Chapter 6 #2
Her cheekbones are sharp, her jawline is impeccable, and when she follows the cobblestone pathway toward the fountain, I see her face is modelesque.
It could be the lighting, but I don’t think so.
Her skin is flawless, dark brows perfectly arched, her lips full and red.
I don’t think she’s wearing makeup and as she gets closer, I note her lashes are thick and long and I’m not sure she’s got extensions.
I used to wear them but I got tired of the grow out in between appointments.
But it’s her eyes that are the most striking.
Emerald-green, a shade that doesn’t leave any room for speculation about hazel.
She’s beautiful.
And she’s staring right at me.
I offer an uncertain smile, but despite the dimples in her cheeks, she doesn’t return it. As she jogs by, within touching distance, so close I can scent the dark notes of her perfume, the look she gives me is bone chilling. Piercing eyes, lips pressed together, a muscle in her jaw ticks.
Then she’s gone.
Jogging into the mist creeping up in the distance, so far now she could be nothing but a dark angel or a mirage.
I shiver in my hoodie and realize my hand is cramping because of how tightly I’m holding my phone.
And when I look down, I see a new text.
It’s from Storm.
Before I unlock my screen to read it, I look up once more, but the woman is gone.
Stormy
Where are you?
I frown at that. Something about the tone I’m reading into, and the woman passing by, and the fact it’s before sunrise, it unnerves me.
I hunch my shoulders in and text Storm back without attitude; not how I’d usually respond if he sent me something like that, all up in my business.
Just got done at the gym, why?
I look for the woman again, but all I see is darkness along the edge of campus, trees and forests and the mountain ranges in the far distance, the sun somewhere back there giving a sliver of light to see them by.
My phone lights up and I look down, reading Storm’s text.
Stormy
Where EXACTLY are you?
I grit my teeth.
Watch your tone.
Stormy
Sloane.
It feels like a warning, the way he types my name.
The tiger fountain, outside of the gym.
Storm
Don’t move.
I lift my head up and look around. Don’t move? What the hell? He’s implying he’s coming here or something which doesn’t make any sense.
Paranoia starts to seep under my skin.
I think of Remi, the way she’d wake up crying from her sleep a couple of years ago.
She went through something horrific with Storm and Cortland.
I think they’re good people, despite it all, but the way I feel right now, I wonder if she healed from it.
The sensation that your chest is caving in and your thoughts are on a loop and you want to crawl out of your own skin.
I feel it now. It’s worse when I haven’t slept. I used to have it all the time in high school.
I get to my feet despite Storm’s words, my chest heaving.
I scuff one lavender sneaker against the brick, then the other, shifting from foot to foot. Where are you, Storm? Is he even coming? And why?
There’s no one else out here. I spin around, scanning my surroundings, like I should’ve done before I closed my eyes at this bench. But nothing happened to me, so I’m okay, right?
I sit back down and bounce my thigh, waiting.
In my head, I hear my parents screaming at each other and I tense, going rigid. Then I crane my neck this way and that, looking for a threat.
Nothing.
I don’t see—
There.
A dark figure coming from the opposite direction of the gym, the same area the woman disappeared into.
This person is in all black too, but they’re bigger, taller.
My heart leaps to my throat. I hear a bird caw in the distance and I stand again, then take a step back from the approaching figure.
Even the hum of the fountain can’t drown out my rapid pulse now.
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, bumping against my two front teeth, and try to relax. Ely is safe, isn’t it? I know there’s crime in Ellicottville like anywhere, but we’re good here, aren’t we? I’ve never been hurt on campus. Never really had any bizarre situation.
The figure saunters closer from the mist.
Then I see Storm Leary’s dark hair, his black clothes, his gaze fixed fully on mine, and relief, warm and relaxing, spears through my body.
I almost sink down to sit on the bench again but I pull myself together enough to stay upright.
I slip my phone into the pocket of my sweats and fold my arms over my chest, hugging myself.
He gets closer, and I can see the blue of the hoop in his nose. From this distance, though, his eyes look dark. I know they’re not, it’s the low light, but with his full lips and the tattoo on his neck and the ones down his fingers, he’s eerie.
A shadow more than a man.
When he’s a step away, I catch his scent, the same one that enveloped me on the couch over the weekend when he held me close.
Are you a monster, Storm Leary, or are you more?
He lifts his dark brows, almost as if he read my mind. I’m whatever you want me to be.
But those phantom words are just my daydreams talking.
Because when he gets close enough, he looks down his nose at me, scans my entire body, then meets my gaze again, and he doesn’t say anything I want him to say.
He doesn’t say anything at all.
A muscle in his throat moves, then I see his pulse beating at the blue vein in his neck. I have the wild urge to lick it, to fuck him, and I wonder if he’d imagine me being so deviant. Most guys don’t. Most guys aren’t.
But his lips around my finger were so hot and he was so hard and—
“When you left your apartment this morning,” his cold voice breaks into my fantasy, “did you notice anything on your doorstep?”
I blink a few times and hug myself tighter. As close as we are, my forearms almost graze his core, but he doesn’t touch me.
It takes me a second to think through his question, because it doesn’t make any sense.
“No,” I finally answer him as he tilts his head, watching me. His eyes dart down to my lips, then back up. “Why?” Panic squeezes tight around my throat.
“Are you hungry?” he asks instead of answering me.
“Storm,” I say, mimicking the tone I’ve heard Heather use many times when she wants an answer out of someone. A disapproving voice; directed at me, too, but Henry most often. “Why are you asking me that, and why are you here?”
He doesn’t look away from me and he doesn’t blink. “Are you hungry or are you not?”
I clench my teeth and narrow my eyes. I swear I see a bone in his jaw jump, like he’s fighting back a smile. “No. But I could use some espresso.”
He nods once, then he turns his back on me.
I don’t follow him.
I won’t.
But without looking at me, he extends his hand behind his back, palm up, like he wants me to take it.
Butterflies tap dance in my low belly.
And he melts through my pretend defenses.
I take a breath, knowing I’m fucked, then I take his hand, and he closes his fingers around mine to pull me beside him.
Together, hand in hand, we walk into the mist.