Chapter 16 #2
Of course, we aren’t together and he doesn’t owe me anything and maybe he’d just bail if someone came knocking on my door who shouldn’t be there but…I don’t think so. I meant what I told Storm. He seems…honorable. Although the way he’s touching me right now, maybe I could make him less than that.
“It’ll be boring,” I tell him. Even though I want to have sex, I don’t want him to expect we’re hooking up. It’s not my house. My little brother will be there. And who knows when my parents will come back.
“I don’t mind,” Dax says, and the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, I think he means it. His finger edges beneath the hem of my skirt but in a playful way. A way I like. “I’ll get us a cab, you tell Tyli bye or she’ll be very displeased, then we can go?”
I bite my bottom lip as I stare at him.
I want to fuck you.
His hand smooths down my skirt, then I feel his fingers on my thighs. I let my knees fall apart, wanting to go, but wanting him inside of me, too.
Henry will be okay for an hour, won’t he?
Dax trails his fingers to the edge of my lilac lace underwear and I breathe in hard, my chest heaving as I hold his gaze.
“Please.” It’s a breath of a word.
“Please?” he repeats in a softly mocking tone. He runs his entire hand over me, the thin fabric between us.
“Yes, please, Dax.” I widen my knees more and he smiles at me, teasing in his eyes.
“Are you wet, Sloane?”
“Find out,” I dare him. My phone is still balanced on my core but as my inhales and exhales grow shorter, more frantic, I wonder if it’ll fall off.
“Lift your shirt,” Dax orders me.
I slide one hand up the edge of my crop top and pull it higher, and higher, then I dip my fingers under the unlined cups of my lavender bralette and pull both it and my top up, exposing my hard nipple to him, the other still covered.
“Fuck,” Dax whispers, running his hand over me, taunting me. “Pinch your nipple.”
My body is hot all over at his command, at his eyes on me, roaming over every inch. I cup my breast, then draw out my pink nipple, watching him watch me.
“Harder.” It’s a directive. I didn’t expect that from him but I like it.
It makes me need him. “Finger me first,” I tell him.
He lightly slaps me over my underwear and I flinch, then do exactly as he said. I twist my nipple enough to hurt and he slips his fingers beneath the side of my underwear and he’s right there, right at my clit, his bottom lip between his teeth when I hear a familiar voice.
“God, Sloane, you listen so well, baby.”
I suck in a breath as Dax moves his hand and turns, his body partially shielding mine. My phone is still balanced precariously over my low belly, one hand on my nipple, the other keeping my shirt up.
And I see Storm Leary, even over Dax’s head, his pale gaze sweeping over my body as he pinches a cigarette between his fingers and inhales.
The smell of nicotine fills the air between us and I should move.
Cover myself. Sit up. But I’m motionless, and my brain is warring inside my head: I’m not doing anything wrong, and what the fuck is Storm doing here in the first place?
“Can I help you?” Dax asks, the nearly-empty bottle of vodka clenched tighter in his fingers as he holds it by the neck.
Storm exhales smoke through his nose as he smiles, but not at Dax. That cold expression is all for me. “Yeah,” Storm says lazily. He slowly rakes his gaze from me to Dax. “You can get the fuck out of my way.”
Dax bristles, his shoulders tense as he lifts his chin. He’s not quite as tall as Storm but he doesn’t back down, either. “I think we’re good right here,” Dax says, his voice angry. “Find somewhere else to be a fucking creep.”
Storm smiles again, flashing his teeth. He takes one more drag from the cigarette, then exhales this time through his mouth, right in Dax’s face.
Dax doesn’t flinch.
My thighs are still wide and my body is tense and I need to get home to Henry but when I open my mouth, I find I’m not sure what to say.
Storm keeps smiling, those two sharp canines noticeable even in the night.
Then he moves so fast I don’t understand what’s happening at first.
He has his arm around Dax’s neck, drawing him in as if for a twisted hug, and Dax is forced to bend one knee, practically leaning into Storm’s chest to balance himself, his cheek pressed to Storm’s black shirt.
The bottle of vodka still sways from one hand but with the other, Dax tries to press Storm back, but Storm easily holds him close.
Storm’s blue eyes meet mine, and as he holds Dax close in the macabre embrace, he lowers the lit cigarette in his hand to Dax’s face.
No. My lips form the word but it’s not audible. I know Storm understood it all the same because he tilts his head with that strange smile growing wider. Then, never looking away from me as Dax struggles, he presses the burning tip of the cigarette to Dax’s cheek, right underneath his eye.
My stomach jumps beneath my hand, twisting into knots.
Dax makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a plea, and Storm doesn’t let up with the cigarette.
Then I watch Dax swing his arm, the one holding the liquor bottle, but Storm drops the now dead cigarette and catches the bottle easily, flipping it in his hand so he’s holding it upside down, by the neck, like a weapon.
