Chapter 28 #2
When she bends to scoop her dress off the floor, my insides go cold, and I rip my fingers through my hair. How do I salvage this without coming off like some desperate, whiny man?
“Where’s my underwear?” she asks once clad in her tiny sequin dress.
Even though my mind is on my missed calls, my eyes are on her body.
As she roots around my jogger pockets, I catch her wrist. She knocks my hand aside.
My damn phone lights up and begins to vibrate again. When I catch the caller ID—unknown number—my heart stalls, and adrenaline flushes my veins.
“You should answer it,” Electra says flatly.
When I don’t, she grips my jaw, forcing my eyes to her glowing ones. “Answer your fucking phone, Cillian, and put it on speaker.”
A cold prickle crawls up my spine as I swipe the screen and tap speaker. “Hello?”
“Fucking finally,” the caller growls.
My nerves are so wired that it takes a second for my ears to catch up to who’s calling.
“Is Electra with you?” Malachi barks.
My adrenaline crashes so hard my already shitty vision wavers as I swing my face toward her.
It’s not Sullivan.
Quinn must be okay.
Electra shimmies into her underwear. “I’m here, Mal.”
He fires off a bunch of Atlantean words.
“I was on a date,” she replies in English—for my sake? “Did you expect me to spend it on the phone?”
I squeeze the bridge of my nose and work on lengthening my inhales and stretching my exhales.
“I’ll be home in fifteen,” Electra says. “I’ll call you then.”
Malachi replies again in Atlantean.
Her voice lilts as she responds in English, “Then I’ll see you as soon as I get there.”
He’s at her house? A new emotion surges behind my ribs. One that tightens my jaw and flares my nostrils.
“I swear,” Electra mutters under her breath. “My family…”
I glance at my phone. The screen is still lit, but the call has ended.
Riding the rush of cheating death, I grip her thighs and crane my neck. “Stay.”
“Why? We’re done, Cillian.”
“No.” My heart dips like I’m on a fucking rollercoaster again. “No, we aren’t done. We’re just getting started.”
“We’ve convinced Mal we’re together. Everyone, for that matter. I mean, even my parents and Calanthe bought it. We had our dinner date.” She nods to the bed. “Plus benefits.”
“I want more,” I blurt out. “More time. More dates. More benefits. More you.”
Her head tilts low. The shadows consume her features, making it even harder for my shitty eyes to read the emotion on her face. Is it grief, relief, pity?
She sighs. “Cillian…”
Before she can shut me down, I glide up the length of her body, grip the back of her head, and crash my lips against hers. She sucks in air as I silence her protest and bend her to me, eating away at her restraint until my willful Atlantean finally softens and lets me back in.
I lick and tease and caress, my cock thickening, lifting, leaking. The sequins of her dress chafe my crown raw, but I don’t pull back or readjust myself…or give in to the clawing urge to yank her underwear aside and sink into her.
When she braces her palms against my chest and flattens her tongue against mine, my skin breaks out in goosebumps. I think she’s diving back in, holding me like I’m holding her, wanting me like I’m wanting her, but after three wild heartbeats, she unscrews our mouths and presses me away.
As my hands plummet to my sides, her lids flutter open, and her eyes settle on mine. And then their gleam transforms into a glow. Is this when she compels me to forget about her?
“Who did you think was calling you?” she asks.
My heart slams so hard the taste of metal drowns out the taste of her. “Jeneva.”
“Is anything going on between the two of you?”
My half-hard dick nosedives. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Are there others?”
“Others?” I spit out. “I don’t know what sort of bastards you dated before me, but I don’t do open relationships.”
My grimace and heated response rewrite her expression, and she breathes out an, “Okay.”
I ball my fingers, loosen them, ball them once more. “Okay?”
“Okay I’ll think about more.” Her gaze strokes down the length of me, halting on my dick.
Even though my mood is all over the fucking place, somehow, her attention gets me hard. It’s like she just used magic to tug on my flesh and swell it.
“Thank you for tonight.” She turns and unlatches the camper door.
It swings open, activating the light sensors of the parking lot, flooding the camper with too much brightness.
“Do you still want Malachi?”
She lingers there a moment, head turned away. “I’ve known you for a week, Cillian. I’ve known Mal my whole life.”
“That’s not what I asked, Electra.”
“That’s all the answer you’ll get from me tonight.” She steps out of the camper. “Goodnight.”
I finally snap out of my funk and swipe my sweatpants off the floor. “Wait. I’ll drive you home.” I almost fall as I work my pants up my legs. “Electra, wait!”
But the stubborn girl doesn’t wait.
I jam my glasses on my nose and scramble out of the camper, shoeless and shirtless, my mother’s ring kicking my pecs like a drumstick.
“Electra?” I shout.
But she’s gone.
Gone back to fucking Malachi.