34: The Other Man's Touch Part 01

Asher's POV

Isla’s accusatory tone from the soccer field had clung to me like the stale, unwelcome sweetness of her perfume now permeating my cramped dorm room. The familiar scent of unwashed laundry and lingering pizza did little to soothe the raw edges of my nerves, now frayed by her suspicion and my own gnawing guilt. She perched on the edge of my desk chair, her usual bright eyes narrowed with a hurt suspicion that did nothing to stir the dead embers of my desire.

“Nothing is going on, Isla,” I repeated, my voice flat, trying to project a bored indifference that felt miles away from the insistent throb in my groin, a phantom echo of Cecilia’s slick heat.

“Am I?” she challenged, her voice tight with emotion. “Asher, you’ve been acting weird around Cecilia for weeks. I saw you at the victory party. You both disappeared for ages. What was that about?” A volatile mix of guilt and a perverse thrill at the danger of being caught churned within me. I was already drowning in the memory of Cecilia’s naked skin, the possessive grip of her thighs around my waist; I didn’t need a jealous, insecure girlfriend adding to the suffocating pressure.

“God, Isla, you’re being paranoid,” I snapped, the sharpness of my tone surprising even myself, even as my fingers twitched with the phantom sensation of Cecilia’s soft curves yielding beneath my touch, the desperate cries she tried to stifle against my mouth.

Her face crumpled slightly, the hurt in her eyes intensifying, and a fleeting pang of guilt twisted in my gut, quickly overshadowed by the insistent ache in my groin, the memory of claiming Cecilia’s virginity that first night she snuck in, the desperate urgency, the raw possessiveness of that first joining.

“And you haven’t touched me, Asher. Not really. We haven’t… we haven’t been intimate in weeks. You barely even look at me half the time.”

She was right. My body remembered the fiery passion I shared with Cecilia, the way her breath hitched when I plunged deep inside her in her dorm room, the stolen moments between research notes, the palpable tension that had snapped into raw, desperate need.

I shrugged, unable to muster any real remorse. “Things change,” I replied, the callousness of my words hanging heavy in the small room, the lie a bitter taste compared to the sweetness of Cecilia’s mouth on mine, the way she tasted of strawberries, vanilla, and something uniquely hers.

The wounded look that bloomed on Isla’s face twisted something in my gut, a fleeting pang of guilt. But it was quickly overshadowed by the hollow truth: I simply didn’t desire her. I hadn’t for a long time. The guilt I felt was for leading her on for so long, for the charade we’d maintained. Isla had never truly held my heart. She was always a stand-in, a pale imitation of the girl I truly desired, the one whose scent now haunted my waking hours, whose touch had branded my soul. Even during the times we had been intimate, it was always Cecilia I imagined lying beneath me, her soft cries echoing in my mind, her unique scent filling my senses, a cruel fantasy that now felt like a sharp, self-inflicted wound. My body was attuned to Cecilia’s specific heat, the way she smelled of vanilla, strawberries, and arousal, the feel of her skin, so soft and yielding beneath my demanding touch.

“Things change?” Isla repeated, her voice trembling. Tears welled in her eyes, and she stood up abruptly, pacing the small space, her agitated movements doing nothing to stir the dead embers of my attraction. “Is that all you have to say? After everything?” Her voice cracked, and I felt a flicker of annoyance, a selfish desire for her to just leave, to stop adding to the suffocating weight of my lies and let me return to the vivid memory of Cecilia’s velvet folds, the frantic clench of her inner muscles around me. My thoughts drifted to the dark theater, the image of Julian’s clumsy hands potentially exploring the body that had yielded so completely to mine, the possessive way I had marked her that first night, claiming her as mine in every sense. Was Julian touching her now? Kissing her? Did she let him? The questions were a relentless torment.

“I thought… I thought we had something real,” Isla choked out, her voice thick with tears.

I watched her, a detached observer in my own life, my mind replaying the way Cecilia’s breath hitched when I plunged deep inside her, the frantic cries that echoed in her dorm room, the palpable tension that had snapped into raw, desperate need amidst scattered research papers. I knew I should say something, offer some comfort, some explanation. But the words wouldn’t come. The feelings weren’t there. The only real emotion I felt was a selfish desire for Isla to just leave, to stop adding to the suffocating weight of my lies and let me return to the vivid memory of Cecilia’s honeyed depths frantically milking me.

The confrontation ended with Isla’s tearful departure, the slammed door echoing the fracturing of a relationship I’d never truly valued, the silence in the room now thick with the phantom scent of Cecilia, a constant, aching reminder of my desire and the forbidden pleasure we shared, a pleasure I now desperately hoped Julian wasn't attempting to replicate in the darkness of the movie theater.

The silence of the dorm room had become a suffocating blanket, amplifying the frantic beat of my own heart. The image of Julian’s hand on Cecilia, the thought of him even attempting to touch her in the darkness of the theater, had twisted my jealousy into a white-hot rage, a possessive fury that clawed at my control. Mixed with this anger was the insistent throb of arousal, the visceral memory of Cecilia’s honeyed depths squeezing around me, a phantom sensation that tormented me with its absence.

Unable to bear the suffocating tension any longer, I ripped off my shirt, the fabric clinging to my sweat-damp skin. The need to dispel the raging hard-on that had taken root was a primal urge. I stumbled into the cramped bathroom, the cheap plastic shower curtain doing little to muffle the sound of the water as I turned the knob, the spray instantly hot against my skin.

Closing my eyes, I conjured Cecilia’s face, the way her lips parted slightly when she was close to climax, the flush that would creep up her neck. My hand slid down my chest, the soap slick against my skin, until I grasped the thick, insistent length demanding attention. The roughness of my hands offered a poor imitation of the yielding softness of her inner thighs.

My mind filled with vivid images: the desperate slide of her wetness around me, the frantic rhythm of our bodies joined, the soft whimpers that escalated into ragged cries as I drove deeper.