The Door That Didn't Close
The bathroom door didn't close all the way.
It was an old house â old hinges, old frame, the kind of settling that meant doors needed a firm push to latch properly. Juliett had pulled it shut behind her without checking, already unwinding the towel from her hair, already thinking about the hot water and the steam and the quiet of having the house to herself for the afternoon. The door swung to, rested against the frame, and sat there â not open, not closed, cracked by maybe an inch and a half along the edge.
The shower ran hot. She adjusted the temperature by feel, stepping under the spray before it was fully warm, gasping as the water hit her shoulders and ran down her back. Steam rose quickly in the small bathroom, fogging the mirror above the sink, softening the edges of everything. She tipped her head back and let the water soak through her hair, the dark strands going heavy and slick against her neck and shoulders.
She arched her back under the spray, stretching, the hot water pounding against the curve of her spine and running down over her ass and the backs of her thighs. Her skin flushed pink from the heat. She ran her hands up over her stomach, across her ribs, over her breasts â not washing, not really, just touching, just feeling the water cascade over her body under the guise of rinsing. Her fingers traced the soft underside of each breast, the weight of them heavy in her palms for a moment before she let her hands drift upward again, over her collarbones, up into her hair.
She shifted her weight, rolling her hips slightly under the spray, her body moving in a slow, unconscious rhythm. Water ran in streams between her breasts, down the flat plane of her stomach, along the crease of her thighs. Her nipples were tight from the heat and the friction of her own hands, dark and prominent against her flushed skin.
She turned under the spray, letting the water hit her chest directly, her head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. The water ran over her shoulders and down the front of her body, pooling in the hollow of her throat before spilling over the swell of her breasts. She lifted one hand to push her hair back from her face, the motion lifting her chest, pulling her breasts up and forward, the water streaming off her nipples in thin rivulets.
She was completely unaware of the gap in the door.
Nick came up the stairs two at a time, phone in hand, half-watching a video, half-thinking about dinner. He turned toward his room and passed the bathroom, and his feet stopped moving before his brain caught up.
The door was cracked. Not wide open â not an invitation, not obvious â but cracked, a sliver of light and steam visible through the gap. He should have kept walking. He knew he should have kept walking. His feet were already planted on the hallway floor, his weight shifted forward, his momentum carrying him past, and then the steam shifted and he saw her.
Juliett. Under the spray. Arched back, water cascading over her body, her skin wet and pink and glistening. Her breasts were full and heavy, tipped with tight, dark nipples that the water ran over in continuous streams. Her hands were in her hair, arms raised, pulling her chest upward, and the line of her body â the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the smooth roundness of her ass visible in profile as she stood at an angle to the door â hit him like a fist to the sternum.
It was immediate and involuntary, a pulse of blood that went straight from his brain to his groin, bypassing every rational thought he had. He was hard before he fully understood what he was looking at. His shorts tightened, the fabric pulling against the length of him as he swelled, and he felt the heat of arousal flood through his chest and face in a wave that made his ears ring.
He gripped the doorframe.
His knuckles went white against the wood, his fingers digging into the painted trim, and he stood there â frozen, caught, unable to move forward and unable to step back. His mouth went dry. His heart hammered against his ribs. He could hear the shower running, could hear the spray hitting the tile, could hear the wet sounds of her hands moving through her hair. He could see her shifting under the water, her body turning slightly, exposing more of herself â the full curve of one breast, the slope of her stomach, the dark patch of hair between her legs barely visible through the steam.
She rolled her hips again. A slow, unconscious motion, her body swaying under the hot water, and Nick's cock strained against his shorts, fully hard now, the shaft pressing against the fabric in a thick ridge that he couldn't adjust, couldn't hide, couldn't do anything about. His hand gripped the doorframe harder. His jaw clenched until his teeth ached.
