by S. K Munt
The words hit him so hard that Hunter almost stumbled into a wall. It wasn’t just the words either, he could hear the melody, feel the chords under his fingers, and hear Ryan behind him, backing him up… And that was where his daydream became a fairytale. Because if Hunter ever said those words aloud, there would be no Ryan standing behind him, because Ryan would never speak to him again! So Hunter shook the words off- he didn’t have time for his jejune daydreams! He needed to find Callie before the lyrics became a eulogy!
‘She’s bolted Hunter.’ Ryan’s voice was barely audible over the wind moaning through the ceiling. He was clutching a bunch of rumpled papers in his hands and staring down at them morosely. ‘I just don’t know if it’s the storm’s fault, or mine...’
‘What?’ Hunter shrugged out of his hoody and crossed to his cupboard to grab a new one and his rain coat. He was freezing, feeling kilos heavier from the rain his boots, jeans and shirt had taken on. ‘Did she leave a note?’
‘No.’ Ryan’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘I did. And I don’t think she liked it.’
Hunter saw the music in his hands, the title boldly printed, so clear and neat that Hunter could have read it from across the room, and he felt everything inside him fragment, because Ryan was holding the song he’d written for Callie; the song that expressed what Hunter felt, the song Hunter knew his heart was singing louder. Too infuriated to even reprimand Ryan, too scared he’d never see Callie again, Hunter turned on his heel and stalked towards the door.
*
Callie ran into the little shed and slammed the door behind her, looking for a lock to drop and keep it secure, but finding nothing but a cheap little latch that she could probably break with her fingers. Teeth chattering, sobs tearing her apart, she crawled into the space on fizzy legs and curled up next to the dirty old water pump, gripping the base of it and pressing her face into the ground.
Callie had never been colder, wetter or more scared. She wasn’t even relieved to have found the shed because she knew she’d been one thousand times safer at Hunter’s place. She sniffled and allowed her eyes to dart around, trying to ignore the persistent banging of the door as it shook in its frame. She’d run through sodden fields until her muscles were the only things burning more than her lungs and then when she’d collapsed, she’d crawled to the only structure visible for miles knowing she wouldn’t make it much further- a small shed at the back of a cane farm Callie couldn’t place for the pouring rain.
It wasn’t just a pump shed; it was quite a large building, and a tractor was pushed up against one wall- a new tractor. Whoever owned it had taken good care of it, and Callie hoped that maybe the doting cane farmer would come out to double check that his stuff was okay, find her, and get her back where she belonged.
But where do I belong? She wondered miserably, as her teeth settled to an almost sweet weep that was as cathartic as it was effortless. Invisible magnets were drawing her to Hunter, but longing was pulling her to Ryan whose predatory lyrics had left her breathless, severing yet another thread of any normalcy she’d managed to weave together to cling to. She wanted to belong to both as she always had, but they weren’t kids anymore. What if this need for more never abated? Callie’s head was beginning to pound as though she had dehydrated herself from crying so much. She clutched it in her hands and the timing was perfect because a bolt of lightning hit so near to the shed that Callie’s scream was soundless in comparison.
‘No! No! No!’ Callie felt, no she knew as her knees curled up into her chest, that the lightning was after her. That the cyclone was coming to swallow her whole. It made no sense and all the sense in the world and suddenly, Callie wondered why she was running from what she knew to be true: that she had come to the world in the eye of a storm, and that she was supposed to exit the same way.
It felt like she was being beckoned to run into the lightning and join her chaotic energy with its own. But she didn’t want to go. She loved so much in her life! The memories, the music… it all still mattered. If the weather would only clear and stay clear, Callie knew she would get her senses back again and that her life might be salvageable under the debris.
‘I don’t want to go!’ She screamed as she heard the timber door give and creak open. ‘I don’t want to go!’
‘Callie!’ Her name was half-cried, half-sighed. Suddenly, she wasn’t alone anymore. Warm arms were around her, squeezing what little breath she had left out of her. ‘Oh Callie! Callie! You’re okay!’
‘She’s not okay!’ A second male voice, a voice that was usually all honey and woodsmoke was cracked with concern. More arms were around her. The bodies were wet but still managed to infuse her with their warmth.
‘She will be! God you scared the crap out of us Callie!’ Hunter’s voice was as close to dreaming as Callie had ever come.
