Chapter 13 Noah
Noah
My phone buzzes in my pocket when I’m only halfway down Red Row.
When I look at the screen and see that it’s not another call from Torin, something bursts inside me like a balloon getting popped, and I don’t know if it’s relief or anger.
Bree: Where’d you go, you sexy fucking stripper?
Had to step out.
Okay, well I’ll be outside when you get back. Did I tell you I miss your cock?
I don’t know when I’ll be back.
Saaaad faaaace. If you’re not here then who’s going to fuck me?
You like football players, right? The guys Rayne invited seem nice and maybe one of them is down to fuck.
Meh. They’re hot, but you’re better. I haven’t felt your dick inside me in so long. I’d let you have my ass…
Sorry, B. Something came up.
It’s another blatant lie.
Nothing came up.
Nothing other than my inability to fucking think, and even though I’ve been tense all day and I’ve never needed to fuck someone more than I need to fuck someone tonight, it’s not going to happen.
I don’t want her.
I want him.
And I can’t deal with that realization, not even a little bit, especially when Torin looked me in the eye and reminded me exactly who I really am at the worst possible time.
My phone vibrates again and I rip it out, rage flaring in me as I look at the screen.
It’s Bree again.
Um… tell me if this is weird. Because if it is, I’ll back off. But Torin likes girls too, right? Because he’s awful, but he could probably at least give good dick, you think?
I want to hurl my phone onto the fucking asphalt.
I tap out a reply fast, having to fix typos a handful of times.
Yes, it’s fucking weird. Torin is off-limits.
God. Sorry. I’m drunk.
I can’t believe you would ask me that.
I hate him, too, Noah, it’s chill. I wasn’t seriously considering it, and I honestly didn’t even think you’d care.
No. Just *no.* A thousand fucking times NO.
I’m not going to sleep with him, Noah. I thought you’d laugh at the idea. I’m really sorry. The fuckface left after you took off, anyway.
It’s fine, Bree. I’ll talk to you later.
Why do I care?
Why should it make a goddamn moment of difference to me who he fucks?
My lungs are burning by the time I hit the border to the park at the end of Red Row, but it’s not because I’m running particularly fast. From the moment I left Onyx House I felt like every drop of air was being systematically sucked from my lungs.
I needed to get the fuck out, but now that I’m standing under the neat row of trees that line the park, all I keep doing is turning my head to look back at Red Row.
Since he sat near me, I couldn’t shake the memory of how his mouth felt on mine, and now it’s living inside me like an untameable animal.
I don’t like him.
I just like… the way he feels.
And that’s why I can’t go home and be in his presence right now.
I turn my head back around to face the park. The night air is cooler now, with a breeze blowing in for the rain showers that are supposed to start overnight. The sky is covered in a blanket of clouds, and I head forward on the path that cuts through the park, lit only by the occasional lamp post.
I focus on my footsteps on the pathway, cutting under the canopy of trees.
I don’t bother running anymore, because it’s clear that nobody saw me leave and no one’s going to come after me.
Minutes and minutes pass as I stroll silently through the park, listening to the sound of the crickets in the night air.
When I hear the branch snap, at first I think it’s paranoia.
I’ve been skittish all week, and I’m sure it was nothing.
Then I hear another noise.
I turn around fast, looking all around me.
The path is surrounded by trees and shrubs, and although this park is beautiful in the daytime, I realize I’ve never actually been down here when it’s so dark.
Very dark.
I can’t even see down some of the branching paths.
And when I face away from Red Row, I see down further onto the road below and my spine goes cold.
There are red tail lights down there on the road.
Ones that weren’t there before.
Fuck.
Nowhere feels safe anymore.
I turn around as my heart rate ticks up, and I take off in a jog back up toward Red Row. My chest tightens as I run, and I hear another rustling sound from somewhere to my right as I start to run faster.
“Damn it,” I whisper under my breath.
I move faster, pushing myself to the brink.
By the time I can see most of Red Row again, I’m certain that I’m about to meet the end of my life at the top of this pathway. They’re already going to be there, waiting with that black bag to shove over my head.
At the end of the path, the gravel meets the sidewalk of Red Row.
And there’s someone there.
My heart skips a beat as I take off in the opposite direction, heading over to the far side of the road away from whoever the fuck it is.
But he’s faster than me.
“Noah,” he says, and I’m breathing so hard I can barely make out his voice.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whisper.
“Noah, it’s me,” he says again, and I think I’m going to be sick.
I look back and glimpse blond hair under the streetlamp and my body gives out. There’s a sloping green embankment at the edge of the road, and I collapse forward onto it, my knees hitting the soft grass.
I heave, gasping for breath.
My thighs and lungs are burning, and soon Torin’s at my side resting his hand at the small of my back.
Here.
With me.
“Quit fucking following me,” I roar, defying every ounce of relief that’s flooding through me right now.
“Then listen to me when I tell you that I need to talk with you,” he shouts back, and when I look up I see anger flashing in his eyes like I’ve never seen before. “You’re not safe. Not out here alone, late at night, and not on fucking campus, either. You’re in so much more danger than you realize.”
I groan, leaning over on my hands and knees and clawing at the grass, feeling the soil shift under my fingers as I rip it up.
“I wish we never met,” I growl at him, my voice low but becoming louder with each word. “I wish you never existed in my life. But you’re everywhere. Over four years of you in my family, and now you’re here.”
My voice is ragged and broken by the end of it.
I collapse backward onto the ground, my ass hitting the soil as I finally look up at him again.
“You text me all fucking needy earlier this week, and now you’re telling me I’m too present in your life? Which is it, Noah? Pick a fucking lane.”
“Just go,” I scream.
He reaches forward and pushes my shoulders with his hands, knocking me flat onto my back.
