CHAPTER 8 — Bad Timing

Irene lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling.

There were only so many people she could complain to about being sexually frustrated, and Mr. Mustard was in the other room doing absolutely nothing to earn that level of personal information.

She turned onto her side. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.

Yup, still awake.

She had a very busy day, so her body should have been exhausted. And it was. Unfortunately, exhaustion and sleep were not always friends.

Sometimes Irene got home so tired she could barely take off her shoes, then lay awake for an hour with her brain going through every unpaid bill, every shift she had the next day, and every conversation she wished she had handled differently.

And sometimes there were nights like this when she was restless in a completely different way.

She pushed the blanket down.

“No.”

She rolled over.

Five minutes passed. Then another three.

Irene sighed and reached for the drawer beside her bed.  It was stuck a little, and she had to wiggle it. Even the thing lived in a drawer that fought back.

Her vibrator had been one of the more reliable things in her adult life. That sounded depressing if she thought about it too long, so she generally did not.

She did not have a boyfriend. She had not had a serious one in years.

There had been dates here and there, a couple of men she had slept with, and one particularly bad six-week situation she refused to call a relationship because the man had once asked if she could lend him money for parking after sex.

Mostly, though, Irene worked. She worked mornings. She worked nights. She worked weekends.

Romance required time, energy, and apparently the willingness to answer messages after ten p.m. She rarely had all three.

That did not mean she stopped wanting things.

She was twenty-three, not dead.

There were still nights when the apartment felt too quiet. Nights when being touched sounded nice, even if she had no interest in dealing with the person attached to the hand afterward.

So she had adapted.

Usually, it was simple. No feelings were involved, and no complications.

Irene settled back against her pillow and closed her eyes. But her mind immediately gave her the stranger in the elevator.

Irene opened her eyes. “No.”

She closed them again. But there he was wit his dark hair and golden-brown eyes. That tattooed arm locking around her waist when the elevator dropped.

She remembered how warm he had been. Not just warm. Hot.

His chest under her palm. The way his hand had tightened once before he let go.

Irene pressed her lips together. “No. I can’t be thinking about you. ”

She tried to replace him with someone else. Anyone else and for a few seconds it worked.

Then she remembered the way he had looked down at her mouth.

Irene muttered something into the pillow.

Her toy hummed quietly beneath the blanket.

She shifted.

“No. He was rude, and I wont reward bad behavior by having you in my thoughts.”

She took deep breaths, knees falling open. Her free hand drifted down, almost absently, and pressed the button on the side of the toy.

It wasn’t anything fancy. Matte black, a little heavier than it looked, the kind of thing that had sat in an online cart for three weeks while she argued with herself about whether twenty-nine dollars was an acceptable life expense.

Then she pressed the toy between her legs and the first contact made her breath hitch. .

She thought of the stranger’s face again. The annoyance in it. The way he seemed genuinely angry at whatever was happening between them.

She adjusted the angle until the broad head sat flush against her clit and the rest of the length pressed lower, where she was starting to get wet.

Then forced herself to think about something else.

 Ares appeared.

“Oh, that’s better.”

It was not better, but at least she knew his name and he was possibly about to become her legal husband.

And now, thanks to a stupid video she should never have watched twice, she knew what he looked like without sunglasses.

Those eyes came back to her. They were so pale they looked almost cold. Then she though about his mouth and his voice.

Irene’s sleep shirt—an old soft thing that had once belonged to a guy she dated for six weeks and never got around to returning—rode up over her stomach. She left it.

Then she remembered Celeste saying no physical intimacy was required. Now her brain had taken unless you choose otherwise and decided to start exploring possibilities nobody had asked for.

Irene pulled the pillow over her face.

The vibrator kept doing its job. Her free hand slid under the hem of her shirt and found her breast. She squeezed, rough enough to feel it, thumb dragging across the nipple until it tightened.

Then the stranger came back. His hand at her waist. Ares replaced him with those light eyes.

“Fine.”

Irene finally gave up trying to control which one her mind chose. Neither imaginary man seemed particularly bothered by that.

The whole thing became less about either face and more about the fact that she was worked up enough to stop caring.

“Ah…” she moaned, keeping the toy steady and let her hips roll once.

Her breathing got uneven. She bit her lip. Then immediately stopped because she lived alone and there was no reason to pretend she was quiet.

She was a talker. Not because she was trying to be sexy. Words just came out when she was close.

“Oh, come on.” She turned the vibration up another notch.

The deeper buzz made her thighs twitch. She pressed harder, grinding in small, circles, chasing the exact spot that always made her stomach pull tight.

“Oh….god…”

She shifted her hips higher, planted one foot against the mattress, and worked the toy in tighter circles. Every pass dragged another thin pulse of pleasure through her. She pinched one hard nipple, and the sharp little bite of it made her hips jerk.

Then she began to breathe heavily, “There.”

Her toes curled and she gripped the blanket. This was the kind of climb that made her thighs start to shake long before she was ready to tip over.

Sweat started to prick at the small of her back. The cool air from the window felt good against her flushed throat. She could feel the toy working under her palm, the way her body kept clenching around nothing.

“Shit…Ah…” she was almost there but she didn’t speed up.

She never did when it got this close. Rushing only made it scatter. So she held steady, jaw tight, and let the pressure keep stacking until it started to edge.

“I’m coming…” she cried and the tension finally broke, hard enough that her back arched off the bed. A broken, helpless sound followed and tore out of her.

She kept the toy locked in place and rode it, “Don’t stop…shit…not yet…” she moaned, hips stuttering, thighs trembling, every pulse dragging another sharp cry out of her throat.

Pleasure kept coming—long, rolling, almost mean in how thoroughly it wrung her out.

Then she turned the vibrator off and placed it on the nightstand.

For a while, Irene just lay there breathing. Her body felt pleasantly heavy now, but her mind, unfortunately, had regained consciousness.

“Oh, shit,” she sighed and covered her face. She had just gotten herself off thinking about two men she barely knew.

She could live with the tattoed stranger in the elevator. Not literally, but she meant the fantasy. He was attractive, irritating, and physically close to her once. Fine.

But Ares, she had not even met him, and she had watched a video, but that was apparently enough for her imagination to start behaving like she had been personally invited into his bedroom.

Irene groaned and turned onto her side. Her legs felt useless. The sheets under her were damp.

“Get a grip.”

The tight knot in her chest eased, and finally, she felt herself starting to drift.

Then every hair on the back of her neck stood up. 

Her eyes snapped open because something moved.  She couldn't explain why she was so sure. She just was.

She stayed still then she sat up slowly.

Her bedroom window was closed.

Irene frowned. She looked at it for several seconds, then got out of bed.

She remembered opening it earlier. Only a few inches because the apartment had been warm.

Now it was shut completely. Latched.

Irene looked behind her.

The bedroom door was closed.

She checked the hall, the bathroom, kitchen. The front door was locked.

Mr. Mustard floated in his tank, unconcerned.

Irene went back to the bedroom and stood beside the window.

Maybe she had closed it herself and forgotten. That was possible. She was tired. She had a lot on her mind.

Still, as Irene got back into bed, the good feeling from a few minutes earlier had disappeared.

She pulled the blanket up and looked at the window again.

This time, she was almost certain she had left it open.