the one they couldn’t have.
There was no one left, no one left at all, just this and even this wasn’t enough.
“You okay, June?” Blake asked, and she looked up into his strange blue eyes. Jamie had funny eyes, too—but in a different way. They were a deeper blue and had maintained a sharp, sparking life all the way through them.
Whereas Blake’s…
“I’m okay, Blake,” she said only it came out fuzzy and funny and like a question she hadn’t asked. There it hung behind the words, unspoken— but are you? She didn’t know if he was, not at all, then to the right of her still naked and unable-to-stop-squirming body, Jamie said—
“You should put the oil on her, you know?”
The word pretext became something giant and flashing and bathed in neon. But there was another word, too, behind the ones Jamie had asked. Something like permission , she thought. The word was permission.
Though really all she could think was— oil? What in God’s name had her brain come up with, now? Oil! Jesus. If he coated her in black stuff she was going to be very upset.
“Yeah?” Blake said. He sounded weirdly hopeful. She didn’t even want to consider what that said about her subconscious.
“Yeah. She needs it, to get the infection off her skin.”
She thought of Blake saying about the gel, the hospital gel they’d rubbed all over her. Ahhhh. So now it made sense. Her subconscious wasn’t just flying solo into crazy land! It had rubbed two sticks of reality together to make a fire of total stupid.
“You’re right,” Blake said. “But are you sure you want me to do it?”
She hated her subconscious right at that moment.
“Yeah. Yeah. You do it.”
What a nice person Jamie was. Really generous. Not a mean bone in his body. Though she had no idea why that notion of him went through her, right at that moment. Or why said conception felt so warm and right—even more warm and right than Blake’s hands suddenly on her naked body, all covered in slippery oil.
He looked nervous, which probably wasn’t right. She wasn’t sure if Blake ever looked nervous, back in reality. But then back in reality he hadn’t laid two oily hands on her bare breasts, so maybe it all evened out.
She wondered why he’d started there. But then realized how stupid that was. Of course, he started at her breasts. If she’d had the opportunity to touch his spread out and very naked body anywhere she chose, she’d have started with the most obviously male thing. The thing that stood out—that was standing out right now, in one jutting ridge against the material of his trousers.
As it was, she couldn’t take her eyes off it. Her mind told her body what the ropes around her wrists would feel like and she twisted her flesh hard against the fibers. Just to ground herself. Just to get everything straight inside her aching, shivering body.
She tried to remember the last time she’d touched someone’s cock. It wasn’t even two years—it was longer, far longer than that. And she hadn’t exactly explored it in great and varied detail at the time, she knew that much.
Though she wished she had right at that moment, with Blake half-kneeling on the bed beside her, and that strong shape looking so promising and intimidating, all at the same time. She struggled to get closer, to show him that she was cool with all of this and he didn’t have to make up some stupid thing about oil, but he was wily. He kept just out of reach—even as he slid those slippery hands over…oh. Oh.
It was excruciating. Like being massaged by a gorgeous eunuch. He didn’t even pretend to do it like a medical professional, either. His eyes were heavy with what could only be termed all-consuming lust, and when she couldn’t help squirming or sighing, he did the things that made her squirm and sigh again.
Like rubbing his palms right over her nipples. Yeah, oh yeah. That turned her inside out, all right. Real nerves swapped with dream ones and in her sleep she
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