Chapter 6 Torin
Torin
When I was younger I used to get called a thrill-seeker.
Back then, people said it like it was a bad thing. My teachers. My mother. My own friends.
I can still remember the way Mom said it after school one day, when I got suspended for trying to free-climb the side of the tallest building at my middle school: Torin Jensen, you could become a millionaire one day if you channeled your energy into something as much as you chase adrenaline.
But for me, that’s just choosing to chase life.
It’s not that I need to live on the edge, but there’s just so much of life that most people never touch. Never get close to touching.
Do I want to skydive? Fuck yes.
Do I also want to learn how to carve a serpent into a block of cherry wood? I do.
In between all of that, I want to kiss and touch and fuck anybody I want. I want to taste the whole world, especially when it wants to taste me back.
As I shove open the front doors to Onyx House now, I feel like I’m alive.
Back in my body.
Blood fucking pumping, in a way that’s only happened…
Well, so far, it’s only happened when I’ve gotten the preppy, rigid frat boy to show me what he actually wants. He thinks I can’t tell, but he wanted this tonight, too. He definitely didn’t expect to nearly get kidnapped at gunpoint, but I can recognize a thrill-seeker when I see one.
He doesn’t know what the hell he’s getting himself into, and he sure as fuck doesn’t know how to handle the repercussions of what taking risks like this can mean.
He’s an emotional wreck right now, but I can still tell.
In the past, Noah met that need by blasting his nights with alcohol, parties, and casual hookups until he quit all of those things, leaving a big, fat void.
Now Noah’s searching for something.
I think he was excited to go do Roman’s dirty work, at least until it turned serious very fast. But he was thrill-seeking. Even just a little.
It’s one of the sole things Noah and I have in common.
It’s a deliciously dark, sadistic pleasure to discover that…
But he needs to learn his limits.
“Come with me,” I tell Noah, reaching for his arm the moment we’re through the front doors of the house. “You’re going to explain everything, in deep detail.”
“We just need to talk to Roman,” Noah protests.
I look back at him and come to a stop in the front entryway of the house. I reach behind Noah and gently push the giant front door shut behind us.
For a moment, I let him catch his breath.
There’s a table lamp nearby, and I’m finally able to get a better look at him than I did outside.
“You are so out of it, Daisy,” I murmur, looking him over.
It’s worse than I thought. He looks like he’s barely hanging on, actually.
He must have been getting by on pure adrenaline as we ran back to the house, but now he looks like he saw a ghost and is about to pass the fuck out onto the floor.
His hair is a dark, disheveled mess.
His eyes look shellshocked, and he keeps blinking as he looks at me, then looks at my hair, and then stares behind me into the rest of the house, his lashes flicking up and down.
And for some reason he’s feeling in his pockets, now, over and over again.
“God, where the fuck is it?” he says under his breath, finally reaching into one of his back pockets.
He pulls out something small and metallic. As he puts it down on the little entryway table beside us, I see that his hand is shaking pretty badly.
“Is that a switchblade?” I ask, reaching out for it.
“Yeah.”
I reach out and grab the thing, flicking it open. “This is the smallest blade I’ve ever seen.”
“Small blades still hurt,” he tells me. “Even a razor blade could make someone bleed. My switchblade was fine.”
I close the blade and put it back onto the side table.
When I look back up at Noah, he’s leaning against the wood-paneled wall. I see a glint of something on his cheek as he’s looking at the floor.
“Roman’s probably out back—”
“Noah, are you crying?” I interrupt him.
I bring my hand up to wipe at his cheek but he glares at me, batting my hand away. “Quit acting like you give a fuck.”
He isn’t breaking down in sobs, and his face doesn’t even look sad. It’s more like a single tear broke off from his eye without him even realizing it, and he’s too numb to even register what that means.
“You think I don’t give a fuck?” I ask him. “You’re shaking.”
“I just had a gun pointed at me. Who fucking cares if I’m shaking?”
“Yeah, and I just took care of the guy who had that gun pointed at you, so relax. You’re like a scared deer.”
He shoves me back all of a sudden, his hands connecting with my shoulders so fast it takes me by surprise.
I give him a warning glare but his gaze is pure fire now, rimmed with tears that aren’t falling anymore.
Then the fucker reaches out and does it again.
This time he shoves me even harder, pushing me back against the wall. My back connects with the edge of a framed portrait nearby, and it rattles against the wood paneling.
He brings his face close to mine.
