. I’d bought it at Sesame Place when I was in junior high and had only rediscovered it while packing to move here. It fit a little tighter than it had back then, but it was comfortable in more than the size. It was a piece of home.

Changed, I settled onto my bed with my legs crossed. I didn’t have a fancy mat or any sort of altar, and I didn’t light incense. Meditation wasn’t so much spiritual as it was physical for me. I’d studied a lot about biofeedback over the years, and while I doubted I’d ever be able to consciously control my heart rate or brain wave patterns the way some accomplished yogis did, I believed meditation did help. I could feel it.

I rested my hands on my knees, palms up, thumb to fingertips. I closed my eyes. I didn’t chant the traditional Om Mani Padme Om or even any of the other traditional phrases. I’d found something that worked better for me.

“Sausage and gravy on a biscuit, yum. Sausage and gravy on a biscuit, yummmmm.”

I let the words flow out of me on each exhalation. With each inhalation, I tried to stop myself from testing the air for the scent of oranges. It took me a lot longer than it usually did to put myself into a state of calm. At last my muscles relaxed. My heartbeat slowed to its normal rate.

I let myself fall back onto the pillows. All brand-new. The comforter was, too, as was the mattress and the bed. My new bed, one I’d never shared. I uncrossed my legs, stretching without opening my eyes. Cradled in the softness of the bed, loose and relaxed, it seemed natural for my hands to drift over my belly and thighs. My breasts.

I thought of Johnny. I’d memorized every detail of his face from seeing him at the Mocha, and every detail of the rest of him from the movies Jen and I had watched and the photos online. He had dimples at the base of his back and one dimple on his left cheek, just at the corner of his mouth. I’d like to lick those dimples.

My breath soughed out of me as my fingers slid across the skin of my belly, bare from where my shirt had pulled up. I didn’t usually need visual aids to bring myself pleasure. Porn was all right, I had no problem with it, but it all seemed sort of random and senseless to me. Even supposedly woman-oriented porn didn’t make much sense to me. I got more turned on reading sensually explicit novels or even listening to music than I ever did watching dirty movies or looking at pictures.

Now, though, I fixed on the image of Johnny’s face. His golden brows, arched over those yummy green-brown eyes. That mouth, a little thin but easily quirked into a smile. At least, in his movies, that was. I hadn’t yet seen him as much as quirk the corner of his lips in real life.

“Johnny,” I whispered, thinking I should be ashamed or embarrassed to be saying his name aloud to myself this way but not feeling anything but warmth.

Even his name was sexy. A boy’s name, a nickname, not a name for a grown man who was, I realized, probably my dad’s age. I groaned and clapped a hand over my eyes.

It didn’t stop me from thinking about him. He might be the same age as my parents, but I had no trouble imagining him as a lover. I’d never had a fetish for older dudes—if anything, I freely admitted to a certain amount of ogling of younger men on a daily basis. My office overlooked the campus of a local college, and my coworkers and I often enjoyed our lunches while watching the boys on their way to class. But Johnny’s age didn’t matter. Intellectually, I knew he was “too old” for me. My head knew it.

My body was another matter.

My hand stroked down my belly to cup between my legs, the heel of my palm pressing my clit. I sighed. I used a finger to idly stroke myself through the soft material of my pajamas, then slid my hand inside the elastic waistband. This was my pleasure, solo.

It was Johnny I thought of, obviously. Scenes from his movies knitted with still shots and the sound of his voice. I wondered how it would sound if he said my name. Would he groan it the way he did on film, fucking the actress with whom he’d had a child? Would he whisper it against my skin, his tongue working its way down my body to center on my clit the way my fingertip circled just now?

I wanted to undress him. Strip away the long black coat, the scarf. Use it to cover his eyes while he laughed and, patiently, allowed me to unfix the buttons of his shirt from their holes and slide his arms from the sleeves. To unzip and unbutton his pants and slide them down those long, muscled thighs. I wanted to kneel in front of him and nuzzle at the softness of his pubic hair, golden and darker than the hair on his head. I wanted to take that nice, thick cock in my mouth and suck until he got so hard I couldn’t fit him all the way in.

My hand was moving faster. My cunt wet. I slipped a finger down to get it slick, then up again, while my other hand cupped a breast and pinched at my nipple. I thought of Johnny while I made love to myself. His eyes, nose, ears, mouth. His delicious nipples. I wanted to lick and bite them. I wanted to hear him say my name, and beg me to fuck him.

“Yes,” I murmured.

My back arched, hips pushing upward against the sweet pressure of my hand. I wasn’t easing toward climax, more like hurtling toward it. I hadn’t done this in a long time. Since before the last time I’d had sex, as a matter of fact, and that had been about three months ago. I didn’t want to think about that now. I wanted to think about Johnny.

“Emm,” he said in my ear, and I didn’t startle. My eyes didn’t open. I breathed in the scent of oranges and gave myself over to his touch.

My hands found the spindles of my headboard and I grabbed them. The wood creaked at the strength of my grip. It was slick under my palms, my fingers slid, but I held tight. The bed dipped beneath his weight.

He kissed me.

Openmouthed, slow and sweet and hot, just the way I’d imagined it. Johnny tasted like nothing and everything I’d ever loved or wanted. I breathed him in, sucking gently on his tongue. Our teeth bumped, sending sparks of sensation through me, and a giggle. My eyes fluttered, but he gave a warning noise.

“Don’t,” Johnny said, and I kept my eyes shut tight.

When wet heat centered over my clit, I let out a noise of my own. Low and urgent. I said his name. He laughed against me, and it was just the way I’d imagined it. His lips pressed me through the thin material of my pajama bottoms. He worked my clit with his lips, and the barrier of cotton only enhanced the pleasure.

I wanted to feel him on me. Skin on skin. I wanted him inside me, balls deep. I wanted him fucking me while I drew gouges in his back with my nails and urged him on.

None of that happened. Johnny used his mouth and fingers to stroke me toward orgasm, and that turned out to be pretty fucking good enough. Pleasure filled me. Overflowing. Electric. I jerked with it and let go of the headboard so my fingers could find that thick, beautiful hair and burrow into it.

I came from Johnny’s mouth and hands, and with his voice murmuring encouragement, but when my hand reached down I found nothing but my own body. Orgasm arced through me. My eyes opened. I cried out, wordless and yearning, and my voice slid into a moan.

I swallowed the taste of him.

I was alone.