27. Mallory
Chapter 27
Mallory
I've been looking for Maggie. I went to the last place I saw her, those plastic beach chairs. Cold panic set in the longer I looked.
There was a scream, and it drew me here.
To this bathroom on the far end of the water park, shaded by fake palm trees, beside a Sno-Cone hut with a Closed sign hanging unevenly.
I push my way through the small crowd blocking the entrance to the bathroom, women in shorts and one-piece swimsuits, some turning away to cover their children's eyes.
The tile floor of the bathroom is old. Cracked. Worn from years of parkgoers. The smell inside is unpleasant, like the chemicals they use in the water but also of sulphur from the drains.
Three stalls, and a fourth at the end, larger than the others. Door flung open.
My heart and my stomach drop out of me, replaced by sickening dread.
Don't let it be Maggie. Don't let it be Maggie.
Hot pink shorts come into view first. A lime green swimsuit. A neck with red, angry marks. The sweetness vanished from her eyes.
My Maggie is gone.
I drop to my knees and scream. The same women who shielded their children's eyes pull me away. One drags me back, she is tall and strong, and she presses my face to her chest, covers my ear with her palm. The whispers, the shouts, they muffle. Drowned out by my silent screaming.
I wake with a start. Press a hand to my belly. It grounds me, reminds me where I am.
The seconds tick by. My bladder becomes insistent now, as does the dryness in my throat. It's as if my body is saying you're alive, and you have needs.
Rolling over, I push myself up to seated. My phone lies on the nightstand, and I tap the screen. It illuminates, showing me the time. 1:17.
I pad sleepily to the bathroom, take care of my bladder first. Quietly I walk to the kitchen for a glass of water. A motion sensor night-light flickers on as I walk down the hall, and I'm grateful for it. The full moon from a few nights ago has disappeared, and the night outside is an endless black shot through with stars.
The kitchen is dark, and I pause at the threshold, getting my bearings. Behind me, the motion sensor night-light goes out. My eyes adjust, and I see the outline of a figure near the sink.
"Hey," Hugo says, sleep curling into his deep voice.
"Hi," I answer. The room is coming into focus now. Outlines of appliances, the window over the sink, the fruit bowl on the island laden with crisp green apples.
"Are you thirsty?" Hugo asks. He doesn't wait for my answer, he's already moving for the fridge. He opens it, and it bathes the front of his body in light.
My throat, already dry, now rivals the sandy desert in the distance. Hugo wears nothing but shorts, and his body is something someone would paint. Long muscles, shaped and chiseled. I can't see everything in full relief, but the light illuminates just enough to make it hard to see anything but him. He turns away with a bottle of water, and the light disappears with the close of the door.
Hugo reaches me in two strides, hands me the bottle. I open it and sip. Hugo steps away, leaning over a section of the kitchen counter. He pushes a dimmer switch, and now a faint light stretches from underneath the cabinets. Low, but enough that I can see the way his eyes rake over my body. I'm wearing my nightgown, a slip of red silk. It's not lined in lace with a slit up the thigh or anything overtly sexy like that, but it's comfortable and loose and most importantly, not what I was wearing when the creep took pictures of me. I saved the yellow pajamas, just in case, but I will never wear them again. A shame too, because they were new.
"Couldn't sleep?" Hugo asks, his gaze finally landing on my face. A warm glow spreads through me, knowing he was drinking me in. I want to be what quenches him.
He leans back against the lip of the counter, crossing his arms. The stance makes his biceps pop, his shoulders flex.
It makes me need to cross my legs.
"I had a bad dream," I answer. "You?"
"Same," he responds. "Do you have bad dreams often?"
"A few times a year," I confess.
"Me too," he answers. "The same dream?"
I nod. "You?"
"They differ, but it's the same handful on rotation."
We fall quiet. We've confessed what keeps us up at night, but neither of us feel the need to describe it, because we already know. It is a dubious honor to understand one another this well.
"Do you want a hug?" Hugo asks.
I hadn't thought to want a hug. To even need one. I've been shouldering my grief and pain and sadness alone for a long time. In the beginning, I wanted hugs. To be held and soothed. Over time, that stopped. I wasn't getting it, and I learned to survive without it.
Hugo's offer brings that need screaming to the surface, makes me realize it was there all along, unmet and never truly going away.
