32. Callum
— ? —
Callum
The storm comes in off the water at dusk, the kind that takes the power with it.
One moment the house is humming with all its little electric sounds, the refrigerator and the air conditioning and the clock in the hall, and the next moment everything goes dark and silent all at once. The kind of silence you don’t realize you’re not hearing until it’s gone.
And then there’s only the rain.
It throws itself at the windows like it’s trying to get in, hammering against the glass in sheets and waves. The thunder walks closer across the sea, each crack louder than the last, and lightning turns the whole sky white and then drops it back into darkness.
Olivia is terrified of thunder.
She’s been skittish since the fall, since the stitches, since the whole world proved to her that it could tip over without warning and leave her bleeding at the bottom of a staircase.
The child who used to run toward everything now flinches at sudden sounds.
The child who used to trust the ground under her feet now checks for hazards before she moves.
I’m in the hall when the first big crack hits, and I hear her scream from her bedroom. A real scream, not a playing scream. The sound of a child who’s been reminded that the world is full of things that can hurt her.
I get there at the same time Nichole does.
We collide in the doorway, both of us trying to reach her first, and for a second we’re pressed together in the dark with the rain pounding outside and Olivia crying on the bed.
Then we both push through and go to her, me from one side and Nichole from the other, and we end up on the floor of her room with a flashlight between us and the one-eared rabbit clutched to her chest.
“I don’t like it,” Olivia whispers, her voice small and shaking. “Make it stop.”
“I can’t make it stop, sweetheart,” Nichole says, stroking her hair. “But I can stay with you until it’s over. We both can.”
Another crack of thunder, so close the whole house shakes. Olivia presses herself against me, her small fingers digging into my arm, and I pull her into my lap and hold her the way I’ve held her through a hundred nightmares.
“Do you know what thunder is?” I ask her, keeping my voice low and calm. “It’s just the sky moving its furniture around. You know how sometimes you hear bumping from other rooms? That’s all thunder is. The sky rearranging its tables and chairs.”
“The sky doesn’t have furniture,” Olivia says, but she’s listening. Her breathing is slowing down.
“Sure it does. Big fluffy couches made of clouds. Tables made of wind. And sometimes the sky decides it wants the couch over by the window instead of by the wall, and it has to drag it across the floor, and that’s the rumbling you hear.”
“That’s silly, Daddy.”
“Thunder is silly. That’s my whole point.
” I stroke her hair, the way I’ve done a thousand times, and I feel Nichole watching us across the flashlight’s glow.
“The sky is just being loud and dramatic because it doesn’t know how to move furniture quietly.
It’s not trying to scare you. It’s just clumsy. ”
Lightning flashes again, turning everything white, and Olivia tenses but doesn’t scream this time. She’s got the rabbit in one hand and my shirt in the other, and she’s listening for the thunder like she’s waiting to see if the sky is really just moving furniture.
The crack comes, but it’s farther away now. The storm is passing.
“See?” Nichole says softly. “It’s already moving away. The sky got the couch where it wanted.”
Olivia almost laughs. Almost. It’s a small sound, choked off by another flash of lightning, but it’s there. Progress.
We stay like that for a long time, the three of us on the floor in the dark with the storm breaking around us.
Nichole tells a story about a girl who learned to talk to thunder and convinced it to be quieter at night.
I add sound effects at the wrong moments until Olivia starts correcting me.
The rain gentles to something softer, more rhythm than assault, and the thunder grumbles its way out to sea.
By the time the storm has passed, Olivia is asleep between us with a hand fisted in each of our shirts. Her face is peaceful now, all the fear smoothed away, the rabbit tucked under her chin.
We untangle her carefully, laying her down on the bed without waking her, covering her with the blanket she always kicks off.
Nichole tucks the rabbit more securely against her chest. I brush the hair back from her forehead and press a kiss there, the way I’ve done every night since she came home with me six years ago.
We slip out into the hall together.
The storm is still going but quieter now, more grumble than roar. The house is black and close, all its familiar shapes turned strange by the darkness. I have no flashlight. Nichole has one, but it’s dim, the batteries running low, casting just enough light to see each other’s faces.
I keep my distance. My promise. Ten feet feels like ten miles in the dark, but I hold the line because I said I would.
She doesn’t.
She’s the one who closes the space.
One moment she’s across the hall from me, the flashlight dying between us, thunder still muttering out over the water, and the next she’s right there.
She’s on me before I can draw a full breath. Her hands fist hard in the front of my shirt, fabric twisting under her knuckles, and she drags me down to her mouth with a desperation I’ve never felt from her before.
She kisses me like she’s angry about it.
Like she’s furious at the storm and the dark.
Furious at her own body for wanting something her mind has already decided she shouldn’t have.
There’s nothing soft about it. Nothing tentative.
She takes what she wants and I let her take it because I have been waiting for her to want anything from me for so long that I would let her have anything, anything at all.
My back hits the wall. Hard.
Her body follows, pressing fully against me - every soft, warm inch of her. She grinds once, sharp and restless, and I break the kiss just enough to speak against her mouth.
“Fuck - Nichole - I’m already so hard for you. Feel what you’re doing to me?”
I take one of her hands and press it between us so her palm flattens over the thick ridge of my cock. She sucks in a breath. I rock into her touch once, shameless.
“That’s all you. Just you. I’ve been hard since the second you put your hands on me.”
She makes a broken sound and kisses me harder, rougher.
“This isn’t-” she gets out against my lips, the words ragged. “I still don’t-”
“I know.” My voice comes out rough. “I know. Whatever this is, it’s yours. Set it however you want.”
“I want it to not mean anything.”