The motion was casual â just shifting position, reaching for something, a bottle of body wash on the shelf â but it brought her fully into view from the gap in the door. She faced the doorway, eyes closed, water running down her face and over her chest and stomach, her body fully exposed. Her breasts were right there â round and heavy, the nipples dark and tight, water streaming over and between them. Her stomach was flat and wet, her hips wide, the dark hair between her legs slicked flat by the water. She had no idea he was watching.
Nick's breath came shallow and fast through his nose. His face burned. His ears were hot and red, the blush crawling down his neck and across his collarbones. He could feel his pulse in his cock, could feel every heartbeat pushing him harder against the fabric of his shorts, could feel the wet spot forming at the tip where pre-cum had already started to leak.
He should leave. He should turn around, walk to his room, close the door, and put this entire moment out of his mind. He should not be standing in the hallway watching his stepsister shower through a gap in the door. He should not be hard. He should not be imagining what it would feel like to step into the bathroom, to pull the door shut behind him, to put his hands on her wet hips and press his mouth against her neck.
She reached for the body wash and squeezed some into her palm, then began running her hands over her body â slow, thorough, the kind of washing that was more about feeling clean than actually getting clean. Her hands slid over her shoulders, down her arms, across her chest. She cupped her breasts in her soapy hands, lifting them, squeezing gently, her fingers sliding over her nipples in a way that made Nick's breath catch. She moved lower â hands over her stomach, across her hips, down the outside of her thighs, then back up the inside, her legs parting slightly to let her hand pass between them.
Nick made a sound. A small, involuntary sound â a swallow, a breath, something that caught in his throat â and he immediately froze, his whole body going rigid, his eyes locked on her face for any sign she'd heard.
She didn't react. The shower was too loud, the water too close to her ears. She kept washing, kept running her hands over her body, kept moving under the spray in that slow, unconscious way that was driving him insane.
He watched her rinse. Watched the soap slide off her skin in white streams, watched the water run clear over her breasts and stomach and thighs, watched her tilt her head back and let the spray hit her face and chest. She was beautiful. That was the simplest, most obvious truth of it â she was beautiful, and she was naked, and she was right there, and he couldn't look away.
Then she turned off the water.
The sudden silence was deafening. Nick's heart hammered in his ears. He could hear her breathing â soft, steady, the sound of someone stepping out of a shower, reaching for a towel. He should go. Now. Right now. Before she opened the door and found him standing there with his cock straining against his shorts and his face the color of a tomato.
He didn't move fast enough.
The bathroom door opened â not all the way, just enough for Juliett to step out â and she was standing there in a towel, her hair in a loose wet twist on top of her head, the towel wrapped around her chest and tucked over itself. It barely covered her. The fabric was thin and damp, clinging to every curve, her nipples visible through the terry cloth as faint dark circles. The towel ended high on her thighs, the lower curve of her ass barely hidden by the hem. Water dripped from her legs onto the floor.
Their eyes met. For one long, suspended moment, neither of them moved. Juliett stood in the bathroom doorway, wet and barely covered, her skin flushed pink from the shower, her towel clinging to her breasts. Nick stood in the hallway, gripping the doorframe, his face red, his shorts tented obscenely, his cock visibly hard against the fabric.
Not to his face. Not to his hands on the doorframe. Down â past his chest, past his stomach, directly to the bulge in his shorts. She looked at it. She looked at the thick ridge of his cock pressing against the fabric, the shape of the head visible through the thin cotton, the way his shorts pulled tight across his hips. She looked at it with a slow, deliberate, unhurried gaze that lasted long enough for both of them to know it wasn't accidental.
Then she looked up and smiled.
It wasn't a shocked smile. It wasn't embarrassed. It was knowing â a slight curve of her lips, a tilt of her head, the kind of smile that said I see you without saying anything else. She bit her lower lip. Just for a second. Just a quick, gentle press of her teeth against the soft pink flesh, and then she released it and walked past him.
Her bare feet padded on the hallway floor. The scent of her body wash drifted behind her â something floral, something warm, something that would haunt him for hours. She didn't look back. She didn't cover herself more tightly. She walked to her room with the towel barely holding on, her wet shoulders bare, her hips swaying slightly with each step, and she disappeared through her door.
