Prologue
RAFAEL
The flat is quiet for once.
Noah’s out with the lads, Jack’s at some society thing he won’t shut up about later, and the other three have scattered god knows where. It’s just me in my room with an uncomfortable hard-on.
Well, it’s time to contact the person who loves to take care of that.
Me: Hey, you up?
The reply comes fast.
Wren: always for you :) is everything okay?
I stare at the screen for a second, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard.
Me: no, not really. I can’t stop thinking about you
Wren: yeah? What kind of thinking?
Me: the kind that’s making me hard af
I picture her at the other end, possibly smiling at my text as this has been our type of conversation for weeks now.
Wren: we should take care of that together, don’t you think?
My pulse kicks up stupidly fast.
Me: call me
The phone vibrates in my hand and her name comes up.
“Hey,” she says, her voice low and a little rough.
“Hey. I missed your voice.” I drop back against the pillows. The room is dark except for the streetlight cutting through the blinds in one thin stripe. I close my eyes. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“I think I know exactly what I’m doing to you,” she breathes.
The second her sinful voice slithers into my ear, wet and needy, my cock jerks so hard it nearly punches through my zipper.Wren. My goddamn trousers strangle my erection like they’ve got a personal vendetta.
“Kai,” she whispers, and I swear to fucking Christ, I can taste that sweet, sticky heat between her thighs on my tongue.
I don’t even bother hiding the way my fist wraps around my shaft, giving it a brutal stroke before shoving my free hand down the front of my trousers to palm my swollen balls. Fuck, they’re heavy already, aching like I’ve been edged for hours.
“Tell me what you’re doing,” I growl, my voice so rough I barely recognise it.
She lets out a whimper, a sound so soft, so obscene, it makes my dick throb against my palm. “I’m… touching myself,” she admits, her breath hitching. I know this means her fingers are sliding through her slick little cunt. “Thinking about… you.”
I groan, twisting my wrist tight around the head of my cock, smearing pre-cum down the shaft like fucking lube. “How wet are you?”
“So wet,” she whines, and I can hear the filthy squelching sounds of her fingers plunging in and out of her pussy. “I’m dripping for you… fuck, Kai, I wish it was your cock.”
“You wanna ride me?” I snarl, imagining her tight body straddling me, those perky tits bouncing as she fucks herself on my dick. “You wanna feel how hard I am for you?”
“Y-yes,” she gasps. “Oh God, yes.”
I spit into my palm and jack myself faster, imagining her clit swollen under my thumb while her cunt grips me like a vice. My abs tighten, my hips bucking into my fist like I’m already balls-deep inside her.
“Are you going to come for me?” I demand. “Going to scream my name when you do?”
She moans, the sound so loud and desperate, and I know that she’s close. “Fuck—Kai, I’m gonna—”
“Do it,” I order, my own release burning at the base of my spine. “Come on my cock, baby. Let me hear you.”
She shatters with a broken cry, her voice cracking like glass and I lose it. My dick erupts, hot ropes of cum painting my stomach as her name tears from my throat.
Fuck.
Just hearing her panting on the other end, knowing she’s spread out and shaking, has me throbbing all over again.
The line goes quiet, leaving only the ragged sound of our breathing. I lie there, swiping a palm over my damp forehead, looking at the ceiling above me, and I feel more human than I have in weeks. Even months, maybe. My heart is still beating hard against my ribs. When I lift the phone, the glow of the screen trembles in my unsteady hand. A stupid, helpless smile stretches my face.
“Hey.” I wait. “I know we’ve been over this. But I’m serious this time. I would like to meet you. For real.”
Awkward silence.
It feels like a live wire, humming between us, stretching taut until I feel it pull somewhere deep behind my chest, a physical ache blooming under my sternum.
“Wren?”
“I heard you,” she says, her voice stripped of the easy confidence she’d had earlier. I can hear her shallow breathing, like she’s holding something back. “I just—I need time. Okay? Please don’t push.”
“I’m not pushing.” I sit up, the sheets rustling, and I prop myself against the headboard. “I just don’t get it. I’m not—” I bite down on the rest, but it’s too late. My mouth is already moving, fuelled by the late hour and that stubborn, vain part of me that can’t stand not being wanted. “It’s not like I’d be a disappointment to look at.”
The words are wrong, ugly and entitled, exactly the kind of thing that would make Noah give me the one look that says I’ve missed the point entirely.
“I’m sure you’re probably really handsome,” she says, sounding tired. “That isn’t—it was never the problem, Kai. I just need more time. Can that thing we have right now be enough?
“Yeah.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean… just forget I said it.”
“It’s fine.”
But it’s not. I can hear that it’s not fine.
“I should go,” she continues. “It’s late and I have to be up at seven in the morning.”
“Wren, wait.”
“Goodnight, Kai.”
She hangs up. The call timer is frozen at 1:04:52 before the screen goes black. The radiator ticks. Somewhere outside, a car alarm chirps twice before the owner silences it. I lower my hand slowly and look at the room. My eyes fall on the forgotten glass of water that I placed on the windowsill a week ago.
I let the phone drop onto the mattress beside me and reach across to the other pillow. I press it down over my face with both hands and scream into it, quiet enough that it comes out more like a groan.
There’s a woman in this city, maybe closer than I think, who knows exactly what I sound like when I fall apart.
And the worst thing of all is, that we don’t even know each other’s real names.
