Chapter 12
My days were now infused with school, work, singing, and Kill. Always Kill. I badgered him relentlessly, but he refused to tell me what he and D had talked about. I finally let it drop until I could come up with a better tactic for getting the information out of him.
D stopped making comments about Kill’s manwhoring ways. And he seemed friendlier toward me, as if the chip on his shoulder wasn't digging into him as deeply.
Every night, Kill crawled into bed with me and held me tight. We talked about our days, the length of our discussion dependent upon how tired we were. We never discussed the incident in the supply room on my birthday. After it happened, I was afraid our friendship would be awkward, but we both seemed to have swept it under the rug.
Sometimes I would reach for him, like I had when we’d been waiting for my period to take a hike, but I would remember at the last second we weren't there anymore and would pull back. There were times I saw a pained look on Kill’s face, and I wondered if he was having just as hard of a time keeping his hands off me as I was him.
On the work front, Ryan and Bambi’s rivalry had escalated. I found myself eager to get to work just to hear the insults they threw at each other.
Kill and I were in bed laughing quietly as I told him the colorful insult Ryan had thrown at Bambi earlier that week. My favorite was that her vagina was going to fall out from all of the STD's growing inside it.
Kill stopped laughing, and his body tensed. I immediately began to worry, positive Kill was about to say something I didn’t want to hear.
“I'm not going to be able to run with you tomorrow,” he said into my hair. I tried to figure out why he seemed so tense.
When I didn’t respond, he kept talking. “I have something I need to do, and I don’t know how long it will take.” His voice, although hushed, had an edge to it.
“What do you have to do?” I asked. My brain screamed at me to shut up. I wanted to take the words back as soon as they left my mouth. He moved his head displacing my hair as his chin passed it.
“I'll tell you later, but not now.”
My head circled with horrible scenarios.
“Whatever you're thinking, stop. It isn’t bad, and I promise to tell you later,” he said, chuckling.
I closed my eyes and banished all the thoughts running rampant in my brain. “Promise it isn’t bad,” I pleaded, unable to stop thinking.
He sighed deeply. “Trust me.”
I stayed silent.
“Slick, I will earn your trust. One of these days.”
Guilt clawed through my body, making my heart work overtime to squeeze blood through it. “I want to trust you, and I'll try, but I also need you to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” he responded, and I was sure he believed it.
“No, you don’t. Anytime something goes wrong, you think I'm going back to Jason, and you push me away.”
He dragged me up until I was on top of him, staring at his beautiful face. I leaned my forehead to his and breathed him in.
“I know you're not going back to him. It's just a kneejerk reaction when you look like you're about to run away. It's more about me pushing your buttons than anything. We'll figure this out,” he said.
His lips brushed mine when he spoke, and my heart beat rapidly. I was sure he could feel my nipples digging into his chest. He moved his hips, adjusting himself, showing me he was just as turned on.
“I don’t know; sometimes I think we're just too fucked up to try,” I whispered, letting my lips brush his lightly.
His tongue slipped out and swiped across his lips making the heat between my thighs burn hotter.
“Fuck, don’t say shit like that.”
“Why not? Look at us. You're waiting for me to make some grand gesture and I don’t even know what you want. I'm afraid you're going to run off with some skank when you get bored. Or even worse, you're going to stick with me and miss out on the life you deserve.”
His eyes blazed in the dark, and I could see his jaw clench with frustration. “Slick,” he said in a harsh voice.
I readied for a fight. He took a deep breath, and his voice softened. “I want you. Yes, your relationship with Jason scared the shit out of me, and I handled it really shitty. But get this through your thick-ass head; I won’t want anyone else while you want me. Even after you're done with me. As soon as you figure that out, I'm never letting you go. A life with you is what I deserve.”
