FEEL

25. Soufrise

Soufrise ~ the maddening thrill of an ambiguous flirtation.

~ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~

~°~

I had Cameron Pierce thoroughly misjudged. I had utterly misread all of his rejections as disinterest when it was all just reservations. It was fear of the sort, of consequences or of damaging his reputation. Perhaps it was why what he said differed completely from what he did, as if he was operating on opposite meaning. In his defense, though, I didn't do much in making sure he knew that I meant what I say most of the time.

Said man eyes the device on my lap, the sound of me laughing while Breanna sprays whipped cream on my chest emanating across the room, thanks to the excellent speakers of his laptop.

“Why did want me delete it,” I ask him, “If you weren't going to?”

“I was...” he stopped to consider something. “That isn't any of your business.”

“It is if the video is of me.”

He rakes a hand through his hair and releases a huff. “Could you turn it off?”

“Why?”

“Turn it off, Aquila.”

I look at the screen. The video is halfway done playing. I smile up at him sinisterly. “Were you just watching it?”

“Okay, that's enough.” In three long strides, he's right in front of me. I shuffle towards the other side of the bed, but he grabs my ankle and slides me back to his side.

I fall on my back on the mattress and hold the laptop above my head as far away from his reach as possible. Then, I try to wriggle my leg out of his hold. His grip is vice. It reminds me of the time I was a child and I had stuck my foot between two narrow metal bars and I couldn't get out. When my uncle finally pulled me out, I was red and purple around the ankle.

“You're hurting me,” I cry. He wasn't, but saying that makes him loosen his grip enough for me to pull my ankle out and try to make a run for it. Dirty tactics, but due only to desperate times.

The moment I'm free, I crawl to the other side of the bed as fast as I could with one hand clutching the laptop to my chest. Goddamn, this bed is huge. I'm never going to make it to the other side. Sure enough, two hands brace on my waist and I'm flipped over onto my back so fast I feel a whoosh in my stomach that elicits a bubbly laughter out from the depths of my belly.

“You're a child,” he mumbles while grabbing the laptop and closing it, stopping the sounds. When he throws it on the pillows, I make to grab it again. He pins my hips down and that placement somehow manages to immobilize the entirety of my body.

It occurs to me right then that he's shirtless, settled between my legs with his hands on my hips. The position feels somewhat intimate, and I might argue with myself that it's just me, but his eyes meet mine and they darken by ten more shades, letting me know that I'm not under the wrong impression.

If you had told me that the rest of the world kept moving at that very moment, I wouldn't believe you. It felt like time froze along with us. I couldn't grasp another world beyond that room, beyond him and me, and us. Suddenly, I became hyperaware of how close he was, how his eyes gulped down every inch of me with insatiable greed, how hot his skin was even if I wasn't touching it. I became aware of how badly I did want to touch it.

Without thought, my hand reaches between us and I do what my fingers have been craving since the moment I walked in. I touch his skin, barely, in a way that I thought he wouldn't feel it.