Nick stood in the hallway. His hands were shaking. His cock was aching, pressed hard against his shorts, the wet spot at the tip spreading. His face was on fire. His ears were burning. He could still see her â the water on her skin, the towel clinging to her breasts, the shape of her nipples through the fabric. He could still see her looking at him. At his cock. At the thing he couldn't hide.
He went to his room. He didn't close the door â his hands were shaking too much to manage the latch, and part of him didn't want to close it. Part of him wanted to stand in his doorway and wait for her to come back. Part of him wanted to pull his cock out and stroke himself until the ache went away, right there, door open, where she could see him if she walked by.
He sat on the edge of his bed instead. His hands gripped his knees, knuckles white, and he stared at the open doorway and tried to breathe.
He heard her coming before he saw her.
The soft sound of bare feet on the hallway floor. The faint rustle of fabric. The lingering scent of body wash preceding her like an announcement.
Nick looked up from his bed â where he'd been sitting for the past five minutes, still hard, still flushed, still gripping his knees like they were the only thing keeping him upright â and saw Juliett appear in his doorway.
She was still in the towel. The same towel, still damp, still wrapped around her chest and tucked over itself. Her hair was down now, loose and wet around her shoulders, dark strands clinging to her neck and collarbones. Her skin was still pink from the shower, still slightly damp in places â the slope of her shoulders, the hollow of her throat, the skin above the towel. The towel was pulled tight across her chest, her breasts compressed beneath the fabric, her nipples still visible as faint shadows through the terry cloth. It was tucked just above the swell of her breasts, exposing the upper curve â the soft, full flesh rising above the edge of the towel, the skin smooth and damp.
She leaned against the doorframe.
"Hey," she said. Casual. Light. Like she was stopping by to ask about the weather. "Did you call about the dishwasher?"
Nick blinked. The dishwasher. The repair appointment. The thing that had been on the fridge calendar for two weeks, the thing that was so mundane, so aggressively normal, that hearing it come out of her mouth while she stood in his doorway half-naked made his brain short-circuit.
"The dishwasher repair guy. He's supposed to come tomorrow morning." She tilted her head, her wet hair shifting over her shoulder. "Did you confirm the appointment?"
He tried to look at her face. He genuinely tried. His eyes went to her eyes first â brown, steady, looking back at him with an expression of mild, patient interest â and then dropped. To her mouth. To her jaw. To her neck, where a drop of water was sliding down the side of her throat and disappearing into the hollow above her collarbone. To her chest. To the towel pulled tight across her breasts, the fabric outlining the full curve of them, the faint shadow of her nipples visible through the damp terry cloth. To the skin above the towel â smooth, flushed, the upper swell of her breasts rising and falling with each breath.
He dragged his eyes back up. "Yeah. Yeah, I called. They're coming at nine."
"Nine. Okay." She nodded slowly. She hadn't moved from the doorframe. She was leaning against it with one shoulder, her weight shifted to one hip, the towel pulling slightly with the posture, the hem riding up an inch higher on her thighs. "Thanks."
Nick's gaze dropped again. He couldn't stop it â a physical compulsion, his eyes pulled downward like gravity, like the sight of her was a current he couldn't swim against. He looked at her cleavage â the soft, deep line where her breasts pressed together above the towel. He looked at the curve of her shoulders, the damp skin, the loose hair. He looked at her legs â bare from the towel down, smooth and still slightly damp, her feet bare on the hardwood floor.
He looked up and found her watching him.
Her eyes were steady. Her expression was calm, almost amused, the faintest curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. She'd seen him looking. She'd watched his eyes travel down her body and back up, and she hadn't moved, hadn't covered herself, hadn't done anything to stop him.
"You're staring," she said. Not accusatory. Not angry. Just an observation, delivered with the same casual tone as the question about the dishwasher.
"I'm notâ" He felt the heat flood his face again. His ears burned. His hands tightened on his knees. "I wasn'tâ"
"You were." She tilted her head the other way, her hair shifting. Her eyes moved â slowly, deliberately, a mirror of what he'd just done â down his body. Past his chest. Past his stomach. To his lap.
