Page 79 of Returned Mail

The photo slides out. I hold my breath as it develops. My face emerges slowly. Hair loose around my shoulders. Soft light on my cheeks. Eyes wide open and vulnerable. Young and a little scared. I sit on the bed and flip the photo over, writing his name on the back with trembling fingers.

Then I force myself to write.

George,

Thank you for the camera. I don't know if you realize how much that meant. Your picture…

You're beautiful. And I don't just mean your face. I mean the honesty in your eyes. The softness. The exhaustion. All of it.

Here's me.

Slightly panicked.

—Mia

I stop, bite my lip. Too much? “Oh fuck it.”

I seal the envelope before I can regret it. Then I walk downstairs and slide the letter through the mail slot. My fingers linger on the metal edge. This is real. This is happening. This means something.

When I walk back to the loft, everything feels different. Everything has shifted. I sit on the couch holding his photo in both hands, my thumb brushing the edge over and over. He feels close. Too close. Dangerously close. I'm not just writing to a stranger anymore. I'm writing to someone who matters. Someone I'm beginning to need. It terrifies me. But it thrills me too.

My mind betrays me. I start picturing him here.

On this couch.

On my bed.

Oh no, Mia. Don't go that way.

But I can't help it. I recline, my back hitting the couch pillows. I hold his photo in one hand, and the free one moves without asking permission, sliding beneath the hem of my shirt, fingers brushing the underside of my breast.

I imagine his mouth there, his hands. “Fuck.” I'm wet already, ridiculously wet. Just from looking at him. Just from imagining what his voice sounds like when he's not writing careful sentences.

I swear I can feel his breath on my neck, my breasts. I pinch one nipple as I imagine his mouth on me. What he sounds like when he's inside someone. Inside me. My hand moves lower, over my stomach, beneath the waistband of my leggings. I should stop, but I don't.

I press my palm against myself through my underwear and bite back a sound.

I'm fucking soaked for a man I've never met. A man who's ten years older than me, and a soldier who’s deployed thousands of miles away from me, and probably has no idea what he's done to me.

I slip my hand inside my underwear. The first touch makes my hips lift off the couch. “Oh, God.” I stare at his face in the photo, those eyes, that mouth. I imagine him between my legs. His hands spreading my thighs open. Spreading me open…

His mouth on me, tongue sliding through the wetness, tasting me like he's been starving for it. My finger finds my clit, and I gasp. I'm so sensitive it almost hurts. I circle slowly, then faster, my other hand clutching the photo like it's the only thing keeping me grounded to this couch.

I picture his body, his broad shoulders, and strong hands. He looks like the kind of man who could pin me down and make me beg. I slide one finger inside myself, then two. “Fuck, George.”

I grab a pillow and press it between my legs, grinding against my hand, the friction and pressure driving me insane. I imagine him here. His cock hard against my thigh, his breath hot on my neck, his voice low and rough, telling me exactly what he wants to do to me. How he'd fuck me, until I'm coming apart beneath him.

My fingers move faster, deeper. I’m so close I can barely breathe. I stare at his face, at the exhaustion, the scars, and the way he looks like he could ruin me and I'd thank him for it.

“Oh fuck—George⁠—”

I come hard. My body arching off the couch, thighs clamping around my hand, a sound ripping out of me that I don't recognize. Wave after wave. His face the only thing I see.

When it finally stops, I'm shaking. Breathless. Staring at the ceiling with his photo still clutched in my hand.

“Oh, I’m completely and utterly fucked.”

I want him so badly it feels like drowning, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with that.