was wrong, she knew, but she couldn’t stop.
Turning to face the spray, she closed her eyes and let the water pour over her head, let it curl her into a private cocoon of unreality. She centered on that feeling, on the electric need that had bitten deep at his touch, and her blood began to sizzle. She ran slick hands down her belly, her thighs, and back up until she cupped the weight of her breasts, pushing them into the water, offering them up as a sacrifice to the god of sensation. Pleasure centered in her nipples, bright sparks that zinged from breasts to clit, forcing a gasp from Harley’s lips. She wished a quick, mindless fix would do, but Damien was too potent, too raw. He made her hunger in a way no other man ever had. Her brain and body refused the easy out. They wanted to savor, to relish, behind her closed eyelids if not in the flesh.
With a frustrated shake of her head, she turned the water off and stepped from the shower, grabbed a towel with trembling hands, and dried fast, choking at the rasp of terry cloth against distended nipples. Unbidden, an image of Damien’s lips filled her mind, so full, so sensuous. Those lips promised pleasure, and somehow she didn’t think they lied. She imagined those lips tucking around the sensitive tip of her breast, those big hands of Damien’s cupping its weight, then the suction she knew instinctively would be destructive to any woman’s senses. A moan escaped. This was dangerous. It would just make the emptiness worse, but she couldn’t resist the phantom sensations of lips and teeth, pinching and tugging, sending a lightning storm of pleasure to the pit of her stomach and beyond.
Dropping the wet towel on her way, she walked into the bedroom. At the nightstand she opened the drawer and pulled out her vibrator. Only a heavy orgasm would push her into oblivion, not some light fingering release. She needed Damien. She needed to stop this hunger before it took a firm hold on her. The two desires warred in her head and in her body, driving her to desperation. Zings of sensation rolled through her, and she looked down, only to realize her fingers were gripping the taut tip of one breast, her breath panting with every squeeze of her nipple. She couldn’t wait.
Not even bothering to lie down, she crawled onto the bed on hands and knees, positioned the thick vibrator at her core, and thrust in hard.
“Unnhh.”
A twinge of pain added spice to the pleasure as she fucked herself. Her cheek met the soft slickness of the comforter, her back bowed, and as she pistoned the toy in and out, the pad of her hand struck her clit. Harley imagined it was Damien, imagined his cock inside her, his thumb on that most sensitive spot, his teeth digging into the engorged tip of her breast instead of her own fingers and nails. Rasping breaths and wet, sloppy smacks filled the air, mingling with Harley’s desperate cries. She needed. She wanted. She hungered.
“Not for him,” she whispered, her body seizing in prelude as the vibrator’s soft tip struck her cervix. “Not for him. No!”
The final word was a quiet wail as climax hit. Muscles locked, teeth clenched in refusal to utter another sound, she rode the wave, and if tears prickled behind her eyes, she told herself it was the intensity of the orgasm, not the fact that she was alone, no Damien to soothe her, when the rush faded away.
She lay for a moment, facedown on the bed, eyes closed, waiting for the world to return to normal. When her muscles firmed enough to stand, she returned to the bathroom and switched the vibrator for the baby monitor, which she plugged in on the nightstand next to the small, unlit Christmas tree. Naked, she collapsed into bed. The room’s silence wrapped her in its smothering arms, tighter and tighter, threatening to choke her very soul. She more plummeted into sleep than eased, and as she fell, her last thought centered on Damien, and she wondered if he too was alone in the darkness.
* * * *
The