10. Mal #2
Has been since the moment I met him. But that night, I also fought the urge to sweep that enigmatic stranger into my arms and hold him close. To shield him from whatever the fuck was causing him so much pain. And I feel that compulsion again now.
I feel it more .
Skylar’s hand slips from my arm.
I catch it and lace our fingers together.
He almost resists.
Almost .
But he lets it happen, and I shift onto my side too, our clasped hands between us, eyes locked, breaths in sync.
I haven’t held anyone’s hand since Vinnie died in my arms. None but Skylar’s. But though my heart thrums so loud I think I must be fucking dying, this is nothing like the night I lost Vin.
Skylar has his sleeves pushed up, his inked forearms bare to the cool night, lean, corded muscle on full display. Or it would be, if I could tear my gaze from his eyes and let it wander.
But I can’t. I’m ensnared by him. Transfixed. And in a world as fucked-up as mine has been for too many years to count, this moment is kind of perfect.
It’s timeless.
I stare at him for hours. For days . I forget that no night lasts forever, even this one, and stillness presses down on us, forcing us both to sink with it.
Wrapped in mine, his hand warms up.
I shift a little closer, forcing my body heat on him.
Skylar takes a slow breath, his only reaction to the current crackling between us, and I wonder if he might sleep.
If I might. But that current…it’s a loaded gun.
I can’t ignore it, neither can he, and the quiet grows heavy, tension building with each parched inhale.
Too close .
Me.
Him.
Definitely me. It’s his fucking room. His bed . But the iron will that’s kept me alive long enough to be here with him picks the wrong side, and I don’t even try to make myself move.
My grip on him tightens. Skylar’s gaze flashes to our clasped hands, a faint tremor wracking his fingers, a low sound of frustration spilling through his clenched jaw.
“Get out of my room.”
A plea, not an order.
And the devil in me answers. “No.”
Skylar makes that sound again. Then he strikes with no warning, and we collide , tension imploding, debris flying in its wake, the fuse planted in the roots of us finally burned out.
Heat and breath.
His mouth.
Mine.
We crash together, and it’s not soft. It’s not careful. It’s not sweet.
It’s need .
Tongue and teeth. And I feel every nuance of it shoot through my nerves.
Not sure if I haul him there, but Skylar winds up over me, his chest to mine, free hand tangled in my shirt, fisting the fabric.
I slide my own up his bare spine and grip the tousled hair at the nape of his neck, tilting his head to bite at his lips, and another tight sound escapes him.
Like he’s barely holding on, and fuck , if I don’t know how that feels.
That sound. It does something to me. Something wild. Arousal rockets through me and I surge up, tipping him onto his back, pinning him with my weight, knowing, like I always have, that he might try and kill me for it.
But he doesn’t. Skylar arches his spine, his slim hips lifting from the bed, the hardness in his faded sweats seeking the stone column in my shorts, and it’s me who groans this time.
Me who can’t keep the strangled noise contained, when I’ve spent my entire adult life training and honing myself to be utterly fucking silent.
The friction is killer. Too much and light years from being enough. I want more. I need more. I want inside him. I want him inside me , a desire that should startle some coherent thought into my brain. It’s been fucking years since I’ve let someone fuck me.
But that doesn’t happen either. I kiss Skylar harder, ravaging his mouth, weathering the fierceness he gives off in return, fucking revelling in it, chasing the rush through every door he kicks open for us.
Every almost moment we’ve shared has led to this—to this dam breaking, and I’m here for every shred of destruction as we kiss and kiss and kiss, as if it’s the last time as well as the first. As we claw at each other, rough and bruising, all skin and breath, and broken pieces that still somehow fit.
Fuck.
Fuck .
Alarm bells finally sound in my head, blaring through the fiery haze in the same moment Skylar rips his mouth from mine and shoves me off.
Panting.
Wild-eyed.
Lips savaged and swollen.
I know I look the same.
The space he’s forced between us hums with the energy of a minefield. Of an open battleground. But my body buzzes like we’re still connected, and Skylar…he licks his lips. Like he wants it all over again.
Like he wants it harder .
I want that too. All of it. But more simmers beneath the surface. So much more. And for the first time, it truly scares me. Like a buried deep part of me knows I won’t survive the most earth-shattering kiss I’ve ever experienced being the first and last we’ll ever share.
Distance.
I need it, we both do, and Skylar’s voice cuts through the clattering silence, low and wrecked with the same despair I’m starting to feel.
“Get out of my room.”
I rise, turn my back on Skylar, and walk out, and if I’m dizzy for any reason other than him, I don’t fucking know about it.
I’m in my own room before I truly know what’s hit me. My window is wide open and the weather’s darkened even more while I’ve been holed up in his room, on his bed, my fucking mouth on his like it has any business being there.
I laugh without sound or humour. Bitter wind whips in from the sea, an echo of sorts, and I find myself wondering if I’m even awake right now.
If I’m even alive. Skylar is most fantasies I’ve ever had come true, at least the ones that didn’t centre around Vinnie.
It makes sense that he’s not real. That none of this is, and I never woke up from the bomb blast in Syria.
My heart thunders. I press my palm to it, willing the static in my ears to fuck off. Drunk on Skylar, I can’t tell if it’s PTSD or Afib bullshit, and I’m so sick of fucking acronyms I want to scream.
The feeling—the hysteria—is fleeting. I’m good at controlling my emotions.
At pushing them down and down and down until they disappear, even if logic tells me they’ll be back to haunt me when I’m least prepared for it.
I take a breath, cataloguing surroundings that are, by now, familiar enough that it doesn’t take long.
The wind seeps into me, cooling me down, and as my eyes fall closed, it begins to rain.
Really fucking rain, shattering any chance of peace.
But I don’t mind the racket. Quiet’s no fun when I’m alone.
I open my eyes and pull the window in a little. Not closed, but no longer open enough to let the unhinged Cornish downpour soak my bed. I need that fucking shower, but I’m suddenly really fucking tired, and I stagger to my bed instead and sink down, dropping my head low.
My pulse pounds in my ears, fast and loud.
It’s not scary—it shouldn’t be, I know what it is.
But the sharp thud kicking the shit out of my ribcage disturbs me.
It makes me think of the worst time it happened.
It makes me think of Vinnie all over again and I can’t catch my breath without seeing the life fade from his eyes.
Get a fucking grip.
I lose my t-shirt for something to do. Tug it off and toss it with cold sweat slinking down my neck.
My phone lies on the bedside table. I pick it up and swipe the screen for no reason I can think off, expecting a whole heap of nothing.
But a missed call greets me—a number I plumbed into the phone before I even got here.
A number that if I’d dialled it the night I met Skylar, would’ve rung in his fucking hand.
He called me .
Six hours ago.
I stare at the notification, a phenomenon that’s still new to me, and my feral heartbeat starts to slow.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why Skylar called me. For my brother . Sol knew Jack would fret when the waves kept us out at sea longer than expected and his own phone gave up the ghost.
But despite the vague thread of common sense that drove me out of Skylar’s room and into my own, despite the sensation of his literal shove still imprinted on my skin, I like that I was on his mind.
It makes the fact that he’s always on mine easier to bear.