She opened her eyes and stared into Hunter’s, lifting her fingers to touch his brow, wondering why she’d never touched it before, sagging with relief against his shoulder, grateful that they’d hunted her down. ‘You found me!’ She whispered. ‘Thank you.’ Hunter sobbed, and the sound was so alien to her that Callie opened her eyes again, even though all she wanted to do with sleep. ‘Hey…’ she whispered, ‘what’s wrong Hunt?’
Hunter’s eyes narrowed and suddenly, there was nothing soft or gentle about his expression. His relief had gone, and was replaced with fury.
*
‘What’s wrong?!’ Hunter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He and Ryan had just spent an hour and a half sloshing through rapids, losing their balance, falling so many times that once or twice, Hunter was sure he was going to be washed away and broken to pieces on century-old boulders. If they hadn’t spotted Mr Spannagle’s old shed through the trees they might have gone back to town instead- and Callie wanted to know what was wrong?
Callie’s eyes were wide, bloodshot. ‘I’ve never seen you cry before,’ she whispered, touching one of his tears with her fingertips like it was a rare diamond.
‘I’ve never been scared out of my mind before!’ Before he knew it, Hunter had torn Callie from Ryan’s half-hug and shoved her up against the wall of the shed, which swayed and groaned. Callie’s eyes widened, Ryan yelled out, but Hunter didn’t care if he was losing it! He’d been picking up the pieces of Callie losing it for weeks! He was exhausted! And she had the gall to ask him what was wrong? ‘I thought you were dead!’ He bellowed, watching her features contort with grief. He pushed her shoulders against the wall again. ‘I thought we were going to find you drowned if we ever found you Cal! You’ve been missing for four hours, the cyclone seems to be crossing the coast right now, and you want to know what’s up with my tears?!’
‘I’m sorry!’ Callie whimpered in an evanescent voice. She looked so cute in his shirt- his shirt and his hat- that he was appalled at himself for being able to scream at her like that, to make her feel worse than she already did. ‘I don’t know why I-’
‘Why doesn’t matter! What matters is that my mum and dad should not have left you alone and they did and I thought you were going to get yourself killed because I was too worried about my stupid gig to be there when you needed me!’ Hunter’s voice broke and then, he felt so much remorse for yelling at her, hurting her further, that he immediately switched tactics, wrapping one arm around her to hold her securely, while the other gripped her jaw. He drove her up against the wall again, this time, taking the impact on his own arm, and dragged his lips across hers, feeling like he could never press into her enough to sate him. ‘I thought you were gone,’ he caught her tears on his lips and moaned. ‘How could you do that to me?’
Callie turned into his shoulder. ‘Don’t Hunter. Don’t!’ She sobbed. ‘We can’t kiss, and you really don’t want to.’ She slapped at his hand, trying to loose his hold. ‘You’d rather eat a worm than even think of it, right?’
Suddenly, Hunter understood. He’d been wondering why Callie had been sending him mixed signals- seemingly into him one minute and then running f
or Ryan the next and now, he knew why. ‘You want to know why I took Dare?’ He asked, reinstating his hold on her. ‘Why I’d never kissed you before?’ Callie lowered her head, shaking it. Fat teardrops shone on her lashes, even in the dingy light. He felt himself expand all over, warmed, charred by his need for her. He lifted her face again and murmured: ‘Callie my answer was: Because I’m a fucking idiot. And that’s the truth; I never kissed you Cal, because I’ve been a fucking idiot who was blind to the fact that when you saved my life, you became it.’
Callie’s eyes lifted. So brown, seeming to glow. ‘Really?’
The hope in her eyes ignited him like her jealousy had the day before, and Hunter knew it was time to give his girl her first kiss and then never stop. He tilted his face to hers and slanted his lips across her mouth, both feeling and hearing her moan as their mouths met and surrendered, lips parting, tongues sweeping across one another’s in a way that made Hunter feel instantly satiated on one level and yet out of his mind on ten thousand others. He made a keening sound and sank deeper into her soft, red lips, clutching her so tightly that had she been frail or delicate in stature, he might have broken something. But she wasn’t- Callie was tall and muscular, her dancer’s legs as powerful as any of the guys in the school and more shapely than any model’s. He crushed her to him until her curves conformed to his hardness and that simple act made Hunter’s body heat flare until it threatened to scorch them both. The air of the room was thick, foggy, like the window couldn’t penetrate the warmth they were generating and then Callie was the one clutching, Callie was the one forcing their bodies to line up where it counted. She gripped the chain around his neck with two fists, hooked one leg behind his and bent him like metal softened by fire until they were falling. Hunter caught himself on the mudguard of the tractor at the last moment, keeping them upright so that they sank to their knees on the hay-covered concrete.
