35. Jordan
Jordan
The sound of an unfamiliar house coming to life rouses me from a dreamless sleep.
Footsteps that aren’t mine or Orion’s pad down the hall and light streams in through the crack in the curtains.
The events of last night come back to me slowly, a fever dream that tugs at the corners of my mouth so hard I couldn’t tamp down my smile if I tried.
My God, it was amazing.
It was incredible. Unreal. Like, seriously electrifying.
As good as the sex was, it wasn’t the best part of the night for me.
Because when it was over, when we were sleepy and spent, I curled myself around Orion, and he didn’t move away.
He didn’t even sigh or try to pretend he didn’t like it.
Not even a little bit. I draped my arm over him, and he not only let me do it, but he took my hand in his, knitting our fingers together, and fell asleep holding it tightly against his chest.
He’s still holding it this morning.
It’s near his face, tucked under his chin. His eyes are closed, lashes thick and dark. His lips are parted, his bottom lip jutting out slightly more than the top one.
It’s hard to describe how much I like waking up in the same bed as him.
I watch him sleep until the sounds from downstairs get louder. From the voices I can make out, the rest of the house is awake, and we’re the only ones still in bed.
“O,” I murmur, dusting my lips along the plane of his shoulder. “I think we better get up.”
He rolls onto his back, a crease of confusion forming between his brows when he sees me.
He blinks a few times to adjust to the light and his top lip flares into a slight snarl.
The snarl evaporates as soon as he makes eye contact with me, but the hint of confusion, and something harder to read, remains.
“Are you…? Is this…?” He drops my hand like it’s hot, questions bubbling in his eyes for a moment before being replaced by a neutral gaze.
It occurs to me that it’s an expression I recognize, one I’ve seen on him often in the past, without really taking the time to wonder what he’s hiding when he does it. “We good?”
“Yes, Orion,” I say slowly and clearly. “We’re good.”
To drive the point home, I stamp my lips on the ball of his shoulder and pull him close enough to inhale him. He tenses for a second, and I can hear the cogs of his mind whirring, then he goes soft in my arms, molding himself against me.
I breathe him in deeply and let my hand wander down his body.
A loud crash on the door jolts us apart. “Wake up, assholes!” West yells cheerfully. “Breakfast’s ready and we need to move if we want to get the hike in.”
“Hike,” mouths Orion in horror. “What fucking hike?”
I don’t remember agreeing to go on a hike, or even discussing the matter in any real detail, but it is possible the topic came up last night. I definitely wasn’t doing my best focusing yesterday, at least not on anything that wasn’t Orion. Or his perfect butt.
It turns out, I’m not doing my best focusing today either. I’ve just been on a long-ass hike in the beautiful countryside with a group of good friends, and I couldn’t tell you a thing about it—except that Orion walked in front of me the entire way, wearing blue shorts with a five-inch inseam.
The second we’re back at the cabin, cleaned up and packed, I all but corral Orion into the car.
It’s not that I haven’t had a great time, or that I don’t like cabins, fresh air, or hanging out with friends.
I don’t even mind hiking, per se. It’s that if I don’t get some alone time with Orion very soon, there’s a very real chance my head is going to explode.
I’ve been keeping it together, but not by much.
To make matters worse, Sarah has asked if she can get a lift back to the city with us.
It’s fine, obviously. Sarah’s great company, and I totally get it.
She has an assignment due tomorrow, and she wants to spend some time doing a final read-through.
She takes her studies seriously, and I can’t blame her for that.
Truthfully, I could stand to learn a thing or two from her.
Having her in the back seat of the car does mean there’s no chance of me giving Orion road head though.
At first, I was hopeful that she might fall into a coma-level sleep and wouldn’t notice me unzipping O’s pants.
For the first part of the journey, I was a little bothered by the ethics of giving road head with her in the back seat, but after a while, I got so horny that the risk of crashing or getting caught stopped seeming significant.