“Call me that again and I’ll put that knife to your throat,” he says under his breath. “I’m not a scared deer. I could have fucking died tonight, and I might still fucking die because now those guys are going to have a serious problem with the fact that we knocked one of them unconscious.”
“You’d rather end up in their black car instead?”
“You didn’t have to hurt him that badly.”
“They were trying to shove you into their SUV before I did that. They had a problem with you already, and you know that.”
He bites his lower lip and then exhales, shaking his head a little. But he doesn’t let me go.
My senses are heightened again.
Noah keeps his arm in a bar across my chest, shoving me up against the wall, and he still smells like fresh, clean laundry even after escaping a goddamn gunfight and kidnapping.
I inhale slowly, trying not to focus on his scent.
I know I could retaliate, shove him back, and have him in a headlock on the floor in about three seconds flat, but instead I stay still for a moment.
I hold his gaze.
Watching closely.
I glance over the rosy edges of his cheeks and soft skin, down to his lips.
What is it about that mouth that makes me think about seeing it wrapped around my cock?
Even now, at a moment when that’s the last thing I should be thinking about?
Maybe the way it’s almost in a pout… or the fact that his lips are naturally so deep red in a way people usually need makeup to achieve.
Straight boys aren’t usually catnip to me, but fuck, Noah is giving me fucking problems, lately.
Because he denies me.
Denies so much about himself, too, I’m starting to learn.
Like a bird with a broken wing.
Fallen way too far from its nest.
Like any bird I’d have to rescue, even if it’s flapping and flailing and doesn’t trust me at all.
“You’re on edge,” I say. “But when you calm down I know you’ll realize that I wasn’t going to let you die. Understand me?”
He searches my face for a moment. “Why would it matter to you if I did?”
“I don’t know, Noah. Because my mom likes you. I don’t want to see her upset. If it were just up to me, sure, I’d let you get tortured and used as mafia war bait—”
“Fuck you,” he murmurs.
“I’m joking.”
“Are you?”
I exhale. “I know we aren’t loving stepbrothers, but you’re no good to me dead.”
He lessens his pressure on me a little, but keeps his arm across my chest. “Meaning you want to stalk me around campus late at night?”
I cock my head to one side. “You went through my things first.”
He glances at my lips for a moment and I swear if he were anyone else, I’d think it looks like he’s going to kiss me.
Wish you’d try it.
See what fucking happens if you kiss me.
You might like it a little too much, Daisy.
“Yo. Wait, Noah?” a voice comes from the hall as someone steps out from the end of the hall, down by the kitchen entrance.
Noah immediately backs off, dropping his arm from across my chest.
He puts distance between the two of us and waves over toward Hunter and Rayne coming down the hall.
“Hey,” Noah calls over to them, bringing a hand up to quickly wipe at his cheeks, but any stray tears are long gone. “Ah, what’s up?”
“Roman was looking for you. Said you wouldn’t respond to his texts,” Hunter tells him. “You might wanna go chat with him out by the fire pit.”
Noah nods, trying to hide anything grim from his expression.
“Got it. You guys going to bed?”
“Yes. I’m stealing him away,” Rayne says as he comes up behind Hunter. “Don’t expect us to come back.” He wraps his arms around the back of Hunter’s waist and presses a kiss to the side of his neck. Hunter waggles his eyebrows at me before the two of them head up the staircase together.
“Couples really have a way of making you sick, don’t they?” I say to Noah after the other guys are upstairs.
He sighs. “I love what Rayne and Hunter have. I’d say you were being homophobic if I didn’t know better.”
I snort. “Men can fuck other men in front of me every day for the rest of my life. I just don’t care to see anyone’s sappy affection in my presence.”
Noah looks down as he kicks off his shoes, taking a deep breath. “Not everyone can be as bitter as you, Torin. Fucking get over it. I’m happy when my friends find their soulmates.”
“Soulmates don’t exist. But knock yourself out trying to find one.”
“Have fun being alone for the rest of your life.”
I hum. “And you can keep on waiting for the perfect woman who doesn’t exist while I fuck anybody I damn well please.”
“Don’t you have some wood to carve or some shit? I’m going to go talk to Roman. Alone.”
I ignore his attempt at shoving me out of this.
“I’m going with you.”
He waves a hand through the air. “You’re not going to get involved.”
“Very funny.”
He pauses for a moment, but finally turns around, probably realizing that I’m not going to take no for an answer.
“Whatever,” he says.
He takes off down the hall and I follow after him.