Chapter 16 #2
And still nothing is happening.
When I finally wake up I burst into movement, and I can hear that I’ve woken myself up calling out in some sort of half-formed scream.
“Hunter,” Rayne says from across the room, sitting up in his bed, looking over at me.
My heart is racing.
I haven’t felt fear like it in so long.
I thought I wasn’t even capable of feeling fear, anymore.
Embarrassment courses through me on the tail end of fear, and I can feel heat rising in my face and the back of my neck.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
It feels like a gift to be able to move my limbs, my mouth, speak any words at all.
And there’s a tightness in my throat when I look over at Rayne.
His face looks so striking even in the low light coming in through the window. Shadows of the diamond-shaped panes land across his cheek and forehead, and he looks so concerned.
“You started making sounds in your sleep,” Rayne says, pushing away his sheet and propping himself up on one elbow. “I kept thinking it would stop but it only got worse, and then you fucking jumped like you were struck by lightning or something—”
“I’m fine,” I say, hearing anger in my voice even though I don’t mean for it to be there.
“Sorry,” Rayne says.
I hate this feeling.
Like I’m being pitied.
It’s a hot, shameful feeling, one I’ve had plenty of in my life, especially after my sister died.
I don’t want anyone feeling concerned for me, worried about me, or the absolute worst: feeling sad for me.
It’s intolerable.
And I sure as fuck don’t want it from Rayne.
I try to calm the beating of my heart. I take a few slow, even breaths, which is a technique that therapists and counselors taught me long ago and is one of the few things that really stuck with me.
When I look over at Rayne again he’s still propped up on his arm, just watching me.
“Quit looking at me with puppy dog eyes,” I mutter at him.
“I’m just checking to make sure you’re not having a fucking panic attack, Hunter.”
We’re both quiet for a minute.
The low hoot of an owl and the steady chirping from the crickets is coming in.
I realize that the window is cracked open a few inches. A cool current of air lands on my hot skin.
“Why the hell is that thing open?” I say softly, nodding at the window.
“I like to sleep cold. The air is finally starting to get really cool at night.”
I shift on the bed.
I’m sitting up, and I cradle my head in my hands, rubbing my palms over my face.
“It’s like you’re asking to get shot in the neck with another dart.”
He snorts. “Not sure it’ll make a difference if I crack the thing for some fresh air.”
I puff out a breath of air.
The fear is finally starting to dissipate from my nervous system. I smooth out my hair with my palm, still feeling ridiculously childish for waking Rayne up like that.
“Just go back to sleep,” I tell him.
“Are you going to be able to fall back asleep?” he asks me.
“I don’t know. Probably not. Why the fuck do you care?”
“Damn. You’re a sourpuss when you wake up from a nightmare, aren’t you?”
I sigh. “Sleep paralysis is a lot worse than just a nightmare. I don’t think my body’s going to be relaxed for a while, Colson.”
“Sorry,” he says again.
It’s the second time he’s felt the need to apologize for something tonight.
Rayne should be lashing back at me like it’s his full-time job to play argumentative volleyball with me, but he’s… softer tonight.
Maybe because he shot a fat fucking load down my throat earlier.
Or maybe because unlike me, he was actually getting some good sleep.
For a while, it seems like he’s going back to bed. He lies back down on his mattress, breathing evenly, sighing peacefully a few times.
I try to rest again, too, but I was right when I said that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. I toss and turn, trying to keep the memory of the dream out of my mind.
The comforter feels too warm, but then when I toss it to the side, I’m too cold. I love the sound of the crickets but they aren’t working to soothe me to sleep anyway.
When I toss for what feels like the hundredth time, Rayne groans.
“Get over here,” he says, clearly very much awake, still.
“Excuse me?”
“Come here,” he says, sitting up in bed again and patting the edge of his mattress.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m not kidding, Hunter. Get in my bed or I’ll tell your brother you can’t keep your tongue off my cock.”
“Not a chance in hell you’d do that. I had a bad sleep, not brain damage.”
I turn over in bed, facing the wall, away from him.
I hear him rustling on his mattress, and then the floorboards creak under his weight as he steps down.
When he sits down on the edge of my bed the mattress sinks a little under his weight.
And then I feel his hands on the top of my back, and he pushes his thumbs into the spot where my shoulders meet the bottom of my neck.
He kneads the tension above my shoulder blades and instantly it’s like something is melting away from me.