He was still hard. He'd been hard since the bathroom, since the shower, since the sight of her under the spray. He'd sat on his bed trying to will it away, trying to think about anything else â the dishwasher, dinner, homework, literally anything â and nothing had worked. His cock was still pressed against his shorts, still thick and obvious, the fabric pulled tight across his lap. He'd crossed his leg earlier â a desperate, futile attempt to hide it â but the position only made it worse, the denim of his jeans pressing against the shaft, the head of his cock outlined against the seam.
She looked at it the way she'd looked at it in the hallway â slow, deliberate, taking her time. Her eyes traced the length of him through the fabric, and Nick watched her bite her lip again. The same gentle press of her teeth against her lower lip, the same soft, suggestive gesture that made his cock twitch visibly in his jeans.
He saw her see it. He saw her eyes catch the movement â the slight jump of his cock against the fabric â and he watched her lips curve into a fuller smile, something private and hungry flickering behind her eyes.
"Anyway," she said, her voice slightly lower, slightly rougher than it had been. "Thanks for calling about the dishwasher."
She pushed off the doorframe.
The motion was casual â just straightening up, turning to leave â but as she shifted, the towel caught on the wood of the frame and pulled. Just for a second. Just enough to tug the fabric down an inch, exposing the upper edge of her areola before she caught it, pressing it back against her chest with one hand. And as she turned, the towel shifted in the back, pulling up slightly, exposing the lower curve of her ass â just the soft, rounded bottom of her cheek, the skin smooth and damp, before the fabric fell back into place.
Nick sat on his bed and watched her disappear down the hallway. Her bare feet padded on the floor. Her wet hair swung between her shoulders. The towel clung to her body, the outline of her hips visible through the fabric, the curve of her ass shifting with each step.
He heard her door open. He heard it close â or try to close, the sound of wood meeting wood without the click of a latch catching. He heard her footsteps cross her room, heard the faint thud of her sitting on her bed.
His door was still open. His heart was pounding. His cock was straining against his jeans, the ache so intense it was almost painful, the head of him leaking through the fabric. He pressed his palm against his lap â not stroking, not touching, just pressing, trying to contain the pressure, trying to keep himself together.
He heard her hair dryer start.
The distant roar of it came through the walls, muffled but recognizable. She was drying her hair. She was sitting in her room, in her towel, drying her hair, like nothing had happened. Like she hadn't just stood in his doorway and looked at his cock and bitten her lip and walked away.
He sat on his bed, hard and aching, and listened to the sound of her hair dryer and tried not to think about the way her nipples had looked through the towel.
Juliett's door didn't click shut.
She'd pulled it closed behind her â or thought she had â but the latch didn't catch. Old house, old doors, the kind that needed a firm push to seat properly in the frame. She'd given it a casual pull without looking back, already focused on the towel twisted around her head, already thinking about the hair dryer, already thinking about other things.
Things she shouldn't have been thinking about.
She crossed her room in bare feet, still damp, leaving faint wet prints on the hardwood. Her room was smaller than Nick's â a bed pushed against the wall, a cluttered desk, a chair with clothes draped over the back, a mirror propped against the dresser because she'd never gotten around to hanging it. The window was cracked open, letting in a thin ribbon of cool evening air that mixed with the warm humidity still clinging to her skin.
She unwrapped the towel from her hair first. The dark wet mass of it fell loose over her shoulders, heavy and cold against the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with temperature. She grabbed the hair dryer from the tangle of cords on her desk and plugged it in, sitting on the edge of her bed with her back to the door.
The other towel â the one wrapped around her body â was still tucked over itself above her breasts. It had loosened during the walk from Nick's room. The corner had slipped slightly, pulling the fold down an inch, exposing more of the slope of her chest. She could feel it shifting, gravity working against the tuck, the fabric sagging under its own weight.
