AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I move back toward the cabin to Screwy. He’s still angry. I can tell by the way he’s gripping the door in his hands like he could crush the wood, his shoulders heaving up and down as he tries to relax himself. Stepping up beside him, I let my lips touch the leather on his shoulders, and I wrap my arms around his solid torso. I hold him until his breathing softens and until his arm shifts to slide around my shoulder.
“He’s just sad. He wants to find his sister,” I whisper, wondering if Storm has anyone else. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been alone, and he never socializes the way the others do.
“He scared you,” Screwy points out. His eyes focused forward into the dark.
“And you saved me, again.” Looking up at him, I smile brightly, hoping it will take the sorrow out of his eyes. It doesn’t. If anything, it makes them sink deeper.
“It’s late. You need rest.” Screwy guides me back inside and heads straight toward my bedroom door. I don’t want to go in there. I want to lie beside him and curl into his strong body so tightly that I feel his breath in my hair. But I can sense that tonight, Screwy needs his space, and I have to respect that.
“Goodnight, Lydia.” He drops his head enough to kiss the top of mine, holding his lips there for a few beats too long before he leaves me and steps outside onto the deck that overlooks the lake.
My room is dark, I can’t see anything. But the smell is too familiar, and so is the hard, cold floor. I’m back there, my trainer’s scent is all over me, and when I scurry around for the blanket, I can’t feel it. His footsteps are distant but get so much louder as they move closer toward me. Three, two, one…
I sit up with a gasp and suck in the air around me. I’m not there, I’m safe in Screwy’s cabin, and my chest suddenly collapses with relief. My skin feels sticky from sweat, and my mouth is dry. I think about going to him so I can feel better. He never seems to mind it when I fall asleep on his floor after a nightmare. But Screwy is trying to keep us distanced, and I see how much he’s struggling. I just wish he’d give up the fight and let us be close.
I head for the kitchen to get a glass of water, stopping in my tracks when I hear noises coming from his room. They’re low, painful moans that make me change direction and move toward his door.
“I’m sorry,” his voice is weak and shaky as he repeats the words over and over, and it stirs a pain inside me to hear him sound so helpless. “Sorry! I’m sorry, okay!” He’s yelling now but doesn’t sound angry. Just sad, heartbreakingly sad.
I push the door open and see him fidgeting under his blanket, his fists gripping at the sheets and pain tensing his handsome face.
I rush to him, placing my hand over his forehead. It’s slick with sweat and creases under my palm when his eyes squeeze tighter shut. “Beth!” he calls out, turning my stomach cold and heavy. “Beth, please don’t leave me. I’m sorry. Come back. I’m so sorry.” He’s crying now, just like Storm was outside. And I can’t stand it a moment longer.
I don’t care if he’ll get mad at me or how it’ll hurt if he sends me away. I pull the blanket back and snuggle my body into his. My arms wrapping around his waist, and my legs anchoring his hips. I breathe slowly against him, stroking my hands through his hair to try to calm him. When he wakes up with a sharp intake and his eyes staring wide into mine, I worry I’ve done wrong.
His nostrils flare as he breathes to the same rhythm as my chest. In and out. In and out.
I can feel him sinking, his eyes drowning into mine, but my clutch on him won’t falter because I want to save him this time.
His sweat soaks through his shirt that I’m wearing as a nightdress, and I realize that it’s not the sheets his fists are clasping anymore, it’s me.
He takes me by complete surprise when his lips slam hard onto mine, trapping a gasp of shock in my mouth as he rolls me onto my back. One of his hands releases from my T-shirt, his open palm sliding up my body and past my shoulder to crush my hair. He feels so heavy on top of me, but in the best of ways, and as his tongue pushes into my mouth and he tastes me on the inside, the low growl he makes when I roll my tongue gently around his comes from deep inside his chest.
I touch my palm over it so I can feel his heart beating, and it thuds like a herd of galloping horses.
Slowly, I slide my fingertips lower, touching over the hard ridges of his abdomen and then slipping under the waistband of his underwear. I’m about to sink deeper inside them and touch him where he’s rigid, but he quickly snatches at my wrist, moving it away and pinning it into the pillow beside my head. His mouth stays on mine, our warm breaths seeping into each other. And I feel him, hard, pressing into me as he moves his hips slightly against mine. I want to touch him, to pleasure him, and be everything he needs to make him feel better, but he continues to hold me back.
He pulls his head back, allowing us air when we both become breathless, and his eyes are still wide, staring into mine like he’s done something wrong.
“It’s okay.” I reach up between us to slide the hair that’s fallen over his eyes back over his head.
“No, it’s not.” His head drops, and he rests his cheek against my chest, his arms wrapping me up tight and clinging to me like I’m his salvation.
I keep my fingers moving through his hair, stroking slowly in an attempt to soothe him.
“You fucking petrify me,” he confesses in a low whisper that I’m not sure was meant to come out. All I am sure of is that I want him to kiss me again. And I never want him to stop.
She looks so fucking perfect when she sleeps. Perfect enough for me to forget the fuck-up of this situation, and perfect enough for me to want her to be mine, even though I don’t deserve her. She came to me last night, dragged me out of the darkness, and saved me from the place I hate re-visiting. And now here we are, lying together, her tiny body tucked into mine like she was made to fit there. I’m wrong to indulge whatever screwed-up attachment she’s made to me. But watching her sleep so soundly and hearing those tiny breaths slipping from her lips… how the hell am I supposed to resist?
Being careful not to disturb her, I drag myself out of bed, pull on some jeans, and head out to the deck for a smoke. It’s early, and there’s no movement coming from any of the other cabins. The lake is calm and still, which is completely opposite to how I feel.
These days, I find it even harder to contain myself. I can feel my grip on self-control slowly slipping away and there’s no reeling it back in, especially not with her around. I grip at the wooden barrier between me and the lake, squeezing tight to try and expel some of the tension in my body.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
My head quickly turns when I hear her voice, and she looks so out of place standing out here in just a shirt. Her long hair is messy, probably from my fingers. I should never have kissed her like that.
“It is,” I agree, snatching my eyes away from her and gripping at the wood even tighter.
