Jamie

Chapter Seven

Jamie

Jamie didn’t sleep.

Not really.

He tossed. Turned. Kicked off the blanket when he overheated, then yanked it back up when the AC kicked on and goosebumps raced across his arms. He stared at the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles above him, willing the repetitive motion to hypnotize the want out of his bones, to dull the sharp edge of memory that kept slicing through every attempt at calm.

It didn’t work.

Because all he could see—all he could still feel—was Julian’s hand against his throat.

That whisper of a touch. Fingertips barely grazing skin, so light it might have been accidental. Except nothing about Julian was accidental. The pressure had been deliberate, measured, gone in less than two seconds—and yet it had burned itself into Jamie’s nervous system like a brand.

He rolled onto his stomach, face buried in the pillow, body tight with unresolved tension. His skin still buzzed where Julian had touched him. His mouth still remembered the way Julian used to kiss—rough, focused, like he was trying to memorize every ridge and curve of Jamie’s lips, like he was cataloging the exact taste of surrender.

Jamie had spent the last three days pretending he didn’t remember every second of that night in excruciating detail. Pretending the memories weren’t looping behind his eyes during every meeting, every coffee run, every time Julian walked past his desk without looking at him.

But now—alone in the dark, body restless and aching—the pretense cracked wide open.

Julian’s mouth on his neck. The scrape of teeth just shy of breaking skin. Fingers gripping Jamie’s hips hard enough to leave faint bruises he’d traced with reverent fingertips the next morning. The low, broken sound Julian had made when Jamie gasped against him—like it physically hurt to be that close and still hold back.

Jamie’s hand drifted low under the blanket almost without conscious thought.

He shouldn’t.

He really, really shouldn’t.

But he was already hard—achingly so—already halfway there just from the memory of Julian’s voice dropping to that dangerous, quiet register when he said, “I remember everything.”

Jamie slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. His breath caught at the first contact—hot, sensitive skin against his palm. He stroked once. Slow. Testing.

His hips shifted involuntarily. Eyes squeezed shut.

It was wrong.

He knew it was wrong—touching himself to thoughts of his boss, to the almost-kiss that had left him shaking in the hallway, to the look in Julian’s eyes when he’d stepped back like the contact had scorched him.

But his body didn’t care about right or wrong.

His brain was full of Julian—his voice, his restraint, the way his thumb had pressed just firmly enough against Jamie’s pulse to feel it racing.

Jamie worked his hand faster, breathing hard through his nose, muscles tightening in waves. The memory of Julian pinning his wrists above his head flashed through him—unbidden, vivid, devastating. The weight of Julian’s body pressing him into the mattress. The heat of his mouth against Jamie’s collarbone. The possessive grip on his thighs that had made Jamie feel claimed, wanted, ruined.

He whimpered—soft, helpless—into the pillow.

His free hand gripped the sheets so tightly his knuckles ached. Toes curled against the mattress. Heat coiled low and tight in his belly, building sharp and relentless.

He could feel it cresting—hot, shameful, inevitable.

And then he came with a choked gasp, biting down hard on the edge of his fist to muffle the sound, chest heaving as release rolled through him in long, shuddering waves.

Silence fell.

Shaky. Thick. Heavy with aftershocks.

Jamie lay there, blinking up at the ceiling, breath slowing in ragged, uneven pulls. Sweat cooled on his skin. His heart still hammered too fast.

He felt—

Exhausted.

Guilty.

Still stupidly turned on, like his body hadn’t gotten the memo that it was over.

And empty in a way that had nothing to do with orgasm and everything to do with the fact that he wanted Julian to touch him again. For real. With no stepping back this time. No excuses. No walls. Just Julian’s hands on him, Julian’s mouth, Julian’s voice saying his name like it was something sacred.

He reached for his phone on the nightstand, screen lighting up his face in cold blue.

Stared at it for a long moment.

Then, against every shred of better judgment he had left, he opened his messages with Avery and typed:

**Jamie:**

> He touched me last night. Just my throat. For like a second.

> And I haven’t stopped shaking since.

The three dots appeared almost immediately.

**Avery 🐍🐍🐍:**

> That’s worse than a kiss.

> That’s biblical.

> You’re f**ked.

Jamie dropped the phone onto the mattress and buried his face in the pillow again.

He didn’t reply.

He didn’t need to.

Because she was right.

He was fucked.

Completely, irrevocably, spectacularly fucked.

And the worst part—the part that kept him staring at the spinning ceiling fan long after his breathing had evened out—was that he didn’t want to be unfucked.

He wanted more.

He wanted Julian to stop stepping back.

He wanted Julian to step forward.

To close the distance.

To touch him again—not for a second, but for hours. Days. As long as it took to burn this ache out of both of them.

Jamie closed his eyes.

The fan kept spinning.

His heart kept racing.

And somewhere in the quiet dark of his apartment, five miles and a world away from Julian’s bed, he whispered into the pillow:

“Please.”

He didn’t know who he was asking.

He just knew he couldn’t keep pretending the want wasn’t eating him alive.