Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
SLOANE
The bathroom door creaks open, and Storm’s voice cuts through the air like a blade.
“Where are you going, Princess?” It isn’t sweet, the way he asks the question.
His voice is gravely and low and my heart thuds fast in my chest.
What perfect timing he has.
I let myself smile even though my stomach is full of nerves. I won’t tell him I saw a shadow. In my family, complaints without substance were fuel for fights.
I turn to look at him and my blood heats.
He has a white towel around his neck, gray boxers on, and nothing else.
The lines of his abs, the tattoos on his thighs, the damp curl to his black hair…fuck, he is gorgeous. Evil, maybe, a criminal, definitely, but absolutely beautiful.
“No where,” I tell him, and my voice cracks a little.
In the dimness of our suite, a single small light on pressed flush to the wall in the middle of the room, we are both cast in shadow. But I can see every inch of him that isn’t covered, and I imagine he can see the way my nipples harden beneath the silk of my gown.
I let my fingers fall from the balcony handle.
He tilts his head.
It’s predatory, I decide. That move. That gesture. I wonder if he knows how often he does it, or if he simply is always the hunter.
“Then come here,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a question.
I take a breath in. The hotel scent and the strawberry of my shampoo and my perfume that I spritzed on my wrist, my collarbone, and my thigh, it fills my nose. But so does the soap scent coming from him. From the shower.
I take a step and try to appear confident.
Another.
I keep my chin lifted and my shoulders back. Heather was never into makeup or hair or fashion or posture but I studied it all. I wanted to be soft. Different from my parents. Gentler. It broke me, in some ways, trying to be that girl in a hurricane, but now I can bend without breaking.
I don’t break as I walk to Storm.
Before I reach him, he takes the towel from around his neck and lets it drop to the floor. I’m so close, I can see that blue vein in his throat.
And before I can reach him entirely, he grabs my wrist and jerks me closer in his impatience. His fingers tangle in my damp hair and he circles his arm around my waist. But as he stares down at me, he doesn’t kiss me.
My palm is planted over his heart, and I don’t look away from his eyes.
“What did you see out there?” he asks quietly. His breath is minty, and it mingles with mine.
My heart jumps.
I think of the shadow.
He couldn’t know though, could he?
“Nothing,” I answer him with a lie.
His fingers tighten in my hair. It isn’t painful, but almost. “Nothing?”
I frown at him in the dark room. His pulse is oddly calm, but his gaze is intense. “What do you do?” I curve my nails against his flesh and feel his heartbeat jump. “Every day, what is it you call work?”
He tightens his hold on my waist.
There is little space between us.
He’s hard muscle and the scent of soap and leather and mint and he’s holding me in a way that feels like he wouldn’t let go.
“You wouldn’t want to know. It doesn’t matter, does it, Sloane? When you go to Scotland and you move to the sea, I’ll be the faintest memory.”
I smile as my chest aches. “You rhymed,” I tell him softly.
His nose brushes mine and his eyes flutter closed for one exhale. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
My throat is tight as he stares at me again, and he doesn’t look sorry. “For what?” My eyes feel pressure and it’s like I’m choking on the question but I couldn’t explain why.
Suddenly, he shifts his hold from my hair to my throat, squeezing tight as he pulls my mouth to his.
Our lips come together, a dance of viciousness.
I have both arms around his neck now as I press to my tiptoes and arch my back, our bodies formed together.
He’s so hard and all I want is him inside me, fucking me so deep I can’t breathe let alone scream.
His tongue loops around mine, then he’s sucking on it, and I moan into his mouth.
A cocky breath of laughter leaves his lips and he tightens his hold on my throat to the point I think I might black out, the way my closed eyes swim with gray, but I don’t want him to stop.
Not now.
Not ever.
Maybe we figure it out.
Maybe we don’t.
Either way, I want tonight.
His teeth dig into my bottom lip and pull, and I feel him grow harder. I dig my nails into the back of his neck and he groans, then shifts his hold to my jaw, his strong fingers clawed into my mouth as he presses tight and makes my lips part.
He pulls back, his temple to mine, his eyes closed.
“What are you sorry for?” I speak against his lips. I haven’t forgotten.
His brows pull together.
His breath twirls on my stinging mouth.
“What the fuck are you sorry for, Storm?” I’m nearly yelling. I can’t say why, but something is wrong.
It’s the way he looks.
An angel fallen.
For soon expect to feel his thunder on thy head. From Paradise Lost, the verse comes to me unbidden. Milton was not a Romantic poet himself, but the great godfather of the movement, if there ever was one.
I hold onto the words.
Storm holds onto my jaw, my waist, my heart.
There is the sense something will wreck us soon, but I couldn’t say why.
He opens his eyes.
I see heaven there.
But a knock on the door.
Not the front.
The balcony.
My bones tense and I don’t dare look back.
I only stare at him because he isn’t concerned. He doesn’t care.
Something is wrong.
He holds me so tight around my waist, there is nothing between us but skin.
“I wanted you since I met you. Since I saw you at West River High, flipping your blond hair over one shoulder, a smile dancing in your eyes. But you weren’t all sweet, were you? With Remi, you were the kind of loyal I could only hope to find.”
“Storm. What is going on?” I have to speak around his hold on my jaw.
He grips me tighter.
Tears spring to my eyes.
“You should’ve stayed away from me, Sloane. I stayed away from you.”
I try to squirm out of his grip, but he has me so tightly, I worry I will break my own bones before I escape him.
“Shh,” he says, running his lips over my cheek now. “Don’t fight me. Just run, Princess.”
“I’m not your fucking—”
He grips my throat again, cutting off my words.
It’s tight enough to injure me, if he doesn’t let go.
The knock on the door again. Rapid. Not hesitant.
“You’re right,” he says against my skin, fingertips pressed around my neck so cruelly. “You’re not my anything.” His teeth scrape against my cheek.
I stand still.
I don’t fight.
This makes him relax his grip, and I turn.
It feels as if my legs will fail me.
There, on the balcony.
A woman I’ve seen before. At Ely.
Black hair. Flawless skin. Dressed like the night.
I think I’ll faint. Nothing makes sense.
Storm jerks me back to face him as my face crumples.
“Her.” The word is broken from my lips. I wonder if this is how Dad always feels. “Are you with her?” Why else would she be here? And that morning on campus, he walked from the same direction she disappeared into.
They’re…together?
Why would he tell me here? Is he really that cruel?
But maybe it’s something else.
Why is she on the balcony? That doesn’t make sense. There must be another explanation.
Storm leans in close. I think he’s going to help me understand.
“Do you want to watch me fuck her?” he whispers, his saliva on my face.
I try to jerk out of his grip.
He doesn’t let me go.
Fuck her?
“If not,” he licks where he bit me. “Go home, Sloane.”
Then he shoves me away.
And glass shatters at my back.