Chapter 4 #2
I’ve smelled the bacon and eggs and biscuits he’s made at Remi’s before. But I just say, “Can you roll sushi?”
He ignores that. “Did he kiss you?”
I roll my eyes as a girl giggles from the movie. “I’m not doing this with you. If you want to interrogate me, you can leave. I’m tired, and my stomach hurts, and you’re annoying me.” I turn away from him and fold my arms over my chest, sinking lower on the couch.
There’s a group of teenagers on a picnic blanket at a cemetery in the dark, a few lanterns around them for light.
They’re leaning in close, all six of them, whispering spooky stories to one another.
A cooler which must have drinks in it based on their red plastic cups is behind one of the kids, and they seem giddy with nerves and excitement, smiles stretched on their tipsy faces.
But in the middle of one of them telling their story—it sounds a lot like the plot to I Know What You Did Last Summer—a gunshot goes off.
I flinch, but not from the sound.
At my side, Storm is at his feet, and he has a…gun in his fucking hand.
What the fuck?
He’s staring at the TV, but the gun is pointed up, at the ceiling, his tattooed fingers wrapped around the barrel, one light on the trigger.
What. The. Fuck.
The kids start screaming on TV and my chest is heaving, my pulse flaring, and I open my mouth to tell him to put the fucking gun away but I can’t speak and when he turns to me, his eyes are so wide, all words seem to leave my brain.
I take a breath in through my nose, trying to calm my heart rate and find my voice. “Storm,” I finally manage to say.
He blinks once. Then he glances at the gun in his hand as if he doesn’t quite remember how it got there. Slowly, he takes his finger from the trigger, then he sets the gun on the coffee table, aimed away from us. But he doesn’t sit.
“Storm,” I say again, and his gaze comes back to mine. “Why did you bring a gun into my apartment?” I feel like it’s one of those things you should ask before you do. You know, etiquette. Especially since it’s only us here. Why would he need a weapon?
I know his family dabbles in weird shit and Remi told me he apparently deals drugs but I’ve never seen any evidence of it and I’d rather not be a part of it. One of many reasons this is nothing, despite what feels like chemistry between us.
He brushes his fingers over the sides of his head, through his black hair. “Sorry,” he says as he drops his arms to his sides. “I just…”
“Thought you’d need to murder someone at my place?”
He looks right at me and without missing a beat, he says, “Yeah. The fucker who took you on a date.”
For one second, as he holds my gaze, I feel a chill of fear for Dax. It’s silly, because he’s not here, and Storm doesn’t even know his name, and besides all of that, Storm doesn’t care.
And all I can think to say is, “Shut the fuck up.” Because he’s scaring me, because I’m annoyed he brought a gun, because he doesn’t care about anything. Does he?
He smiles. A rare Storm smile which isn’t eerie. A dimple pops in his cheeks, his teeth show, straight with sharp, pointed canines.
“Make me,” he says.
And I don’t know why I do it, or what I’m thinking, but my body is full of nervous energy I lunge across the couch and wrap both my arms around his middle. Then I use my bodyweight to drag him back and down.
He easily comes on top of me, and he’s a hell of a lot taller and weighs more based on the crushing feeling I get underneath him.
The scent of him is sexy and when he’s got both hands planted on the couch on either side of my head and he’s looking down at me and my arms are still around his middle and we’re staring at one another in darkness as the actors breathe heavily on TV…
I want to fuck him and I don’t care the couch is white and I’m on my period; it’ll wipe off anyway, it’s real leather. And this doesn’t have to mean anything. I fuck boys for fun now; he should probably know that about me.
His eyes search mine and I see the muscles of his triceps bulge out of the corner of my eye but I don’t look away from him.
“This didn’t work out how you thought it would, huh?” he whispers in the dark.
I flex my fingers and my nails find the hard muscles of his back. “What are we doing?”
“You keep looking at me like that, and I know exactly what we’ll be doing.” There’s an underlying threat, and like everything he says, the words are injected with a gravity which is hard to play off.
“Storm.”
“Sloane.”
I part my lips but I don’t know what I’m going to say and it doesn’t seem to matter anyway because he dives down and angles his head, his lips a breath away from mine.
“Kiss me,” he whispers over my mouth.
“No.” I don’t know why I don’t. It’s not like I don’t kiss boys I feel less for. But something about tonight feels too heavy. The fact he’s here, and not with Cort and Remi. The fact he brought a weapon…
“Sloane.” He says my name again, but it sounds needier.
