Page 19 of Kiln Me Softly

It would take Aiden a while to master hand-building, he decided, but thanks to Juniper, he had an idea, and that was what mattered.

Not that he could focus on it much now. She was doing that thing again: concentrating, but in an unfairly sexy way that made him want her more than ever.

Only, where all of that focus had helped her in their sculpting lesson yesterday, it now seemed to come as more of a hindrance as she operated the wheel.

Her hands couldn’t seem to find any steadiness as she centred her clay.

Up until this point, she’d done everything right.

He knew exactly what her problem was, especially when she took her foot off the pedal and grunted in frustration.

Wordlessly, Aiden set down the sponge he’d been using to smooth the edges of his slowly emerging palette, heading to the switches beside the whiteboard.

Juniper barely looked up, proof she was lost somewhere else. What was worse was that she looked close to tears. He didn’t cope well with anyone crying, always unsure what to say or do, but witnessing her so disconnected from her usual self was more unsettling than ever.

He turned the lights off, blanketing the workshop in darkness.

‘Aiden! What the chuff are you doing?’ Juniper bellowed. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he found her again, one side radiating gold where the glow of the streetlamp outside hit her hair and skin. Even in darkness, the light flocked to her. Just like he did, hard as he tried to stop it.

‘I’m helping you,’ he answered simply.

‘By making sure I can’t see ?’

‘You’re thinking too much about it.’ He found his way to her desk, the corner jutting into his hip when he stopped in front of her wheel. ‘You’re not letting your body do the work because everything is getting lost in here.’

He tapped her temple gently, and didn’t miss the shiver that travelled across her shoulders, first one, then the other.

Where the light shone, he saw goosebumps on her arms. She might have affected him in ways he couldn’t hide, but he stirred something in her, too, and her body was snitching on her.

As much as he wanted to focus on that , he wanted to help her more.

Yet she looked up at him stubbornly instead. ‘Are you a therapist now, too?’

‘Am I wrong?’

Silence. And then a sigh that meant he’d won. ‘A lot of things get lost in there. That’s just who I am.’

‘It doesn’t have to be. Throwing is about surrendering.’ He grabbed a stool from the nearest table and slid it behind hers. ‘It’s a connection between the clay and your hands. When the brain comes in, the wheel gets overcrowded.’

‘So you think I’m going to do a better job in the dark?’ She scoffed. ‘Are my eyes overcrowding the wheel, too?’

‘Not just in the dark.’ Aiden took a clean rag from the cupboard and sat down beside her, grinning when her spine stiffened. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘No.’

His chin brushed her shoulder as he leaned in close to whisper in her ear: ‘Liar. Let me show you, Juni.’

‘I told you. Only my friends call me that.’

‘And I think I’ve gotten a little more acquainted with you than most of your friends.’

Her lip tucked itself beneath her two endearingly crooked top teeth. Already surrendering. He’d achieved the impossible, just like that.

‘Arsehole,’ she murmured without malice.

He snickered and then tied the rag around her eyes, handling her the way he would the clay: delicately, never pushing too hard. He knew just how fragile this moment was. Knew that tomorrow, she’d likely go back to hating him, and he might never get to touch her again.

As he tied the knot at the back of her head, he heard her breath grow thicker. ‘This isn’t going to work.’

‘I don’t think you know how much you’re capable of.

’ He couldn’t help but draw her hair out of her face, knuckles tracing across the sides of her neck as he guided the strands down her shoulders.

Everything about her was beautiful, but especially now.

She was bare tonight, barely any makeup, none of her usual acidity.

‘Put your foot on the pedal,’ he instructed, thumb brushing the side seam of her soft leggings. She did shakily, applying pressure. The wheel began to turn.

She was cautious as she centred the clay, none of that first day’s overeagerness evident now. He kept her elbows braced against his stomach when they tried to poke out, which only caused another jagged breath to escape her.

‘Feel?’ he said when the clay began to rise into a cylinder. ‘Just like that.’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘And yet you’re doing it, anyway.’ She was, thumbs moulding the inside of the vase to hollow out its walls.

‘This is silly,’ she groused.

‘So be silly. There’s no one here but me and you. What are you afraid of, Hodge?’

He imagined her eyes rolling behind the blindfold as she replied, ‘I’m not afraid of anything, Whittaker .’

Yet she continued, letting her hands mould the clay into its new form. When it began to flare out of shape, he guided her into a more stable position, his palms sparking with electricity as first her, then the clay, listened. Answered.

This was why he loved pottery. Clay had a life, and all it needed was someone to coax it into being.

There was nothing that could happen on this wheel that would ruin him the way Elmington had.

No pressure, no expectations. It was the steadiest relationship he’d ever upheld, the only thing he could control when the world felt far beyond it.

Watching Juniper discover that was like watching magic happen. He felt her relax against his chest, felt her wrists fall slack as she followed wherever the clay took her.

She didn’t need his help anymore, and yet he couldn’t pull his hands away. Couldn’t sever this sudden, overwhelming connection.

‘Is it working?’ she whispered.

He nestled his chin into her shoulder. ‘You tell me.’

As she slowed the wheel, he couldn’t help but lace their clay-slick fingers together, knees growing tighter around her hips. ‘See? It’s good not to think for a while.’

She hummed, wriggling back against him just like she had in class. His lips brushed her temple, finding friction where her skin met the blindfold, and he needed her. Fuck, he needed her, so much that he was already hard again.