She turned on the hair dryer. The noise filled the room â a low, constant roar that drowned out everything else. She gathered a section of hair and pulled the dryer through it slowly, fingers threading through the wet strands, pulling them straight and smooth.
She was thinking about his face.
Not his eyes â those were dangerous, those were the thing she'd had to look away from in his doorway. She was thinking about his jaw. The way it had clenched when she'd adjusted the towel. The muscle jumping under the skin, tight and hard, like he was physically biting down on something he wanted to say. The way his ears had gone red â not pink, not flushed, but genuinely red, burning at the tips, the kind of blush that started at the collar and crawled upward like a fire.
She'd seen him looking. Not at her face â well, at her face, briefly, but mostly not at her face. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard to keep his eyes in a safe place, and she'd watched him fail in real time, his gaze slipping downward for half a second before snapping back up like a rubber band stretched past its limit. He'd stared at her forehead. Her forehead. Like that was a reasonable place to look when someone was standing in front of him in a towel.
And then she'd looked at his lap.
She shouldn't have. She knew she shouldn't have. But the way he'd crossed his leg â sudden, deliberate, the kind of movement that's supposed to be casual but telegraphs the opposite â had pulled her attention down like a magnet. And the jeans hadn't even come close to hiding it. The thick ridge of him pressed against the denim, running down his thigh, the head of his cock outlined against the seam in a way that made her mouth go dry. He was big. That was the first coherent thought she'd had after looking. Not he's hard â that was obvious, that was the whole point â but he's big. The shape of him through the fabric, the way the denim strained and pulled, the way it had shifted when he breathed.
She'd bitten her lip. She remembered that. She'd bitten her lip and looked back up at his face and watched his ears get redder, and something in her chest had tightened like a fist closing.
The hair dryer roared. She switched sections, pulling another handful of hair straight, the heat pouring over her fingers and scalp.
The towel slipped another inch.
She felt it â the slow, heavy drag of wet terry cloth sliding down her body. The fold loosened, the tuck unraveling, and the fabric sagged off her chest, peeling away from the swell of her breasts. Cool air hit her skin, and her nipples tightened immediately â not from the cold, not entirely, but from the awareness of what was happening. The towel was sliding. Gravity was winning. The corner that held everything together was pulling free, and the fabric was opening like a curtain.
Not a decision, exactly. Not a conscious choice. More like an absence of a decision â she didn't catch it, didn't grab it, didn't press it back against herself. She let it go, and the towel dropped to her waist, bunching in her lap, and her breasts were bare. Full and heavy, still faintly pink from the shower, nipples tight and dark, the skin around them pebbled with goosebumps from the cool air drifting through the window.
She sat there, topless, drying her hair, back to the door.
The door that might not have closed all the way.
She thought about it then â really thought about it â and her stomach flipped. Not with fear. Not with embarrassment. With something else. Something that made her press her thighs together beneath the bunched towel and feel the warm pulse of blood between her legs.
Had she closed it? She'd pulled it shut, but had she pulled it hard enough? Had the latch caught? She'd been distracted â thinking about Nick's face, about his jaw, about the way his hand had gripped his knee like he was holding himself in place â and she'd pulled the door without looking. It could have bounced. It could have not caught. It could be open an inch, two inches, enough for someone in the hallway to see through.
Enough for someone passing by to see her sitting on her bed, topless, hair loose and damp, back arched slightly as she pulled the dryer through her hair.
She didn't turn around to check.
She wanted to. The urge was physical â a pull in her chest, a tightening in her throat, the kind of impulse that makes your hands shake. Turn around. Look at the door. See if it's open. See if anyone's there. See if he's there.
But turning around would mean looking. And looking would mean knowing. And knowing â one way or the other â would break whatever this was. The not-knowing was the point. The possibility was the point. The maybe was what made her skin prickle and her breath come shallow and her thighs press together harder.
She switched off the hair dryer.
The sudden silence was loud. Her room was quiet â no fan, no music, just the distant sound of the house settling and the faint rush of wind through her cracked window. She could hear her own heartbeat. She could hear the creak of the hallway floorboards if someone walked on them.
