Page 92 of Beautifully Messy
We’ve plunged headlong, ignoring rules and expectations. We’ve blurred every boundary—family, commitment, loyalty, the lives we’re bound to—until there’s nothing clean left. We’re both committed to others, tied, in theory, to separate futures.
And yet, here we are. On the precipice again.
“Do you still believe this is too much?” he asks, breaking the silence.
I don’t want to run anymore. Tonight, I don’t want to pretend. I want to fall.
“I dream of you.” The confession tears from me. “I dream of your hands. Your fingers. Your mouth.” My breath fractures on each word. “So much. It’s embarrassing.”
The admission hangs in the air, impossible to take back. His eyes darken to the deepest green—like the farthest corners of a forest, where you know danger awaits, but you keep going anyway.
“Do you touch yourself when you think of me?” His voice is rough, pained.
“Yes.”
“Do you imagine it’s me when your husband fucks you?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No mercy for either of us.
His head falls back on a sound that’s half groan, half prayer, exposing the vulnerable column of his throat. Time stretches thin as he absorbs what I’ve given him. This terrible, beautiful truth we can’t unknow.
“Will you show me?” he leans in, lips brushing my ear. “Show me how you touch yourself.”
The world narrows to this moment, this chair, this man kneeling before me. I squeeze my knees into his hips, the ache between my legs overriding all sense.
His hands find my ankles, slipping off each heel like unwrapping something precious. His eyes never leave mine, each touch a question I answer with a nod, each movement an appeal I meet with trust. We hold our breath as if a single exhale might wake us from this dream. Slowly, torturously, he draws my tights down, leaving trails of fire over my skin. He presses a kiss to the inside of each ankle, soft as an exhale, before his hands return to my knees.
A low groan punches the air as he takes in the sheer lace at my thighs. All restraint dissolves around us. My core clenches, and my chest vibrates with anticipation. He closes his eyes for one brief second; fingers twitching, aching to move. Instead, he keeps them on my knees, slowly inching them apart. My fingers find the heat between my legs, and I hum with pleasure.
“Are you wet?”
“Soaking.” The word barely makes it past my throat.
When I touch myself, the sensation shoots through me. This rhythm I know by heart, this dance I’ve performed countless times with his name on my lips, his face behind my closed eyes. But now he’s here. Watching. His hands grip my knees, knuckles white, battling the effort of staying still when everything in him wants to reach for me.
Our breathing—mine shallow, his ragged—is the only noise in the room.
I pick up the pace, hips rocking, building toward release. When I shatter, it’s with his name caught between my teeth. Pleasure crashes over me, fast and relentless. James’s grip tightens. A sharp breath drags from him. I bite my bottom lip, willing myself to stay quiet until the trembling stops. My head falls back. Jaw goes slack.
He catches my hand, brings it to his mouth, and tastes the pleasure coating each finger. His tongue traces their outlines with something approaching worship before he presses my palm to his chest, over the wild drumbeat of his heart.
“God, I’ve fucking missed you.” He rests his forehead against mine.
“Me too.” I exhale, and because my mind is fried, I ask without thinking, “Do you… think of me when you’re… with her?”
“No.” His face is serious, and my heart stops. “Because I haven’t touched her in a year.”
“You… what? Why?”
His fingers brush back a lock of hair. “You were always there. Forefront of my mind.”
I close my eyes, overwhelmed by all of it. This confession. What just transpired. Jules’s words from our call: he’s heartbroken, going through the motions, only with her to not lose connection to me. It all circles and prods the walls that have been crumbling all night.
“It’s been torture only hearing scraps from my mom.”
“She’s still arriving tomorrow?” I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat.