My eyes flutter closed and I trace my fingers up his spine, over his hard shoulder blades, up his throat, his skin hot, all the way to his face. I cup his sharp cheekbones in my palms, and I still don’t look at him as I run my thumbs over his lips, parted and wet for me.
“Sloane.” It’s a guttural sound, then he turns his head and bites my thumb, only to suck it in his mouth the next second.
A gasp escapes me, but I don’t dare open my eyes.
His mouth is so hot and wet and he’s sucking my finger so good and… He bites me again, gently, then he speaks against my hand. “Kiss me or push me away. Please.” He shifts his hips, and his cock is hard against my core. Maybe I could give in.
He rubs himself against me again and my thighs fall open wider. He dips his head, and his lips are on my neck when he groans once more. “Please.”
One word.
It nearly undoes me.
But thinking of him seeing all my blood and getting it all over us both and the couch and our clothes…
I press my palm to his chest and I’m surprised his heart is beating so wildly. I know he’s turned on, and he wants to fuck me, but something about his pulse sounds frantic.
“No, Storm.” I say it quietly, and I still keep my eyes closed.
He freezes above me.
I think of Remi and Cortland and him. What happened between all of them, and the heartbeat of fear is back.
But Remi lives with him, with her baby, and she wouldn’t if she didn’t think he was safe.
After less than a heartbeat, he slides down my body a little, then rests his head on my chest, his arms bracketing me, his face turned toward the back of the couch. I don’t know why, but it comes naturally to me to wrap my arms around him and slide my fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp.
His body, so rigid before, seems to deflate, relaxing entirely into me. He’s so heavy and it’s kind of hard to breathe, but I don’t want him off me.
I hold him tight with one arm and scratch his head with my nails with the other, and I let my eyes stay closed.
Silence settles between us, low music playing from the movie running without anyone watching.
Peaceful.
After everything that happened in what was probably five minutes, this, by contrast, is peace.
He’s never laid on me. I hugged him once, but that’s as far as it’s gone.
This feels almost more intimate than sex. Like he needs me for some reason.
I wonder why he seems so tired. So panicked.
So…stressed.
And now he seems to feel so safe here. With me.
“Sloane,” he says, his lips moving against my ribcage, where my crop top has shifted up thanks to his warm body.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to move now or I never will. You’re going to lay in front of me. And I’m going to rub your back. I promise I won’t try to fuck you.”
I smile at that, holding him closer to me. But I feel a little hurt too. Why doesn’t he want to try and fuck me? I know I said no, but I still want him to want it.
I’m damn sure not going to turn down a back rub though. “Okay.”
Slowly, he gets up and I force my eyes open in the darkness. Our gazes don’t meet, and we rearrange ourselves how he wanted, my ass to his hips, I’m propped up on an elbow, he has one arm beneath me, holding me close, and with the other, he starts to knead my muscles.
Fuck.
It feels so good.
I don’t say a word as I let my eyes drop closed again, then slowly turn my forearm so I’m resting on it instead of having my elbow up.
He digs deep into my muscles, moving from my shoulders to my neck, then down again.
I zone out, relaxed now so long as I avoid looking at the handgun on the table.
“Don’t leave all night,” I mumble, and my heart skips a beat when I realize I said it out loud.
He runs his fingers up my neck, digging the strong joints into my cramped muscles there, and I have to bite my bottom lip to stop from groaning. “All night?” he asks me quietly.
“Yes,” I whisper, losing myself to his touch. It’s the closest thing to a non-sexual orgasm I’ve probably ever had.
“You sure you want me to stay?”
The hairs on my scalp seem to prickle as he massages me deeper. “Yes.”
He closes his hand around the front of my throat and I suck in a breath, but the gesture is just for a moment, then it’s gone, and he’s back to giving me the best back rub I’ve ever had in my life.
The butterflies in my stomach float lower, but I don’t give in.
“I won’t leave, honey,” he whispers in the dark.
“Do you call all the girls that?” I mumble, and I’m pretty sure I have drool on my arm.
“What? Honey?” He scoffs. “Absolutely not. I’d never get laid if I did.”
I keep talking, things I’d never say if I wasn’t in the twilight zone between sleep and waking. “And do you…” I clear my throat. “Get laid a lot?”
He keeps kneading my flesh, but he doesn’t speak for a second. I shouldn’t have asked. We aren’t anything. I’m free to fuck who I want and so is he. We’re barely even friends.
“Go to sleep, Sloane,” he finally says, and I assume the worst, but this feels like the best, so I don’t move and I don’t kick him and his stupid gun out.