I fist my shaft in an up-and-down motion and buck my hips up into my grip. “Fuck,” I groan. I just want inside her. I just want to be in bed with her.

I just want more than this, and I know I have to be happy with the fantasy and our ocean-apart reality. Like maybe it’ll be enough in the end.

I arch my hips into my clutch again.

Willow lets out a soft, aroused noise.

Fuckfuck. I watch as she adjusts her laptop. She’s slipping further into her bed. Lying down. I think she props the laptop on the pillow next to her. I can’t see below her breasts, but her arm seems to shift…

And move. Her lips part in a short breath. Her eyes shut for a beat longer.

Fuck, she’s masturbating. My muscles flex, sweat glistening along my body, and pre-cum coats my hand.

Desire pulsates my veins like a coked-up drummer banging and banging. “Willow,” I groan. “Willow.”

She gasps and squirms. I strain my ears to hear her whisper, “Garrison.”

I’m an idiot and I reach out at the computer screen like I can touch her. This fucking 2D version is only half of my girl, and yeah, I’d rather be able to pull her underneath me right now.

She covers her face with her hand, nearing a peak. “I want you,” she mumbles into a sharper breath. “I want you in…”

“I’m in you,” I say in a tight, deep voice. I quicken the friction on my length. “I’m so fucking deep in you.”

Willow moans.

My neck strains, blood bursting my veins, and I tilt my head back. “Fuuuck,” I grit down.

She quakes.

I hit a powerful climax, and an involuntary noise breaches her lips, this high-pitched whimper that reminds me she’s completely let go. Out of her head, and I release into my palm. My body on fire as I pump out the tension.

Fuck.

She breathes hard with me, and I try to remind myself that even miles away, intimacy is still strung between us.

The next few weeks, Willow’s classes get harder, and I back off calling my girlfriend until she can call me. I won’t be her distraction. She’s got shit going for her, and I’ve ruined enough. I’m not going to ruin her.

To not think about her, I just bury myself in work. It’s the only thing that keeps me relatively sane. I’m averaging four to five hours of sleep. Which isn’t too bad, all things considered.

And I haven’t burnt another pizza. So improvement, right?

I grab my backpack off the bed. Normally on Saturday I’d be in the office, but Cobalt Inc. is having a party for the diamond division, and I really don’t want to run into those pricks. They’re the guys who pass me and “cough” out the word nepotism. They’re not wrong. But it is annoying. Coughing words died in prep school. It’s fucking lame—especially when thirty-year-old tools do it.