Turns out it’s a moot point because no matter how many times I suggest she catch some shut-eye, she remains wide awake. She doesn’t talk too much or make any demands about things like music or AC. She really isn’t annoying at all, just very, very conscious.
It’s the fucking worst.
It’s torment. Torture. Agony, pain, and suffering all rolled into one.
Orion is sitting right next to me, so close that I could have my hand on his leg now if Sarah wasn’t in the car with us.
I could run my fingers along the hem of his shorts.
Play with the stitching for a while. Stroke the line that separates skin from fabric.
Since I can’t touch him, I message Kirst to distract myself.
I’m not saying you’re right, but if I did have a crush on Orion, do you think he might feel the same way about me?
Fine. You were right. I just didn’t like your tone.
But seriously, do you think he likes me back?
Do you?
Please answer ASAP. This is urgent.
After thirteen or fourteen messages of a similar ilk, Kirst finally comes online and reads my first message.
Blue checks appear on my screen, but her ability to give top-tier sisterly advice seems to be on the blink because she doesn’t type a reply.
She simply hits some of my messages with a heart and the rest with a crying-with-laughter emoji.
I don’t even know what that means.
Does he like me or not?
Please tell me right now.
Answer yes or no only.
Eventually, three dots appear, and at long last, a message pops up.
If you want to know how Orion feels, I think you’re going to have to ask him.
Ask him? Ask him? What kind of terrible advice is that?
I’m talking to Sasha about this in the future.
Sasha is my third eldest sister. She’s great.
I love her a lot. She’s terrible at replying to messages because she often starts typing, gets distracted, and forgets she hasn’t hit send.
Still, I know for a fact that if I asked her to reply to a question with a simple yes or no, she’d never tell me to ask Orion how he feels about me.
I glare at my screen, expecting a row of laughing emoji to pop up, but it doesn’t.
I love you so much, Jordy, and I’m proud of you.
Ugh, fine, I admit it. That was supportive as hell.
Love you too, Kirst.
By the time we’ve dropped Sarah at her apartment, I’m almost a hundred percent sure I’m going to burst. My chest feels all weird.
My ribs are tight, my lungs way too big.
I feel like I have a secret to tell my favorite person.
Not just a secret, a really, really good secret.
A life-changing secret. The juiciest tea ever to spill.
Tea that’s boiling, desperate to pour out of me.
It feels kind of like I’m trying to hold in a really inappropriate laugh. A belly laugh that’s so big it’s threatening to come out of my nose.
It also feels a bit like I might sneeze. Or nut.
For the past thirty minutes, I’ve done nothing but think about asking Orion if I can kiss him. I’ve thought about it so much that the words have stopped sounding like real words and have morphed into a garbled collection of letters and sounds that don’t make a lot of sense.
Can I kiss you?
No. Terrible grammar.
May I kiss you?
Is that really how people talk? In this day and age? May I? Can I? Might I?
Is it just me, or do all those options sound up my own ass?
Orion indicates and slows the car as we approach our building.
Trees and light posts flit past. A familiar facade comes into view.
The secret inside me swells. Or maybe that’s my dick.
To be fair, it could be my balls too. Either way, my palms are sweaty, and I’m severely lightheaded by the time O pulls into his parking spot in the garage.
It’s darker down here than it was outside, thick blocks of concrete lit by the blue-green flickering of halogen bulbs. The sounds of the street have been drowned out, replaced by an eerie quiet that makes my ears ring. Orion kills the engine, gets out, and opens the trunk to get our bags out.
I wipe my hands on my jeans and take several deep breaths. I open my door and scramble to my feet in time to see Orion raise his arm leisurely and slam the trunk shut.
A look passes between us, and a hint of the confusion from this morning casts a shadow that spills from his eyes and pinches his lips together.
He has a question.
I have an answer.
