West Eight #2
I floated for so long, staring at the wall, but no one was there. So, I touched it, hoping to sense some sort of connection, but it was all gone. With my back to the wall, I slid down the concrete, the closest I had been to the humans I was scared I’d never see again.
Sitting on the ocean floor, my heart cracked so wide that I didn’t breathe air for weeks. I didn’t move. I didn’t eat. I just… waited.
When my eyes finally reopened, I was… stronger. I had regenerated. The connection to the boy had intensified. I could sense when he was touching the source. So, I sent him messages throughout the years…
One day, pain ripped through me. It was like the pain of watching my family disappear in the explosion…
The boy needed me. I would find him. No matter what it took.
I swam for days and days, only stopping to eat and rest for very short periods of time.
I faced sharks, huge ships, and things I had never seen before.
I fought currents. I was caught in a net with sea creatures who were so scared.
I escaped. I learned. I survived until finally reaching a coast close to the boy who no longer felt as young as he once was.
Waiting for the boy was difficult. So much time passed before I would see him again. I called out to him, over and over, but he didn’t hear me. He didn’t look for me when walking across the sand. He only laughed and played with other humans…
Again, I sat up in bed, grasping my pounding chest. Then I cried so hard that I called a certain someone without realizing it. Ethan came to me. My room was still dark as he entered, asking no questions about the reasons I sobbed. He only asked, “Can I hold you?”
Crying, I held my arms open. “Please.”
I snuggled in his heat and embrace, trying to stop my sobs. “I saw them.”
“Who, baby?”
“I saw you, too.”
His arms tightened around me. “I’m so glad I was in your nightmare.”
“No, it wasn’t a nightmare or dream. It was… her.”
“Hmm?”
It was hard to speak through all the emotions. “Saleeni, she swam to our coast to find Johnny—Maddox—the boy.”
Ethan froze. When he finally pulled his head back to look into my eyes, he whispered, “You think you saw what the mermaid was seeing?”
My tears fell to his arm I wouldn’t let go of. “And felt what she felt.” I wept. “Us, I saw us from the water.”
“What?” was said from the doorway.
Ethan and I looked to see Seb, Gage, and Finn gawking at us.
I kept crying. “We were all there.” I struggled to breathe, so I rested my forehead to Ethan’s chest. “Blue. Caleb. Us. Smiling, laughing, playing. She was there.”
The bed dipped when the other boys sat around me, touching my back.
I told them, “Our Blue, so damn happy.”
Seb leaned to me, his body shaking as he cried.
I sobbed, “I wish you all could’ve seen it through her eyes. Caleb was loving the coast.” My body shook. “He had good times before leaving us.”
I’m not sure how that little bed carried the weight of so many broken teenagers, but it did. And all our happy tears.
I hiccupped on so many feelings. “I know his real name now.”
The room fell silent.
“When our mouths hurt, we yelled it. ‘Mad G’. It stands for Maddox Gentry.”
The name Johnny fit the young man who arrived at this house years ago.
The name Maddox perfectly suited the unhinged and mad young man who left.
There was still a kindness inside him; however, there was a lingering brutality that hungered.
I could sense it wanting to be set free.
I think that’s why we were so drawn to him, long before the blood oath.
His inner fire called to ours, daring us to take a walk on the dark side.
Older Maddox was the whistle in the wind, the siren showing us the way to any revenge we earned and craved.
Maybe she craved his menacing ways also. From what I had already witnessed through the dreams or visions, she too had been gravely wronged.
Maybe she was the answer to his wildness. His perfect balance between the carnage he desired to create and the calm he needed to stay grounded.
This is the conclusion I came to after another vision while I slept.
With a green wreath on his head, Maddox walked down a set of pool stairs. He was entranced yet sexier than I had ever imagined he could be. What he did to Saleeni—me—had me in a trance of my own. I don’t recall getting out of bed or walking into Ethan’s room. Only leading him back out by his hand.
Entering my room, he whispered, “You seem different.”
I closed my door, then faced him to kiss him.