His hands are very strong.
It’s already the best massage I’ve ever gotten.
He’s wordless as he works the knots out of my shoulders, slowly and steadily pushing circular motions into the tense muscle.
Nobody’s ever touched me like this other than professionals who I’ve paid.
Rayne massages me for a long time, and I’m transported to another world. A world where things like this are normal for me. Where people care for me, and I don’t push back or protest or wonder about their intentions.
When he finishes, he pushes my body toward the wall a little.
Then I feel him lying down in my bed, right up against me, wordlessly.
“If you didn’t just lull me into relaxation I would choke your throat right down into this mattress, without hesitation,” I murmur.
“I believe you.”
I’m still facing away from him, but the side of his body is pressed up against my back. This bed isn’t that wide, and the heat of his skin against mine feels good in the cool air.
Physical contact, bringing be back into reality.
Grounding me.
And he cannot know how much power he has over me in this moment. Not that I’m going to let it last.
“I’m really not the one trying to hurt you, Rayne,” I say softly a moment later.
I turn over in bed to face him, lying on my side. My muscles feel limber and buttery now, like I’ve just been given a new body.
“I think I finally believe that, too,” he tells me. “Maybe.”
He’s lying flat on his back, and he turns a little to look over at me. His head is on my pillow, his hair splayed out around his face.
He looks at my wrist for a moment, then reaches up to toy with my leather bracelets.
“What?”
“Why do you wear these, anyway?”
“I need to have a reason to like wearing a few thin bracelets?”
He reaches up and pulls one of them off, putting it onto his own wrist instead.
He moves his arm around, watching the bracelet slide up and down his own wrist.
“Comfortable, actually,” he says.
“It looks good on you.”
“Good. Now you’re thinking about me rather than your night terrors.”
I sigh. “You know, when I was a teenager and I got night terrors or woke up from nightmares, I wouldn’t count sheep. I’d count throwing knives.”
Rayne puffs out a laugh, his lips breaking into a smile. It gives him dimples, and I realize that right now I’m in bed with someone who endless people at Crimson College probably wish they were in bed with.
“That’s the most Hunter Knox thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’d count little knives as I imagined throwing them into a wooden wall. Toss after toss, knife after knife.”
“Did it actually help you fall asleep?”
“Eventually. Sometimes. Other times I’d get up and walk around the house. I always felt like a ghost, walking around that big house at night.”
Rayne’s gaze dances over my face. “You probably don’t remember this, but there was one weekend I was having a sleepover with Weston, and I went out to the kitchen to get water—”
“I remember it,” I tell him. “Must have been past three in the morning.”
I watch Rayne’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I ran into you in the kitchen and you were there dipping Oreos in peanut butter.”
“Heard about it in the Parent Trap movie, and I’ve done it ever since,” I tell him. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
“I would never knock anything about peanut butter. It’s a major food group for me. Even that night, I wanted to come take a spoonful of it.”
“But you were afraid of me. You still are.”
“I’m not fucking afraid of you, Hunter. Not anymore.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “You sure about that?”
“I believe that you aren’t trying to kill me. I mean that.”
I bring the back of my hand up to his neck, stroking my fingers along his exposed skin there and then moving up toward his jaw.
Sometimes, Rayne is clean-shaven, and other times he lets his scruff grow out, like he has it right now.
I let my palm rest on his throat for a moment, not applying any pressure.
“But I could hurt you,” I murmur.
I feel him swallow beneath my touch. “Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe I don’t mind being hurt a little, sometimes.”
I press down on his throat. “You’re starting to sound like me, Colson.”
“Maybe you just never knew me well enough,” he murmurs. “Maybe I’ve always been like this, and I’m just better at hiding it than you are.”
My cock perks up a little beneath the fabric of my boxer briefs.
He reaches up and pushes my hand off of his throat, like he’s purposely trying to deny me.
So that’s how you want to play it.
And I hate how well it works on me.
“When I couldn’t sleep, back then, I thought about Crimson College,” Rayne says. He’s still gripping my hand as he brings it low.
He moves my hand down toward my underwear and a moment later, he pushes my own palm onto my bulge.
His hand is draped over mine as he squeezes around my fingers.
Using my hand like a puppet of his own, gripping around my cock.
I moan softly at the contact. He keeps his hand on mine, gently kneading it on my erection as he keeps talking.