“Okay.”
“I want this to just be bodies. Just the dark and the storm and nothing else.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t make it mean something, Callum.”
“I won’t,” I lie softly against her mouth. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you. You can use me however you want.”
I give her what she asks for and nothing she doesn’t. My hands slide under the hem of her shirt, palms spreading over the bare skin of her lower back.
“Your skin’s so hot,” I murmur as I drag my hands higher. “Fuck, every inch of you is burning.”
When she yanks my shirt open I help her, letting her hands roam over my chest.
“That’s it… take what you want.”
I hitch her higher against the wall so she can wrap her legs around me. The new angle seats my cock right against her center through the thin cotton of her sleep shorts. We both groan.
“God - feel how hard I am for you? You’re already soaking through those little shorts. I can feel how wet you are even through the fabric.”
I grind against her slowly, deliberately, letting her feel every thick inch.
“Is that what you need? This? Me rubbing against you until you’re dripping?”
“Shut up,” she breathes, but she rocks right back, chasing the friction.
I push her shirt higher and cup her bare breasts, thumbs stroking over tight nipples.
“Fuck, look at these… already so hard for me.” I roll them gently, then harder when she arches. “You like that? You like me playing with your nipples while you grind on my cock?”
She answers with another desperate kiss, trying to silence me, but I keep talking low and ragged against her mouth between kisses.
“I’ve imagined this for hours - having you like this, desperate for me. You’re so soft… so wet… I can already feel how good you’re going to feel when I finally get inside you.”
Her hand slides between us, frees my cock with shaky fingers, and wraps around me. The first firm stroke almost drops me.
“God - yes - just like that. Your hand feels so fucking good. Stroke me. Feel how hard I am because of you.”
She shoves her shorts and underwear aside. The bare wet heat of her brushes the head of my cock and we both freeze.
“I want-” she starts, then stops.
“Then take it,” I tell her, voice gravel. “Ride me. Use my cock. Fuck the want out of yourself on me. That’s what you said you wanted - just bodies. So take what’s yours.”
She rolls her hips and sinks down onto me in one slow, deliberate press.
I choke out a groan against her throat.
“Fuck - Nichole - you’re so tight. So wet. Taking every inch like you were made for it.”
She starts to move. It’s not gentle. She rides me against the wall hard and deep, angry little rolls of her hips that drag every sensitive part of her along my cock.
“That’s it… fuck yourself on me,” I rasp, hands gripping her ass so I can help her slam down harder. “Feel that? How deep I am? How full you are? You’re dripping down my cock, baby. Soaking me.”
I shift the angle so every thrust grinds her clit.
“There - right there. Take it. Ride me until you come.”
“Callum-”
“I’ve got you. Just this. Just the dark and the storm and my cock inside you. Nothing else.” I thrust up hard to meet her. “You’re so perfect like this. Wild, greedy, taking exactly what you need.”
She’s getting close; I can feel her walls starting to flutter and squeeze.
“You’re going to come for me, aren’t you? Going to come all over my cock while I’m buried this deep?”
“Don’t - make it-”
“I won’t. It means nothing. Just come. Come on me, thank me with this body, use me.” I slide one hand between us and circle her swollen clit with my thumb. “Right there… I’ve got you. Let go, Nichole. Come for me.”
She shatters with a broken cry, clenching and pulsing hard around me, thighs shaking, forehead dropped against my shoulder as she moans through it.
I last only a few more deep, desperate thrusts.
“I’m - fuck - I’m going to come,” I warn her roughly. “I’m going to fill you up. Tell me to stop if-”
“Don’t stop,” she gasps, still fluttering around me.
I bury myself to the hilt and come with a low, guttural groan, spilling deep inside her while her name rips out of me anyway. Every pulse feels endless. I hold her through both of our aftershocks, still buried deep, still rocking her gently until the last tremor fades.
We stay locked together, shaking, breathing like we’ve run miles.
For a few precious seconds there is only this: her heat, my heartbeat crashing against her chest, the rain, the shared air, the knowledge that we just crossed a line neither of us can uncross.
Then I feel it.
The first tiny tension re-enters her body.
I feel her tense against me. Feel her remember where she is and who she’s with and what she swore she wouldn’t do. Feel all the walls come back up, brick by brick, until she’s armored again.
She’s the one who pulls away first.
Even though I’m still half-hard and buried inside her, she carefully lifts herself off me. The loss is sharp, almost painful. I set her gently on her feet. She rights her clothes with shaking fingers while I tuck myself away, still reeling from how perfect she felt milking every drop out of me.
When she looks up, her eyes are already distant. Guarded.
“That can’t happen again,” she says. Her voice is rough, almost broken, but the words are pure steel.
I swallow the thousand things I want to tell her - that it already means everything, that she is the only person I have ever wanted this badly, that I love her so completely it scares me.
Instead I nod once, tightly, and give her the only answer that lets her keep her pride intact.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, Nichole. It didn’t mean anything.”
She stares at me for another three heartbeats like she’s waiting for me to fight her on it. When I don’t, something complicated flickers across her face - relief and loss tangled together. Then she turns, walks the five steps back to her door, and closes it.
The lock turns.
I stay in the dark hallway with the rain still hammering the windows and the shape of her body burned into every nerve - the feel of her riding me, the way she shattered on my cock, the heat of her still clinging to my skin - and I do not move until I can breathe without shaking.
Because here’s the thing she doesn’t know, and I will never tell her: for me, it already means everything. It has meant everything since the first time I touched her. There has never been a version of this that didn’t mean everything to me.
Even when she walks away afterward and calls it nothing.
Especially then…