Those pouty lips I coveted so much fused with mine, full on, without hesitation. It wasn’t like the last time; this was different. Better.
He wasn’t angry or defiant. He wasn’t trying to prove something to anyone.
He kissed me purely out of desire. Out of want. I tasted it on his tongue. I lapped it off his lips. Holy shit, the passion in him. The deep way he kissed shot another jolt of life right into my chest.
With a moan, I grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him closer. Our skin was cold, the total opposite of our mouths. It was sort of like sitting in a hot tub in the center of a snowstorm. Neither of us lifted our head. Our lips stayed fused the entire time we kissed. He turned his head one way and then the other, but he did so without completely pulling away.
“Breathe,” he spoke, his lips still against mine.
I sucked in a breath. Then we were kissing again. I forgot where I was, who I was. It didn’t matter, either. Arrow’s lips were smooth, gliding over mine like they knew exactly where they were going.
His fingertips tightened on my face. My tongue swept past his lips and over the roof of his mouth.
He groaned.
I wanted closer. I wanted more. I wanted it with infinite desperation.
I slid forward. The way we sat made it hard to get in a position so more of us touched. I lifted my legs, threw them over his, and pulled him close so I was still between his legs, but because mine pinned his down, we were nearly chest to chest.
The kiss changed. Arrow started slipping away, and suddenly, I knew exactly how he’d felt when I did the same.
I started grappling, searching for a way to pull him back. My hands fisted in his coat so he couldn’t physically pull back. The physical wasn’t all I wanted, though. Actually, it wasn’t as important as the other. I wanted him present mentally. I wanted all those shards of glass that made up his insides to all be focused on me.
It didn’t work. Instead of moving closer, as my hands demanded, he broke the kiss. His chin dipped; his entire body leaned back and away, rigid and trembling.
I searched him, tried to understand what I’d done wrong.
Everything was exactly right, and then it was exactly wrong.
I released his coat, tipping his chin up with one hand.
The look on his face was a cold, hard slap. I held back the wince, but fuck me, I felt it. Arrow was haunted, scared… cornered.
That was it.
He looked cornered. Trapped.
I glanced down to where my body pinned his. Realization dawned.
So did horror.
What. The. Fuck?
I didn’t move fast. I was afraid I’d freak him out. Instead, I lifted my legs, carefully sliding my body back so he was no longer held down. I let my arms fall to the sides, not touching or restraining him.
He swallowed thickly. A shuddering breath moved through him.
He’d asked me before what broke me. Now it was me who wondered what broke him. I had a very, very bad feeling whatever it was might break me, too. The idea of him in any kind of agony was almost more than I could bear.
What the fuck were we doing?
Two broken shards, two drained batteries, two men who were merely shells.
What could we offer each other?
“I, ah…” He started, regret and embarrassment in his voice. “Sorry.”
The need to protect him flooded through me. The questions I’d just been pondering ceased to exist. All I wanted was to make that look on his face disappear.
“How about this?” I suggested, starting forward with deliberate movements.
He watched with hooded eyes, wariness filling the air around him.
I reached down, hooked my hands beneath his knees, and tugged. His ass slid across the seat toward me, and I positioned his legs like mine had been on his just moments ago.
Now he was the one pinning me down; now my legs were beneath his.
Before I pulled my hands away, my palms rubbed down his thighs in a simple caress.
I sat back, waiting to see what he would do.
Arrow looked up. The emotion in his eyes was unidentifiable. Relief but something else, something more profound.
He dove forward, kissed me swiftly, then pulled back enough to look into my eyes.
I held up my hands in surrender, and he half growled and dove at my mouth again. Like he was starved, like we hadn’t just made out.
I welcome him, opened wide and twisted our tongues together until I was afraid they’d never come apart. He shifted on me, pulled himself up as if he wanted even closer.
I slid my hands beneath him, holding him up, and he slid fully into my lap.
Both of us moaned and kissed with renewed passion.
All the blood drained from my head and went south, swelling my dick and making me ache to rock against him. But I held back. I didn’t want to scare him again.
Here we were treading carefully, worried we might step on the other’s landmines.
But then there were these moments of unbridled restraint, when the landmines were momentarily shut off and all that existed between us was everything we felt for each other.
We made out until the distant sounds of engines rumbled closer. Even then, I didn’t want to disengage, but I did. Something told me being found in my lap was something that might thoroughly embarrass Arrow.
Our lips made a smacking sound when I pulled away. Immediately, he sucked his lower lip into his mouth while large brown eyes stared into me with apprehension.
Such innocence. Such youth.
How did that still live inside him when I knew the complete opposite was also there?
How would I compete with that? How would I resist?
Just that kiss and now the way he sucked his lip… I was slayed.
“As much as I kinda like having you in my lap…” I began, resisting the urge to pull his lip out of his mouth so I could suck it myself. “Company’s coming.”