"Yes," I whisper, setting my water on the counter and taking a step toward him. He pushes off the counter, meets me more than halfway. He doesn't slow or stop, falter or question. He wraps me up, pulls me against his chest. My arms wind around his back, his hand works up into my hair, cradles my head. His other hand splays against my back, holding me in place .
We stay that way, silent and unmoving. Breathing one another in. Relaxing into each other. It's the best hug of my life.
A tiny moan escapes me. My eyes blink open, and I open my mouth to blame it on my exhaustion, but there's a rumble in Hugo's chest. His throat. He's groaning, too.
And then his fingers move in my hair. The tiniest contraction. A second moan from me.
Involuntary, I swear.
He does it again, almost a massage. A tiny sound in my throat, as if he holds a switch and flips it. My hands on his back begin to move. A faint touch over his smooth, muscled skin.
Higher, to his shoulders. His neck, my fingers curling, nails lightly scratching.
A deeper groan from Hugo, reaching between my legs.
These touches are soothing, and stoking the flames that flickered to life that first day we met. The flames we've been denying ever since.
Hugo's face dips, lips pressing against the middle of my forehead. He is hard and thick against my hip.
This is it. The precipice. We both know it. Neither of us expected the other person. He was doing his own thing in Summerhill. I was navigating life in Phoenix. But were either of us really living?
Is that what we're doing now? Waking up? Living? Were we waiting on each other, needing one another to awaken the other?
"Mallory," Hugo says, agony twisting my name .
"Hmm?"
"I'm unbelievably close to kissing you."
"I'm even closer to letting you."
He spins me around, lifts me like I weigh nothing, and sets me on the kitchen counter. Without a thought, I open my legs, allow him to step between. He gazes at me, dark brown on dark brown, the understated glow from the light revealing the need in our eyes.
Hugo reaches for me, hand landing on my collarbone, gliding up my neck. He fingers my jaw, positioning my face. Another tiny moan from me.
"Those fucking moans," he whispers. "They're killing me."
"So many more where those came from," I taunt.
He growls, something low and animal and so sexy it makes me swallow. My hands find his shoulders, and he reaches around my back with his free hand, hauling me flush against him. Now my center is pressed against his rows and rows of abs, and it's everything I can do to not get greedy. I'm dying to grind against him. I wore underwear because it felt indecent to sleep in someone's guest bed without them. Now I'd be lying if I said there isn't a little part of me that wished I hadn't.
Hugo's face hovers closer to mine, and I tip mine up, offering. He obliges, dipping lower, lips touching mine at long last.
Fire. That's what I feel. A zinging electricity, shooting out to my limbs. Our lips move, pressing and yielding, and I hold onto his shoulders while his tongue parts my lips. A groan from both of us .
We kiss and kiss, taking sips of air when necessary, but we don't let up. He holds me close, and there is such sweetness to it. I know this kiss must end, but I never want it to.
We slow, tongues receding, but I nip his lower lip gently, sucking it into my mouth to soothe. It elicits a frustrated growl from him. He likes that.
We part, gazing at each other once again. Coming full circle. I prop my hands behind myself, steadying me. Hugo's gaze drops to the edge of the counter, where he stands between my legs. More specifically, where my center presses to his stomach. His eyes move over the small space, a lazy perusal, followed by a deep breath.
"We should probably go back to bed," he chokes out.
I know what I'll be doing the second I hit those sheets, and it won't be sleeping.
"Yeah," I wheeze.
Hugo steps back, helps me off the counter. I grab my bottle of water, the only reason I came out here. Hugo slides the lights off, and then I feel his hand on the small of my back, and I shiver at the memory of his lips on mine. He guides me down the hall, and that motion sensor light illuminates.
We pause at the guest room door, and I look up at him. Muscled and tousled and so handsome it hurts. I want to keep making him feel good. I want him to do the same to me.
He grips the top of the doorframe. Looks down at me. His muscles pop, and I die a thousand hot and sex-starved deaths .
"Mallory..." he says, having no knowledge of the way I'm melting on the inside.
I'm already shaking my head, and he stops to let me talk. "Don't say that was a mistake."
A pleased smile tugs up one corner of his mouth. "Never. I was going to tell you that was the best kiss I've ever had."
I smile, too. Unabashedly. "Me, too."
He leans down. Brushes a kiss on my forehead. "Get some rest, Beautiful."
I practically purr. "Right back at you, Handsome."
Two minutes later with a hand between my legs, I lie in bed and envision him down the hall, doing the same.