Chapter 190 What do you want, Aria?
Aria’s POV
"Then let me see you," he said, soft and filthy all at once. "Pull the shirt up. Slowly."
For a second I just lay there, frozen with it—the nerves, the heat, the absurd intimacy of his eyes on me from another country.
Then I hooked my fingers under the hem of my shirt and dragged the fabric up, inch by inch, baring my stomach, the soft skin of my hips, the plain cotton sleep shorts.
I stopped just under my breasts, clutching the fabric there, too shy to go further and too far gone to put it back down.
The sound he made should have been illegal.
"Fuck, Aria." He dragged a hand down his face, hard. "You have no idea. Do it again—touch your stomach for me. Light. Like I would."
I did. My palm glided over my own skin, still warm from earlier, and I saw him track every inch of the movement like a starving man. The shyness didn’t leave. It just got drowned beneath something heavier, thicker, needy.
"Higher," he murmured. "Under the shirt. I want to watch you arch for me when you get to your chest."
"Damian—"
"You’re the one who started this, sweetheart." There was no mockery in it. Only heat and awe and the fraying edge of his self-control. "I’ve been hard since you asked me what I was looking at. You don’t get to go shy on me now."
A helpless noise snuck out of my throat.
I slid my hand higher under the rucked-up fabric, cupping my breast the way I thought he would, brushing my thumb over my nipple—and the small jolt of sensation drew my knees half-up on the mattress without me meaning to.
"There she is," he breathed. "God, look at you. Already so fucking responsive and I’ve barely said anything."
"You’ve said plenty," I managed, breathless already.
"Not even close." His voice dropped another register. "Take the shorts off."
I froze for half a heartbeat. Then hooked my thumbs into the waistband and wrestled them down with blazing cheeks, awkward with only one free hand and the camera still pointed right at me.
When I kicked them free of my ankles and settled back open-thighed against the pillows, my heart was hammering hard enough I thought he might be able to hear it.
The silence on the other end of the line was devastating.
"Touch yourself," he said finally, hoarse. "I want to see how wet you’ve gotten just from me watching you."
"I hate you a little," I whispered, even as my hand slipped between my thighs.
"No you don’t."
He was right. I didn’t.
I was already slick—embarrassingly so, from staring matches and loaded silences and that single filthy promise in his voice—and the first pass of my fingers over my own sensitive skin made me gasp sharp enough to make his eyes flash.
"That’s it. Circles for me. Slow. Don’t you dare rush just because you’re embarrassed." He shifted again, shoulder moving out of frame in a rhythm I recognized, no longer bothering to hide it.
"I want you aching before you even start fucking yourself open on those pretty fingers."
"I already am—"
"I know. I can see it. Your thighs are shaking." A dark, almost tender satisfaction under the filth. "Dip one finger inside for me. Just one. Let me hear how wet you are."
I did. The soft, shameless sound of it filled my quiet bedroom, and whatever shred of composure I’d been clinging to dissolved right there.
"Oh—god—"
"Louder than that, Aria. Pretend it’s me. Pretend I forced your thighs apart with my shoulders and pushed my tongue into you until you were soaking my mouth and grabbing my hair and begging to come."
My head tipped back hard into the pillow. A second finger joined the first, my hips rolling into my own hand with none of the tentativeness from earlier.
The shyness was gone. There was only heat, his voice pouring through the speaker like sin, the unbearable distance between what I had and what I needed.
"I’d have you on your back like that," he growled, and I could hear him stroking himself now, open and rough.
"Shirt still on, shoved up over your chest so I could suck on your tits while I fucked you deep and slow. You always try to stay quiet when you’re overstimulated—little bitten-off moans like you’re handling yourself. I love breaking that."
"Damian—I’m—"
"Already?" A ragged, almost disbelieving laugh. "Of course you are. You’ve been wound up since I caught you on that mat. Fuck, I’d give everything I brought to this summit to feel you clamp down on me right now."
My free hand fisted in the sheets. My fingers curled harder, faster, desperate for the edge his dirty mouth kept dragging me toward.
"Come for me," he ordered, soft and merciless. "Eyes open. Look at me while you do it. I want to remember the exact face you make when you ruin yourself with my voice in your ear."
That was all it took.
I broke with a choked, helpless cry of his name, spine bowing off the mattress, thighs clamping around my hand as the orgasm ripped through me in hot, endless waves.
I kept my eyes on him through the whole aftermath, shaking, breathless, and watched him fall apart a second after me—jaw clenched, low broken growl torn out of his chest, eyes never once leaving mine like looking away would’ve killed him.
Silence settled afterward. Thick. Breathing and static and residual spark.
I dragged the shirt back down with trembling fingers, though it was a little late for modesty, and found a dazed, overwhelmed smile I couldn’t quite suppress.
"Come home," I whispered. "Before I get way too good at this without you."
His laugh came out wrecked.
"Sleep," he said. "Before I blow off three days of continental negotiations and put my mouth where my filthy words just were by morning."
"Goodnight, Damian."
"Goodnight, Aria." A pause. Barely sound. "Wait for me."
The screen went dark.
I got up and went to take a shower.
The water didn’t help. He was still there—wait for me, low and rough. I gave in with one hand flat against the wet tile, his name a shape my mouth made without any sound behind it.
By the time I toweled off, the heat had drained out of me and left something heavy in its place.
I lay in bed a long time after, the empty side yawning wide and cold beside me.
My own hands had taken the edge off. They hadn’t filled any of the real empty.
I curled toward his pillow, arms wedged around the space where his body should have been, and closed my eyes with his voice still soaked into my skin.
*Hurry back.*