The look that brightened the chocolate depths when I first spoke changed to alarm. He slid back, nearly falling off the damn sled as he glanced around for Trent and Drew.
I chuckled, watching him scramble and then plant himself in front of me so he could drive. Slyly, I adjusted my hard-on before settling a little closer and reaching for his waist.
He fired up the snowmobile, and I tentatively wrapped my arms around him. “This okay?” I asked in his ear.
He nodded once, then took off across the snow just as our friends appeared ahead.
The rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t turn off my thoughts. However, this time I wasn’t lost in my own little world. I wasn’t reliving the past or freaking over the ride.
I thought about the few times Arrow reached in and pulled me back, of the times he was patient and just sat there with me wherever I seemed to disappear. Arrow was willing. I saw him try more than once to connect with me.
Perhaps… Maybe… Yeah.
It was time I did the same.
Triggers. Life was filled with tiny little triggers.
It was almost impossible to know where they would appear and in what form. But I always knew they were there, sort of like a stalker who shadowed my every move.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons I stayed locked up behind the fence.
It was a controlled environment. A place where the triggers couldn’t really reach, a place I wouldn’t have to face them.
It caught me off guard today. I wasn’t prepared. ‘Course, when could anyone ever be?
I’d been focused on Hopper. On whatever triggered him. I knew it was happening I think before he did. I could almost smell it on him, as if the fact that I also sometimes emitted the scent gave me some sort of unique ability to detect it.
Damn, could he drive.
Good drivers weren’t really something unusual for me, but he surprised me. Obviously, Hopper had skill with speed. His job practically required it.
This was different.
There was some kind of
magic in the way he steered the sled. Almost as if he’d become part of the vehicle, like he sensed the way it would react to every move he made.
And the way he twisted the throttle?
Pure instinct.
If I hadn’t seen the way he reacted when we were first presented with the snowmobiles, I would have suspected he drove one all the time.
We had a moment, maybe more, out there in the center of the field where the sky stretched overhead and the snow underfoot.
He wanted me to make him stay. Truth was I had no idea how to pull a man back from the shadows of his past, but I really wanted to kiss him.
Since that first night when I’d attacked his mouth with angry defiance, I wanted more.
A do-over.
A first kiss the way it should have been.
This was that. It was the best fucking kiss I’d ever had.
Until it wasn’t.
Until he all but climbed on my lap and everything inside me seized.
The trigger. I craved physical contact, but I also shied away from it. Collateral damage from that night in the alley. Something I thought might fade with time. Hell, it had already been three years.
Three years of barely any contact at all, and what contact there was had been from family.
It was lonely. It played with my mind. It made me want.
I’d never been tempted to act on that want, though, until Hopper showed up on the other side of my fence.
I guess three years hadn’t been enough.
I was beginning to wonder if any amount of time would ever assuage the panic I felt when the weight of someone else settled against me.
It was a double-edged sword.
Know why?
Because it reminded me, of course, of the dangers of being too close. Yet it also created an even stronger desire.
But only with Hopper.
The way he reacted floored me. I expected him to be angry, to maybe even call me a freak. He’d pulled back, held up his hands in surrender.
It was the closest thing to a white flag I’d ever seen. Acceptance… that even though he had not one fucking clue I was freaking the piss out, he tried to understand.
Then he reacted. He put me in charge.
It shifted everything inside me. The panic taking over my limbs, the memories of searing pain and being held down.
I kissed him again. Not only because kissing him was something I could survive on for the rest of my life, but because I was so fucking grateful.
And now we were here.
Sitting inside Drew and Trent’s house, a place that pretty much fell out of the pages of some magazine.
Ivy, Drew’s sister, decorated the place. She was pretty cool, in a bossy way. She tried to give me style tips every time she saw me, and her husband, Braeden, only ever referred to me as the Biebs.
He wasn’t the only one.
It was practically a running joke.
When I dyed my hair platinum, the comparisons never ended. Whatever. When people focused on how I looked like someone else, they focused less on who I really was.
The sports channel was on the giant-ass TV hanging above the fireplace. I was sitting in a black leather chair near the gray couch Trent and Drew filled.
Hopper was across from me, on the other side of the coffee table, in a chair of his own.
I chose this chair, not something where anyone else could sit beside me. I needed a little personal space, a little distance after our make-out session.
I was jolted. But I also craved more. And I was afraid of more. So, so afraid.
I knew Hopper was attracted to me. I hadn’t the faintest clue why. No one else had ever been. But he was. I felt it—attraction crackled around us.
It wouldn’t if he knew.
I knew it was the fastest, most effective way to get rid of him. Sort of like a nuclear weapon when shit became too real.
All I’d need to do was deploy the truth that I was used, damaged goods. And beyond that damage, I was utterly a virgin.
A victim at eighteen. A virgin at twenty-one. Unwanted always.
I was developing an… attachment.
Feelings.
It was beyond dangerous, and I knew it would only end in pain.