He shook his head. “Only to save your life.”
Wrong answer. “What about saving my body?”
His head withdrew. “Are you okay?”
I moaned, “No,” pressing my body flush to his.
Ethan hissed before trying to pull away. “Not when it’s not all you.”
I guess he remembered the bite more than I needed him to. “I ache, Ethan.” I arched my breasts into him again. “I’m coming to you for help.” I sighed when I felt him becoming erect. “Oh, thank God, you do want me.”
“We’ve been over this. You know I want you. Bad. But. Not. Like. This.”
Drug-like, I took a couple steps back. Then I provoked his testosterone to take over. “Maybe I’ll ask my new bestie.”
He growled, “He’s gay, sweetheart.”
I sucked on my finger, backing up toward my bed. “Seb?”
Ethan stepped forward. “In love with someone else.”
I rubbed my wet finger over my lips. “Gage isn’t.”
Nostrils flared. “Lie down.”
Almost melting that my ache was finally going to be met, I sprawled on the bed. “Hurry.”
“Take off your PJ shorts.”
Yes, get straight to it. I removed them and tossed them. Losing my breath, I panted, “Please. Now.”
“Please don’t hate me in the morning for this.” He grabbed behind my knees and slid my butt to the edge of the bed.
My eyes slid shut. I was that desperate for a release. “I won’t. I swear. Just help me. I’m on fire for you.”
I was expecting to feel penetration. I was dying to feel it. Although when a warm mouth touched my core, a sense of relief hit me. Even though I was begging, wanton-like, my true self wanted to be fully present the first time Ethan and I had sex.
His knowing me so well made this oral sex one of the most erotic experiences of my life. Trust from me flowed to him, and we both relaxed to enjoy this connection.
I reached down and touched his face, falling so madly in love with this young man.
Mouth deliciously on me, his eyes were locked on mine, reading me, then softened as he realized it was me he was giving such pleasure.
Caleb was a gentle lover, to which I had become so accustomed. I knew his moves. His likes.
Being so intimate with Ethan, I instantly understood more of what Finn had claimed. Caleb was a beautiful soul I was willing to do anything for.
Ethan was a primal desire of mine. A wicked need. And him sucking on me, licking me, and penetrating me with his tongue was a weakness I hoped to never cure. My body shuddered like it had never done before. I arched off the mattress, praying he would never stop making me feel so sensational.
With no restraint, I rested my legs over his shoulders and pulled, begging for more.
Ethan delivered.
Savagely, he ate me alive, ringing so many noises from me I had to put a pillow over my head due to the damn vents where voices traveled.
Then a finger entered me, and I was positive I was going to wake up the whole house. Another finger joined the first. I groaned with pleasure, then spasmed when they both curled up, rubbing parts of me I didn’t even know existed. But my body did, hence the ultimate fireworks show behind my eyelids.
All too soon, that brilliant mouth left me dripping and spent. Then I heard a breathless, “I’ve never been so turned on in my life.” I heard a bump as if he fell into my dresser. “I have to go take a shower.”
Right before my bedroom door shut, I giggled, “You better be thinking of me in there.”
“Probably for the rest of my life.”
I gasped and lifted my head, but he was gone.
In the dark, I lay back down, never having been so satisfied, ever. “I feel the same.”
Half expecting him to return after the shower, I was surprised when I suddenly woke, alone, hearing an alarmed voice through the vent. I leaped from bed and put my naked ass in the air and ear to the floor. Harmony was saying, “What do you mean they’re gone?”
Who?
“Went for the pastor. I gotta go get them.”
Those fucking traitorous choir boy wannabes! I jumped to my feet and ran to the closet. Slipping on jeans, a sweater, and sneakers, not bothering with socks. And you, Ethan? “You think you can give me the best oral sex I’ve ever had, then dump my ass for the fucking pastor?”
I rushed out of my room, down the hall, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the garage. I opened a van passenger door, closed it quietly, crawled over the rows of seats, and hid in the back.
I’m coming for you fuckers!