Chapter 3 #2
"Killy…" She does a deft reversal, and suddenly her tiny soft hand is gripping my wrist with shocking power and then she's in front of me—I feel her there, sense her, smell her, hear her. "Just be honest."
Her hand guides mine to her cheek, and I can't help but let out a shaky breath at the warmth and softness of her cheek, her jaw under my hand.
"Why?"
"Maybe you don't know what it's like for me, between us."
"Not like that."
“Like what?"
"Story, c'mon."
"Killy, you c'mon."
"I fucking—" I let out a ragged sigh. "You…affect me. You always have."
"Affect you how?"
"You're really gonna drag it out of me word by word?"
"If you make me."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Why won't you just say what you're thinking or feeling?"
"Because rejection sucks!" I hiss. "After Helena dumped me, I…
just…everyone I talked to, everyone I'm interested in…
" I trail off, knowing I'm not making any sense.
Or at least, not finishing any of my statements.
"You're one of my best friends, Story. I care about you.
I care about our friendship. And beyond that, this situation is not exactly conducive to…
" I stop, laughing. "To anything of that sort," I finish, uncomfortably aware of how lame and dumb I sound.
If I had just a fraction of Cal's confidence…
but I don't. Not with Story, at least. I'm always off-balance around her.
I'm always hyperaware of where she is in relation to me, how close she is.
Any time she's ever touched me, even just to hold onto my shoulder for balance while fixing her shoe, I'm left tingling and stupid.
Tongue-tied. Awkward. Clumsy.
Stupid.
So, so, so stupid.
Both of her hands rest flat on my chest. "Killian?"
"What?"
"What if it is like that for me?"
My heart thumps loudly enough that she has to be able to hear it. "Story, don't play."
"I wouldn't do that, Killian." My full name—it's serious.
I can't breathe, can't swallow, can't move. Her body pins me to the wall, though she's barely touching me. I'm still cupping her jaw. I trace her lips with my thumb, gently, slowly, hesitantly. "Fuck, Story. This shit is life or death. Please don't fuck with my head right now."
"I'm not." She covers my hand with hers. "I'm telling you it is like that."
"Like what?"
"You're gonna make me say it? What if I'm just as scared as you are?"
"This is the most confusing conversation of my life."
She laughs. "Because we're both being stupid." She's closer, suddenly, her breath on my chin, fingers dimpling my pecs.
"I've had a monster crush on you since we were kids," I say, the truth toppling out of me unbidden. "Being near you and not being able to touch you is fucking torture."
Silence greets this.
My heart cracks at the silence, automatically and instantly interpreting it as rejection.
"Killy—" she starts.
"Crush is a stupid, juvenile word," I say, interrupting her.
"Then what's the right word?"
"I don't know," I whisper. "Attracted to?"
"Just attracted?"
"No, not just attracted."
“Then what?"
"I don't know!" I snap. "I don't know. I've never let myself think about it too much."
"Why not?"
"No point."
"Why is there no point?"
"We're friends. We’ve always been just friends.
And I mean, how could there be anything else?
We live thousands of miles apart and only see each other for a month or so in the summer.
" I bite my tongue, but it all spills out anyway.
"But you're always the best part of my summers.
Seeing you. Hanging out with you. Talking to you.
Sitting next to you at the bonfire. Swimming. Playing around on the beach."
"Killy," again, her voice is so soft I can barely hear her, even in the relative and oppressive silence of the container. "You're the best part of my summer, too. I always look forward to seeing you the most."
My stomach drops into my toes and then shoots up into my throat. "Story, fuck. You're killing me."
"Isn't…don't you want to…" she trails off, and her forehead bumps against my chest between her hands. "Are we sure we're saying the same thing, here?"
"I think so," I say. "It's just hard to believe. You've never given any indication that you think about me like that."
"Because I didn't think you thought about me like that."
"This isn't just the darkness making us say things that aren't true, right?" I whisper.
“Not for me,” she whispers back. "Although the darkness does make it easier to talk about it, somehow."
My thumb slides over her lips, tracing the shape of them, gliding over the seam. Her lips part and she delicately nips my thumb, stopping its erratic, repetitive journey.
"Story," I rasp. "Just to be clear…"
"Yes?" She nuzzles her lips against the pad of my thumb, and my lungs freeze solid at the tiny, delicate, and enormously significant gesture.