I should tell him now, get it over with, and drive him away. But with the intense urge I had to protect him, to shield him from whatever it was that broke him, I couldn’t.
How could I protect someone else when I couldn’t even protect myself?
But I could protect him. By sending him away. Letting him in would only damage him worse.
I was brooding, stewing, becoming more agitated by the minute.
Hell, we’d ordered pizza, and I’d only been able to eat five slices. I held it together, though. I was pretty sure no one else knew the underlying earthquake shaking up my brain.
“I need another beer,” Drew announced. “Fratboy?”
Trent grinned up at him from the couch and shook his empty bottle.
Drew snagged it out of his hand, picked up his own empty longneck, and glanced at Hopper.
“I’m good, thanks,” he said, holding up his still half-full bottle.
“C’mon, kid.” Drew slapped me on the shoulder. “You need a soda.”
“I told you not to call me that,” I bitched but followed him into the kitchen. It was an open-concept house, so we could still see the TV and part of the living room.
“I know,” he quipped as he helped himself to a beer and then set another on the counter for Trent.
He held up a soda, and I shook my head. He held up a water, and I again declined.
“Better do something to dilute that beer in your bloodstream. You can’t be driving home until you piss water.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was one beer an hour and a half and five slices of pizza ago.”
“What’s up with that?” Drew closed the fridge and leaned back against the stainless steel. “You usually eat double that.”
I shrugged. “Not hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
I gave him a look. He returned it.
I held, stubborn. I didn’t feel like talking.
“Lorhaven called me,” Drew said, watching me.
I made a rude sound. “Of course he did. Is that why I’m here?” I couldn’t help it. I doubted everyone’s motives, including those of my own friends sometimes. My self-esteem didn’t always make it easy to believe people might actually want to hang with me unless my brother ordered them to.
Just like your father used to pay women to blow you.
“Like I’d do anything Lorhaven told me to do.” Drew scoffed, pushing off the fridge and stepping up to the stone-topped island.
“So he didn’t ask you to talk to me?”
Drew met my eyes. “He said Hopper was bringing some contracts. He was worried about you. Trent and me wanted to hang out. We planned on coming over anyway. Hell, I wasn’t even going to mention the contracts, but you’ve been brooding since you got here.”
I believed him. Drew and Trent had proven their friendship on more than one occasion. It was stupid to doubt their motives. It was stupid to look for reasons they were around instead of accepting the fact they really were just friends.
“How’d Lor sound?” I asked. He’d called, but I hadn’t called him back yet.
Guess I was avoiding him, too.
“Pissed off you haven’t called him back.”
“I have a life,” I muttered.
“How’s it going?” Drew asked. “Two contracts, huh? That’s pretty impressive shit.”
“Says the man with the first NRR championship under his belt.” I scoffed.
Drew smirked. “That makes me an expert on impressive shit.”
I grinned.
“Have you made a decision?” Drew cut right to it.
“Still deciding,” I answered.
“So you know what you want to do.” He pressed.
I shrugged.
“You and Ho
pper seem to be getting along.”
I glanced back into the living room where Hopper sat. “Yeah.”
Drew made a noise. “I’ve had better conversations with a rock.”
“How do you know what the right thing to do is?” I asked. If he wanted to talk, I could talk. Hell, I respected Drew. I considered him a friend.
“You don’t really,” he replied, honest. “But in my experience, the right thing is the one that scares you the most.”
“Everything scares me,” I whispered.
“Trent scared me the most.” Drew confided, his voice low. “Some days he still scares the shit out of me.”
I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
His mouth tilted up on one side. “Hells yeah. But if I had listened to the fear when I first realized we were more than just friends, I’d have missed out on a lot of really good shit.”
“Your father disowned you, didn’t he?” I asked. I probably shouldn’t have asked, but it was on my mind, apparently a lot more than I realized.
His blue eyes darkened. They were a much deeper shade than Hopper’s. I preferred the crystal shade to Drew’s.
“Yeah, he did. The day I told him about me and T.” Obviously, this was still something that wounded him.
In a sick way, knowing someone as together as Drew, someone who had so much, wasn’t immune to the same pain as everyone else gave me a little bit of hope.
I swallowed. “My father disowned me, too.”
He nodded. “Some people have small minds. They can’t accept anything they don’t understand. It doesn’t make it any easier knowing that, but it’s something.”
I nodded once. “It’s something.”
Drew stepped a little closer, until his middle hit the counter between us. One of his palms pressed against the sleek top. “It’s why when you find people who care about you anyway, you have to hold on. Even when whatever you’re reaching for has the power to destroy you.”
“I can’t go against Lor,” I said.
“Lorhaven is a lot of things. Specifically, a giant ass.”
I narrowed my eyes because he was insulting my brother, but Drew held up his hand and yawned.
Clearly, I was very threatening.
That pissed me off. I needed to work on that.
#Blur (The GearShark Series Book 4) Page 17