“Are you with her?” he roars, looking over me.
“The fuck are you talking about, psycho?”
“Are you with her?” he asks again, emphasizing each word. “Is she your fucking girlfriend now, Noah?”
I furrow my brow as I look up at him, the confusion in my mind eclipsing my anger. “What? If you’re talking about Bree, no, we’re not dating.”
“Is that the truth?”
“She doesn’t want me. She never will.”
“But she wants your cock.”
“Of course she wants my cock. That’s all she ever wants. The fuck does it matter to you?”
“But you didn’t give it to her?”
“Not since a long time ago, Torin.”
He stares at me intently for another few beats before he shoves off of me, sitting on the ground and running his hands over his face.
“You can’t go running off alone,” he finally says a minute later, and his voice has calmed completely, going from shouting at me to his normal even, low tone.
“Yeah, no shit,” I mutter, my own voice hoarse from screaming. “I thought I was dead just from hearing the snap of a twig. There was a car down the street—”
“It was just a girl from Luros. I saw her drive off. But you can’t go out like this.”
“I know I fucking can’t.”
“Then why did you leave? Without me?” he demands.
I shake my head, staring up at the cloudy sky. “Because I had to.”
“Do you have any idea of the danger you’re in?”
I puff out a bitter laugh. “Don’t act like you really give a fuck.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Noah?”
“You left for the past week. You were just peachy-keen and fine to leave me here in danger while you were gone, but now suddenly because you’re back you act like you care. I could have been killed any day this week, Torin.”
He’s looking away from me, out at the street, and I just watch his eyes narrow as he’s lost in thought.
“You were protected this whole week,” he says quietly.
“I know Roman was here. That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m not talking about Roman,” Torin says, turning to me and giving me a hard glare. “I hired a professional. You were incredibly safe, probably safer than you’ve ever been in your life.”
I frown at him. “Are you kidding me?”
He shakes his head slowly, then looks away. “Nope.”
It feels like the whole world just shifted on its axis, like everything is in the same place, but somehow forever altered.
Torin has seemed different, too, since the moment he found me out here.
He’s so much less composed than usual, less in control of himself.
And I like it.
It creeps through me like that rolling fog all over again.
Torin did care about my safety, while he was gone.
So much that he arranged for professional assistance. I could spout off about how he did it without my permission, or that he’s crazy to think I needed it, but the reality is that I’m gobsmacked that he even had the idea to begin with.
And then that sick, twisting feeling appears again in my stomach, but it’s something completely new this time.
Do not. Let. It in.
It’s inevitable, though.
The unfathomable truth.
It wasn’t just morbid curiosity that night. It was desire.
The pure, unadulterated, wicked-hot desire that floods every cell of my body anytime I’m around Torin.
The dam that was holding back that flood just broke, letting every feeling rush in all at once.
When I turn to look at him now, I’m terrified of what I want.
He finally looks back at me again, and his gaze dances from my eyes and then down to my lips, and I feel like I’m falling deeper into him.
“You were thinking about me,” I finally say.
He exhales before he leans over me again.
“And you’re just like me,” he says, “because you love knowing I was thinking about you, don’t you? You called me a slut for attention, but it seems like that’s both of us, Noah. Yes, you have my attention. But I don’t know if you’re ready for it—”
I move to close the distance between us, crushing my mouth against his in silent desperation.
I’m ready for it.
I open to him immediately, and he lets out a low moan of satisfaction.
But I don’t care if he thinks he’s winning some game with me.
Because I need something from him, and I don’t give a fuck what that means anymore.
I need the flood of wet heat from his tongue, and his body pressed closer to mine, and fuck, the way he holds my head in his hands as he kisses me, like I’m the only focus in the world he has right now.
We melt into each other as we kiss, and somehow it’s even better than last time, more raw and urgent as our mouths collide until I bite down on his lower lip.
I pull away and look him in the eye again. “What are you doing to me?”
He hums, running his thumb over my lower lip. “Kissing you. Getting hard, and…” he reaches down to grip my cock through my shorts, “making you hard, too. Thinking about how I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll barely be able to walk, the moment we get back to Onyx House.”
Fire ripples through me.
That’s not even something I knew I wanted.
Yet I’m here hard as a fucking diamond thinking of it—of him, sinking into me, filling me up, pushing every inch of his cock inside.
I’m throbbing for him and his hand is still there to feel it, and all he does in return is lean in and give me a tiny kiss on my lips, then my cheeks, then my temple.
Oh, God.
He moves low to suck on my neck so hard I know it’s going to leave a mark, and I buck my hips into him involuntarily, needing the contact.
“Fuck,” I say, the word breaking off into a moan. I blink, catching my breath.
And then I stand up, looking down at him.
He’s sitting there on the grass and looking up at me like he’s pissed I took my mouth off him, and my chest aches as the breeze blows at his hair.
“You have to catch me first,” I tell him.
And I take off.
I break into a run back toward Onyx House, pounding the pavement and feeling exhilarated in a way I’d forgotten I can feel.
Freedom.
The only drug Torin can’t get enough of.
But it’s not even a close race.
Within twenty seconds of me taking off, I feel Torin’s hand at my arm. He crashes into my body from behind and wraps his arms around me as I slow to a walk.
He stays like that for the rest of the way along the sidewalk back to Onyx House.
His body pressed up against mine from behind, making it nearly impossible for me to walk.
I can feel his hard cock resting in the cleft of my ass, with only the thin fabric of our clothes separating it from me.
His hands grasp for purchase all across my body, teasing at my nipples, then gripping my hips, then squeezing my ass from behind as we walk.
I feel like I’m on air.
On a cloud, as the real sky opens above us, and a light drizzle begins to fall.
“I’m going to ruin you,” he murmurs behind my ear, the heat of his breath hitting my skin.