Β© 2012 Brunne
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Many thanks to the many readers who voted and left such lovely comments on the chapters so far -- I hope you enjoy this one too.
For those of you have read my other story, 'Under My Skin', this is Jarod's side of the story (best to start from Ch 01).
- Brunne
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Jarod stared into his dresser drawer, somewhat stunned. Shit. Not to get ahead of himself, but it'd occurred to him that he'd better check on the state of his prophylactic supply, as he had no clue whether she was on birth control or not. Clean bill of health or no, he wasn't in this to become a parent.
Did condoms actually expire? Seriously? If the date on the box was anything to go by, they'd gone past the point of no return six months ago. Had it really been that long? No wonder he was a wreck.
Ironically, he found the knowledge somewhat comforting. Being completely unable to control his body's random and inconvenient expressions of pent-up frustration was beginning to wear thin. He'd been in the middle of a budget meeting this morning and failed to haul his mind back from its wanderings into the dangerous territory of bare skin and black lace. Well, more about how he was going to remove the black lace than anything... Thank heavens the CAPEX debate had pushed the meeting overtime or he would have had an embarrassing, sidling, paper-clutching exit of the room to contend with. He hadn't had such spontaneous erections since he was eighteen.
Shit. He tossed the useless box into the rubbish, and added condom-purchasing to his list of errands.
He had to do
something
to keep himself occupied. He'd had no word from her since their conversation the previous night. She must have opened the letter by now. He just hoped to hell she was capable of making up her mind quickly, because he wasn't going to last at this rate.
The waiting wasn't the only thing on his mind. He'd been experiencing a slight...problem, of late. He couldn't bring himself to masturbate. Ever since the first photo she'd taken he'd been going through crazy periods of arousal. But he'd start to take care of business and just...couldn't. It wasn't a physical thing, at least he hoped not. If he were to be truthful with himself, which he wasn't particularly willing to do at this point, he'd have admit to being scared out of his mind. Because the real reason he couldn't go through with it was that it made him feel...alone. Deeply, painfully alone.
His deepest, darkest fear was that somewhere in that thread of glowing light he'd crossed some sort of line. He needed to know he could still exist as an island, with no dependency on anything or anyone. Even as he said it to himself he doubted the wisdom of this, but right along with the spectre of loneliness rose the old pain, seeping up through his mental floorboards.
So he'd do this thing, and remain detached and not get involved. It would be purely physical. He focussed his thoughts, and added a silk scarf to the mental checklist. He didn't intend to risk his sanity by drowning in the depths of those wide brown eyes, either.
* * * * *
Jarod flipped the mouthpiece of his headset up and leaned back in his office chair, his left ear filled with the tinned holding music of yet another endless teleconference call. His eyes felt like they were pickled in their sockets. He flicked his mobile phone on and checked it. Again.
It had been three days, and he'd heard nothing. So she was willing to send nearly-nude pics, but was offended by a STD test?
The final stages of bug fixing on the project were keeping him thoroughly occupied, but it wasn't exception reporting or data migration his mind wandered to when he had a spare moment. Two days ago he'd banned himself from even opening the photo folder of his phone, and today he was rationing himself the checking of texts to once an hour.
"Fuck this..." he growled, thumb punching the new text button. He was getting pissed off now.
'So?'
The text glared back at him from the screen. He hit send.
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The insistent buzz against his thigh stopped him midsentence, and the board members just sat there, staring at him expectantly. Fuck. Of all the times for her to reply.
Clearing his throat, he backtracked in his notes. He could feel the heat rising to his face. Shit. Was he
blushing?
"Jarod? Are you alright?" queried a bespectacled Richard, staring at him hard over the tops of the gold frames. Oh, this was only getting better, wasn't it.
"Yes, sorry...yes..." he stammered, looking to the glowing presentation screen as if it could somehow save him. With great effort he reoriented himself and pushed on with the briefing, but his mind never entirely left his pocket, or the waiting text.
What ensued was the longest meeting he'd ever endured, not daring to even pull the phone out and check it under the cover of the boardroom table in case he found himself comprehensively unemployed.
His final escape was to the closest promise of privacy; the stall in the men's toilets. He flipped the seat down gingerly and eased himself down onto the lid, wrestling his phone out of his pocket with a worrying degree of anticipation. He forced himself to stop for a moment before switching it on. You've got to get a grip, man. This is just about sex. Nothing else, right? He took several cleansing breaths and then pressed the button.
'Done. Just waiting for results.'
He stared at it dumbly. Done? Already? And here he'd been expecting to just hear if she was done thinking about it...not that she'd gone ahead with it! He ran a hand through his hair and reread it just to be sure. Shit.