No footsteps. No creak. No sound of a door opening or closing across the hall. Just silence. Just the house breathing around her.
She set the hair dryer down on the bed beside her and reached for a brush on the nightstand. Her arms lifted, pulling her chest up and forward, her breasts rising with the motion. She pulled the brush through her hair slowly, working through the tangles, her elbows wide, her back straight. The posture was deliberate and she knew it. Shoulders back. Chest forward. The kind of positioning that made her look like a painting â something classical, something with a title like Woman Drying Her Hair that hung in a museum and made people stand in front of it too long.
She brushed her hair and didn't look at the door.
The towel was still bunched in her lap, barely covering her hips, her thighs bare from the crease downward. She was sitting on her bed essentially naked, facing away from a door that might or might not be closed, and the not-knowing was making her dizzy.
Was he there? Was he standing in the hallway, looking through the gap, watching her the way she'd suspected he'd watched her in the shower? Had he seen her walk into his room in the towel and gotten hard â she'd seen the evidence of that, felt the heat of it in her own body â and then come looking for more?
Or was he still sitting on his bed, ears red, jeans tight, staring at his open doorway and trying not to think about her?
She wanted it to be the first one. She wanted him to be standing in the hallway, watching, unable to look away, unable to stop himself. She wanted him to see her like this â bare from the waist up, hair loose, skin still warm and damp, the curve of her spine visible, the dimples above her ass just above the edge of the towel. She wanted him to look at her the way he'd looked at her in his doorway â hungry and guilty and unable to hide it.
She wanted him to want her.
The thought landed in her chest like a stone dropped into water, sending ripples outward through her whole body. She wanted him to want her. Not in the abstract, not in the way step-siblings sometimes acknowledge each other's attractiveness and move on. She wanted him hard and aching and unable to stop thinking about her. She wanted him to lie awake tonight and replay the image of her in the towel, of her stepping out of the shower, of her sitting here right now with her back to the door and her breasts bare.
She wanted him to come to her door.
She didn't want him to knock. She didn't want him to speak. She wanted him to stand there, in the hallway, looking through the gap, and she wanted to feel it â the weight of his gaze on her skin like a physical thing, like sunlight, like hands. She wanted to know he was there without seeing him, to feel his eyes on her shoulders and her back and the curve of her waist, and she wanted to sit here, brushing her hair, pretending she didn't know.
Pretending she didn't want him to come in.
She set the brush down. Her hair was mostly dry now â still slightly damp at the ends, but smooth and loose around her shoulders. She reached up and gathered it to one side, pulling it over her left shoulder, exposing the right side of her neck and back. The movement lifted her chest again, and she held the pose â arm raised, back arched, the towel shifting dangerously low on her hips.
She heard a floorboard creak in the hallway.
Her heart stopped. Her breath caught. Her hands went still in her hair, fingers frozen mid-motion, every nerve in her body suddenly alive and focused on the sound. A creak. A single creak. The kind of sound a person makes when they shift their weight from one foot to the other. The kind of sound someone makes when they've been standing still for too long and their body betrays them.
She sat perfectly still, hair gathered over one shoulder, back to the door, breasts bare, towel barely on, and listened to the silence that followed the creak. The silence that meant someone was standing very still in the hallway, trying not to make another sound.
She let out a slow, careful breath through her nose. Her hands resumed their motion â pulling her hair to one side, smoothing it down, the gesture slow and deliberate and performative in a way she couldn't pretend it wasn't. She was posing. She was showing off. She was sitting on her bed half-naked with her back to a cracked door and arranging herself like a gift she wanted someone to unwrap.
The creak didn't come again.
But the silence did. A heavy, charged silence that pressed against her back like a hand. She could feel him. Not see him, not hear him, but feel him â the weight of his attention, the heat of his gaze, the wanting radiating through the gap in the door like light through a window. He was there. She was almost sure he was there. And the almost was enough to make her thighs clench together and her breath go shallow and her nipples tighten until they ached.