"God help me," I breathe, shaking all over. "I really fucking hope I'm reading this right."
"Killian—"
I lean down, hesitate with the moist heat of her breath on my lips.
Cup her jaw, brush her cheekbone with my thumb.
She nuzzles her cheek into my palm like a cat rubbing against a shin.
For some reason, that little gesture is my undoing.
I close the sliver of distance, millimeter by millimeter, still not quite believing that this is real, not a fever dream, not a hallucination from being alone in the dark for too long.
My lips touch hers, ever so softly, ever so hesitantly. When our mouths meet, Story's breath leaves her in a soft, faint puff. I wait for her to pull away, but she doesn't. My heart palpitates in my chest, and my hands shake and my knees are jellied—I'm kissing Story and she…
Story lets out the softest, faintest sound, our lips touching, just barely, and then her hand curls around the back of my neck and she tugs me down and lifts up on her toes, and her other hand is flat on my chest, fingers dimpling the muscle until her nails dig in and bite with the faintest twinge of pain as her grip tightens and tightens.
"Killy," she breathes, lips on lips.
It was barely a kiss, yet my entire being is irrevocably altered.
"Again," she whispers. "Please?"
I can't help myself. To be honest, I don't try to. Not when she's asking for more.
I twist into her, push her back against the wall with my body; she goes willingly, eagerly, her hands circling to my back, clawing at my shoulders, diving into the hair at the back of my head.
I frame her face with shaky hands, not quite touching her cheeks, and then she's making a tiny shrill breathless sound in the back of her throat, and her teeth nip my bottom lip, quick and sharp and playful.
My hands cup her face, then, and I lean down and tip her face up and press my lips against hers again. That same sound, soft and faint and delicate, escapes her throat as our mouths meet. "Killy," she whispers. "Kiss me."
"I am."
“No,” she murmurs, and her hands cup the back of my head and pull me down, and her lips touch mine. "Kiss me." It's a ragged demand.
I let out a groaning sigh—this is intense, all of a sudden, no longer just a questing kiss. I slam my mouth over hers and open my lips and trace her lips with my tongue, and she makes that tiny gasping sound again, a breath of disbelief, of need, of desire.
"That sound," I breathe, breaking the kiss. "It's gonna haunt my dreams."
She says nothing in response; instead, she lifts on her tiptoes and takes a kiss, and gives me that mewling sound again, and it rockets through me, setting my blood on fire, melting my bones, liquefying my synapses in a flash flood of molten desire.
A battering jolt of arousal shreds through me like a billion lightning strikes all at once, and I surge into her, tilting down to kiss her, tipping her chin up so the kiss is nearly vertical.
I press Story into the wall with my body and my hips crush against hers; my hands take on a will of their own, then.
One drifts down from her cheek to rest on her clavicle, and then I'm loosely clutching her throat and my tongue soars into her mouth and hers wars and tangles with mine; my other hand drops to her waist, and my thumb finds a sliver of space between scrub top and bottom, a narrow strip of hot soft skin.
Her hands are in my hair, digging through my tight curls, nails scraping my scalp in a way that makes my knees threaten to give out, and then she's clawing her nails into my chest and then she's clutching my biceps, and then she's scraping at my abs with clawed fingers and her tongue darts and retreats, teasing.
The ship rocks, then, hit by a wave, and we cling to each other for balance and I push her harder against the wall, spreading my legs wide to absorb the rocking, rolling pitch of the deck as the tick-tick-tick of rain on the container abruptly detonates into a thunderous deluge of a thousand drumming giant fingers.
She clings to my neck, arms wrapped almost double around me, and my thumb explores the sliver of silky skin at her side.
Her tongue takes over, now, and she's demanding and hungry, kissing me like there's no tomorrow—because there may not be, but I don't dwell on that.
There's no space for those kinds of thoughts, not when her hips push into mine as I spread my hand up under her scrub top and explore the expanse of her back, from shoulder to shoulder, over the wide bra strap and down to the small of her back and from side to side along the waist of her scrub bottoms.
At my hand's touch, Story lets out another of those tiny whimpers, and my cock pulses behind the zipper of my jeans, throbs to a renewed ache, swelling and hardening more than ever.
Story wraps a leg around the back of mine and drives her hips against mine, rubbing her core against me.
I break the kiss, forehead to forehead, panting. "Story," I breathe. "You're…fuck. You feel…"