He steps forward, still holding Dax, then hits the bottle against the edge of the bench opposite from where I’m lying. The glass shatters and Storm shifts their positions so they’re facing me sideways, and the edge of the jagged glass is on my thigh.
I freeze with the feel of it and Dax stops struggling in Storm’s arms.
“Now,” he says to Dax, no longer looking at me. “You’re going to listen to what I have to say, or I’m going to make sure you can never fuck her, do you understand?”
Dax’s eyes dart to mine and I see true fear in his gaze, but he doesn’t say anything. He obliges though by staying completely still in his twisted headlock.
“Lift up your hand,” Storm says, no emotion in his tone.
Dax starts to lift his hand that held the bottle, but Storm glides the glass over my bare thigh and my muscles jump.
“No,” Storm says. “The one that touched her.”
I have a queasy feeling in my belly, but I still don’t move. It’s like Storm controls all of us. We’re just puppets on his strings.
Dax says, “Man, look, I don’t want any trouble—”
“Oh,” Storm cuts him off. “You’re already in that, buddy.”
Dax swallows hard, the sound audible in the night, then he slides his hand up between where Storm is holding him close, so that his bicep is pressed to Storm’s chest and his fingers are right by Storm’s mouth.
Storm glides the jagged glass over my skin and I think I’ll have light scratch marks.
But he doesn’t stop as he looks at me and, fully intent on my face, he opens his mouth, and sucks on two of Dax’s fingers. Two that touched my clit.
My face feels like it’s on fire.
Dax seems frozen.
My thighs tremble and my hand is still on my breast and I feel sickeningly warm and I can’t stop watching as Storm flicks his tongue out, groaning as he does, his focus wholly on me.
Then he lifts his chin and his lips come off Dax’s fingers with a pop.
“She tastes so good, doesn’t she?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Without any warning, he shoves Dax away from him—away from me, back toward the house—then holds up the broken glass bottle. “Now get the fuck inside or I’ll take those fingers off.”
Dax is crouched down, hands up, like he’s preparing for a fight or to fend off a blow.
His chest is heaving beneath his unbuttoned shirt and his eyes dart frantically from me to Storm and back again. “Let her come with me,” he says.
Storm sighs. He reaches back, placing his hand on my belly, just above where my phone rests. His skin is cool, his hand spanning nearly the width of my ribcage, and his touch is possessive. “Tell him to get back inside before he loses a limb,” he says, and I know the words are for me.
“Sloane,” Dax starts. “Let’s go. You shouldn’t be around this guy.”
Storm sighs, like he’s weary. His hand slides up my shirt, then he moves my hand with his touch, and he squeezes my breast, hard, before his fingers start to play with my nipple.
My heart is beating so loud, I feel like they can hear it too.
“Tell him, beautiful, or this is going to get messy.” Storm pinches my nipple and I gasp, my back arching up off the bench. His grip is harsher than my own, and he doesn’t go gentle on me. But I’m not a toy and I’m certainly no pawn in this pissing contest.
I find myself again, my voice, my motions.
I slap Storm’s hand off me, then use my core strength to sit up, catching my phone before it falls.
I yank down my bra and my shirt as I do and tug on my skirt, too, before I swing my legs off the bench, knees pressed together.
Not certain I’ll be able to stand up without feeling dizzy, I lift my chin and look at Dax.
“I can handle him,” I say. I’m pleased my voice doesn’t waver. “I’ll call you if I need you.” I lift my phone to reiterate the words.
Dax’s mouth pops open. Then closed. His jaw clenches as he shoots daggers at Storm, but he glances at the glass still in his hand, and nods once. “Okay,” he says, as he takes a step back. “Please call me.”
Then another step back, his eyes locked on Storm’s. One more.
Then he turns his back on us and hurries toward the sounds of the party house.
“You are disgusting,” I snarl as I stare up at Storm.
He drops the glass to the ground and meets my gaze. “Oh? Was it me who was getting fingerbanged in a sorority house’s backyard by a boy who looks like any gust of strong wind could snap him in half, or was that you?”
I don’t dignify his judgment with a response. “Why are you here?”
“You aren’t home.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you my daddy?”
His lips tilt up. “Do you want me to be?”
I feel the blush starting along my chest and know it won’t be long before it reaches my face. “Explain to me, without riddles, why the fuck you’re here.”
“It’s the first night since I’ve been watching you that you haven’t been home before midnight.
It’s nearly two in the morning. It took me three house parties to find you but thankfully, you seem pretty popular.
A girl at the last one told me you’d be here.
So I came, because someone wants to hurt me, and they’ll hurt you first to make it worse. ”
A chill lifts the hairs at my scalp. It’s fear and something else, too. Something from the depth of his words. “Why would that make it worse, Storm?” My voice is low, and although I don’t look away from him, after a moment, he tears his gaze from me and runs his hand over the side of his face.
“Just get the fuck up so I can take you home.”