It dropped from her hips to the floor in a soft heap, and she was standing in her room completely naked, back to the door, skin bare from her neck to her ankles. She didn't bend to pick it up. She didn't cover herself. She stood there for a long, suspended moment â back straight, shoulders squared, the line of her body visible from the doorway, the curve of her ass, the dip of her waist, the long length of her legs.
Then she walked to her closet, opened it, and reached inside for a shirt.
She moved slowly. Deliberately. Every step unhurried, every motion smooth, like she was alone in the house and no one could see her. Like she didn't know he was there. Like she wasn't putting on a show through a gap in a door that she'd maybe left open on purpose.
She pulled a shirt from a hanger â an oversized t-shirt, one of Nick's old ones that she'd claimed months ago â and pulled it over her head. It fell to mid-thigh, covering everything, the fabric soft and worn and smelling faintly like his detergent.
The door was open. An inch, maybe two â enough to see the dark shape of the hallway, the strip of light from the overhead fixture, the edge of the opposite wall. She couldn't see anyone. Couldn't see a shadow, a shape, a pair of eyes. The hallway was empty.
Or it had been empty a second ago.
She looked at the gap in the door and felt her pulse hammering in her throat. She'd felt him there. She was sure of it. The creak, the silence, the weight of attention on her back â she hadn't imagined it. He'd been there, watching, and he'd left before she turned around.
She crossed to the door and pushed it shut. This time, she pushed hard enough that the latch caught with a clear, definitive click.
She stood with her back against the closed door, breathing hard, wearing nothing but his old t-shirt, and pressed her hand against her stomach. Her skin was hot. Her pulse was everywhere â in her throat, in her wrists, between her legs, a steady throb that matched the rhythm of her heartbeat.
She closed her eyes and saw his face. The red ears. The clenched jaw. The eyes that couldn't stay in one place.
Across the hall, Nick sat on his bed with his door still open, his cock still hard, his hands still gripping his knees. He'd heard her hair dryer stop. He'd heard the silence that followed. He'd heard the creak of the floorboard â his own creak, his own weight shifting as he'd stood in the hallway outside her door, looking through the gap at the smooth bare line of her back, the curve of her waist, the dimples above her ass, the towel bunched in her lap.
He'd watched her stand up. Watched the towel fall. Watched her walk to her closet naked, her body lit by the soft light of her bedside lamp, every curve and line of her visible through the gap in the door. He'd watched her pull on his old t-shirt â his shirt, the one she'd stolen, the one that hung past her thighs and made her look like she belonged to him.
He'd watched her turn toward the door, and he'd stepped back into the shadows of the hallway, pressing himself against the wall, his heart slamming against his ribs, his cock so hard it hurt.
He'd heard her close the door. The click of the latch. The definitive sound of a door that was locked against him.
He sat on his bed and listened to the silence of the house. His ears were still burning. His hands were still shaking. His cock was still pressing against his jeans, the fabric damp where he'd leaked through his shorts.
He thought about her standing in his doorway in the towel. He thought about her looking at his lap. He thought about her biting her lip. He thought about her sitting on her bed with her back to the door, her breasts bare, her hair loose, her body a long, smooth line of skin and shadow.
He thought about the creak of the floorboard and the way she'd gone still â perfectly still, like she'd heard him, like she'd known he was there â and then kept moving anyway. Kept brushing her hair. Kept posing. Kept showing him everything he wanted to see.
He thought about the towel dropping to the floor.
He thought about her putting on his shirt.
He pressed his hand against his cock through his jeans and closed his eyes and listened to the silence of the house and the sound of his own breathing and the distant, muffled sound of her door staying closed.
The hallway between their rooms was eight feet long. Two doors, one cracked open, one shut tight. The distance between them was nothing â a few steps, a few seconds, the space of a breath.
The house settled around them, old wood creaking, old pipes cooling, and the night came in through the cracked window in Juliett's room and the open blinds in Nick's, and the silence between their doors was full of everything they weren't saying.