“Orion.” My voice clanks off the concrete around us. It’s louder than usual, and the sound of it startles me. It breaks my concentration and gives the storm of nerves gathering in my belly the opportunity to cause chaos.
Shit! Is it can I or may I?
Quick! Can I or may I?
Oh fuck, I don’t know.
I’m panicking, my breathing faint and irregular. I stay where I am and do the same thing I always do when I’m in trouble.
I turn to Orion.
“I-I want to kiss you,” I blurt out.
His reaction is instant. A sharp intake of breath. A widening of dark eyes that’s so quick it looks like he’s been pushed backward.
Hot and cold dread washes over me.
Things fall into place slowly, and in the worst possible way. Orion said he didn’t kiss when he hooked up. He said that to me weeks ago when I asked him.
He doesn’t want to kiss me.
I’m just a hookup to him.
Oh Jesus. I need to walk this back.
“I mean, only if you want to. I-I understand if you don’t want to. I get it completely. It’s no big deal.” I’m spinning out, speaking so fast that my words are running into each other. “Actually. You know what, forget I said anything.”
Orion lowers his chin fractionally, looking up at me through a forest of lashes. The outline of him is hard. Severe and unusual. It unnerves the living fuck out of me.
Neither of us moves for several long seconds.
“You want to kiss me?” His voice is nothing like it normally is. It’s deeper, for one thing, and gravelly. So sexy it sounds like something that has traveled for miles to get to me.
“I…” I swallow so painfully that I hear a loud click. I know I should take it back. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. I can’t, though, because even though he looks nothing like my friend right now, I can’t lie to him. “I, yeah, I want to.”
He looks so unfamiliar that I’m unnerved. His eyes have gone black, liquid shadows rippling through them menacingly, and the sinews in his neck are tensed hard.
He’s holding both of our kit bags from the cabin. His hangs on one shoulder, mine dangles from a hand.
He drops his bag onto the ground first, shrugging offhandedly to shake it off, just hard enough to make the strap fall from his shoulder. He unclenches his hand and drops mine next. It lands at his side near his feet.
He doesn’t look down at it. His eyes are fixed on me.
My heart beats in my throat. A loud drum that echoes through every inch of my body, and I watch Orion with an intensity I’ve never watched anyone with. An intensity I didn’t know existed before now.
When he starts moving, he does so like someone with the ability to move through time. To slice through it and carve it up into something different. To walk through dreams, lucid and languid, changing them without leaving a trace.
His right arm sways. His torso curves. His hips, knees, and ankles work in perfect concert with each other to propel him toward me.
By the time he reaches me, there’s no air in my lungs.
His hand is outstretched, fingers tensed and splayed open.
The look in his eyes is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
It’s so dark, so heated, so haunted and burned, it would scare me if I saw it on anyone else.
His hand floats through the air, getting so close to my face that it dips out of my field of vision. A split second later, I feel it.
It’s on me.
He’s taken my jaw in his hand and he’s holding it firmly. Very firmly.
I see a flash of enamel and a slow curl of lips.
I can’t feel my legs.
The hand on my jaw squeezes hard, possessively, steering me closer and closer toward him. He tilts my head to the side, not a lot, just a little, just enough, and then tilts his own in the opposite direction.
He moves closer slowly, in increments that age me and give me life.
It’s a kiss that blazes into existence. A kiss with a life of its own.
A kiss that exists outside this realm, where things like breathing are necessary.
It cleaves me open. Breaks me apart and leaves me panting.
It’s a kiss that starts roughly, like it was born after a long, grueling fight.
It’s hungry and desperate, but it pivots quickly and slows into something unbelievably lovely.
Orion’s hands rake through my hair as he dips his tongue into my mouth.
His fingers caging my skull and making it so that even though I’m paralyzed from the neck down, I stay on my feet because he’s here, and he has me.
I open my mouth, offering him my tongue.
He accepts it and claims it, taking it into his mouth like it’s something that’s always belonged to him.