We Fall Like Ashes | Wildfire Series

Thirty-One: Roommates Who Date

"Yeah." I leaned down to give her a slow, lingering kiss before breaking away to repeat, "What happens?" When she was speechless, I prompted her. "For example, when I think about that night, I usually end up with my hand wrapped around my cock until I come thinking about being inside you."

Collins' breathing was shallow against my lips, but she didn't say anything.

"Your turn," I muttered before leaning back.

If I had any possibility of getting it out of her, it was right now. Right at this moment. And sure, I could just forget it, but I had been practically surviving off this fantasy for a year now. Or rather, surviving off this hope—a hope that Collins had spent the last twelve months pinning after me like I had with her. Did that make me a desperate fucker? Absolutely it did. Did I care? Absolutely I did not.

She bit down on her lip, thinking, and the little action drove me to my wit's end.

"Sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, I imagine your voice," she admitted.

Oh, God. This was going to destroy me somehow, wasn't it? Collins had said before that she struggled to sleep at night, and my voice was what she turned to? God help me. Now she was either going to say something adorable, and my poor heart would burst into pieces, or something hot as hell, and it would be my dick that would pay. I asked for it, though, so I cleared my throat and lowered my voice.

"What am I saying?"

Collins twisted her arms around my neck, leaning into me. "Dirty things. Things you've said to me before."

I swallowed a groan as heat rushed through my body. "Does it turn you on?" She nodded, and I inched closer. "Tell me you touch yourself, then."

"I touch myself," she whispered, a shininess to her eyes that made me wish that I was the artist. What I wouldn't do to capture this version of Collins, this one right here on an empty midnight street. This girl who was so at ease in the moonlight that her secrets were visible in her eyes.

Baby girl was stripped down, and I planned to keep it that way.

"Have you done it when I've been home?" I asked, failing to stop myself from imagining the image of Collins in her bed at our apartment, her hand between her legs, her eyes closed in pleasure. And all while thinking of me. Of me, goddamnit. It was more than I could handle, and my throat grew dry. "Have you touched yourself while lying across the hall from me?"

This time when Collins responded, her voice was even quieter. Her words even more forbidden. "I have."

Yep. Never going to recover from that. Not in a million years. Something bubbled up inside me, something that sizzled and crackled and set everything aflame.

"No more," I said, grabbing her chin so she wouldn't look away, so she understood how fucking serious I was about this. "No more lying across the hallway at night. If you need help falling asleep, I'll help you fall asleep. I'll even whisper dirty things in your ear while you touch yourself if you want. But I want to be there."

Collins whimpered and opened her mouth, but the screech of tires cut her off. Our ride—right. This was good. This was definitely good because it meant we were one step closer to making it home.

"After you," I said, holding open the car door for her.

Collins slid in, settling on the opposite side of the car, behind the driver seat. And after noticing how tense she seemed to get after buckling herself in, I scooted over to sit in the middle, wanting to be close to her.

When I drove her home from Grayson's house earlier this fall, she had acted the same way after getting into the car—withdrawn and hesitant. And that memory was what made it click in my seemingly empty brain that she was in a car accident that changed her life, and she probably didn't fucking like cars.