‘Sometimes, feeling is enough.’ His attention fell to her earlobe, and he nibbled until she gasped, arching her neck. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you, Juni. I need more of you.’

‘We can’t,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

If there was a reason, she didn’t give it, instead pursing her lips.

And then she guided their intertwined hands to her chest, brows furrowing on the edge of the rag as though she was making up her mind.

‘We shouldn’t,’ she corrected.

‘Says who?’

Again, nothing.

‘At least let us finish what we started,’ he begged. ‘You were so close, weren’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Did you think of me when you finished yourself off after?’ he asked.

She rutted her ass against his cock as though her body had already decided for her.

‘Tell me,’ Aiden urged. ‘Please tell me.’

‘Yes,’ she whimpered. ‘Fuck, Aiden, yes.’

‘Do you want me to touch you like that now?’

Her nod became frantic, but it wasn’t enough for him. If they were doing this, he needed to know she wouldn’t regret it again in the morning. Needed to know it wasn’t all him. ‘Tell me what you want. I need to hear it, sweetheart.’

‘I want you.’ She dragged their linked hands to her breasts, squeezing them over her oversized T-shirt. ‘I want you to fuck me like this. Blindfolded. I want to feel everything. I want to forget everything but you.’

He groaned hungrily and peeled their hands apart, slipping his under her shirt, her bra, to toy with her full tits.

He hadn’t spent enough time with them at the party, and he made up for that now.

Her back arched against him as his thumb found her nipple, and he wished he could see her properly.

He didn’t dare tear away, though, afraid anything might drive them apart, just like then.

With his fingers slippery from the clay, she was moaning in seconds, grinding her ass harder against his erection until he was gritting his teeth.

‘Please, Aiden. More.’

He grinned into her neck, smelling coffee and sweat and her . ‘I thought you said you’d never beg me for anything.’

‘Shut up,’ she ground out, and he laughed.

‘I love it when you tell me what to do. So fucking hot.’ He dipped his hands beneath her waistband, cupping her heat above her underwear.

Dampness seeped into the fabric as she bucked against him, finding friction in his palm.

As much as he wanted to get her off like this, he wasn’t sure he’d survive another minute without her touching him, too.

‘Turn around,’ he said into the nape of her neck. ‘Let me see you properly.’

He stood, kicking his stool away so that it could no longer come between them, then did the same for hers.

He guided her close with his hands on her hips, kissing her until she was all he knew.

She was as rough as she was fiery, and he revelled in the idea that she might leave marks come tomorrow.

He would need something to remember that this wasn’t just a fantasy, a figment of his imagination.

To direct her, to see her putting all of her trust in him with that rag around her eyes, was exhilarating. He wanted to earn the honour, wanted to make her feel every type of pleasure possible, wanted to know her body inside out. He fingered the hem of her black jumper. ‘Can I take this off?’

‘Yes.’

Aiden rolled the soft material up slowly so as to drink in every new part of her.

Every curve, every roll of her stomach, the peaks of her barely contained breasts in a black lace bra.

He could finally see all of that tattoo: they weren’t vines, but rose stems that curled around her shoulder and ended in flowers below her collarbone.

Much more apt – she was all thorns meshed with silk petals, too.

‘You’re so fucking beautiful, Juniper,’ he marvelled, letting the jumper fall to the floor.

She nibbled on her lower lip, reaching out a hand to trace the planes of his chest and stomach. ‘I don’t suppose you brought a condom with you?’

He snorted. ‘To class? No, not this time.’

‘I’m on the pill,’ she admitted. ‘And I’m safe. Had my last check-up before term started.’

‘Me too. Checked after Elmington, haven’t been with anyone since.’

She was already fumbling to unbutton his jeans. ‘Good, because I don’t want to wait anymore.’

‘Are you sure?’ He laced her hair through his fingers, gentle now. ‘Because if you decide tomorrow that this was a mistake, I don’t know if I could deal with it a second time. You drive me mad enough as it is, but this hot and cold will kill me.’

She traced the outline of his cock through his boxers in a way that made his knees weak. ‘I’m sure. No more regrets. But it can’t mean anything. No… feelings or anything.’

‘Just sex. That works for me.’ He was glad for the blindfold, afraid the lie was written all over his face.

It didn’t feel like just anything with her.

But some of her was better than none of her, so he nudged her back towards the desk, bracing his hands on either side of her arms. ‘You still want this on?’ he asked, dragging a knuckle across the linen’s edge.

Another nod, and then she was pulling his face down to kiss him again, this time palming him over his boxers until he was moaning her name.

She knew exactly how to make him throb, using delicate fingers around his head, then squeezing lightly down his shaft.

He tried to focus on her, massaging her clit with her underwear providing friction, then lapping his tongue against her bra when she finally freed his mouth.

Soon, she was tugging down her leggings and perched on the desk, legs splayed open just for him.

Fucking hell, those thighs were heaven. All of her was heaven. Just as he didn’t know why she hated him, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this part of her. This much of her.

He wiped his hands down on the nearest cloth to clear them of clay, then nudged her underwear to the side to touch her. When his fingers entered her, she clenched around him, and he almost came just imagining they were his cock.

‘Are you ready for me, sweetheart?’

She freed his cock from his boxers, and then, when she gave permission, sunk into her until they both cried out.