‘Callie you’re so beautiful,’ he whispered across her lips, and she sighed in the back of her throat as his hands slid his wet fuzzy shirt off her shoulders so that it slipped off her wrists. Then, he caressed the damp seat of her jeans, pulling her hips against his. ‘Every time you run, I’m going to find you, got it? And I’m going to catch you, like you caught me.’ His fingers raked up her back, under her sodden top, and then back down jerking her into him by digging his hands into her jeans pockets and pressing their hips together. ‘And make you feel what you do to me. Can you feel it Callie?’
‘Yes!’ Callie whimpered and her hand slipped between their bodies and caressed him through his damp jeans, making him feel like he was going to pass-out from the sudden rush of blood south. ‘I feel it!’
‘Good… then it’s my turn.’ Hunter kissed her again and slipped his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, and she moaned encouragingly, welcoming the invasion as he sought the source of her pleasure in a frenzy. Her jeans were wet but the skin beneath humid and then he felt her damp panties against the back of his knuckles just as his fingertips made contact with the warmest, silkiest and softest thing he had ever conceived of. At first he was paralysed by the exquisite perfection of the feel of her against his fingers, but then he stroked her and she gasped and his erection felt unbearably heavy in reflex to that lovely sound.
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Hunter thought he heard Ryan demand but Callie’s erratic breathing drowned him out. Hunter silenced her with his mouth again, cradling her neck in the crook of his arm beneath him, arcing his tongue against hers as one of his fingers did the same thing between her delicate folds, and when that made her gasp he slid the finger out and then plunged into her again and almost lost himself at the way she tightened around him. He knew it was fast but they both needed it to cross that line he was never going to let her retreat from. He needed to be inside her in every way possible. Now.
‘Touch me Callie...’ he begged, knowing it was okay to ask, that she wasn’t some game-player like Meredith, that her need for him was physical, not just some base to be rounded so she could whisper about it later. And he needed her touch so much. Her body was heaven. Nirvana. Come as you are, as he wanted her to be, as she had been intended to be: his. And then her petal-soft palm clamped around him, skin against skin, and squeezed gently and because he’d never been touched there before, he was unprepared for the wave of dizziness which hit him as her hot little palm gently pumped him. He lost himself there and then, stiffening, groaning. Callie’s hand flinched, but then she released a soft moan of approval and wonder before pumping him again, using his release to lubricate him, almost making him black out.
That was when his senses completely left him. There was no storm, no threat, no girlfriend, and no Ryan. Hunter caught the hem of her saturated top and pulled up roughly, making her head bow in compliance as the neckline cleared her hat, knocking it to the floor. Callie’s hair fell down to drape her shoulders but he wasn’t about to let it destroy his view- he took both curtains of her parted hair in his hands and used them like reins, pulling her lips to his again and then dropped his hand, palming the damp and full cup of her bra greedily. Callie’s hand slipped out of the front of his jeans and then she slid both hands into the back, clenching his naked ass, sighing sweetly as though she was enjoying his body as much as he was hers.
Cotton to lace, cotton to lace. Hunter thought, as his sweet best friend evolved into a passionate nymph in his arms. But then the bra was falling away and Callie was gasping. Hunter wondered if he’d used his mental powers to pop it free but when Callie’s lips pulled away, his eyes opened reluctantly and then shock overwhelmed him to see that Callie’s jaw was in Ryan’s hands now. Their friend had knelt behind her, wrestled her face to him and now Ryan’s lips were making Callie gasp, Ryan’s hand was between her breasts and tugging the bra down her arms and to Hunter’s dismay, Callie’s hands were tentatively resting against Ryan’s lower stomach, poised as though she longed to touch him back but almost couldn’t bear to.
It was a shocking sight and though Hunter was instantly overcome by a jealous rage which he’d never felt the equal of before, he was riveted by the vision, for it was like having porn happen right in front of him. Ryan’s hands were swift and self-assured. Callie’s eyes darted back to Hunter’s; a questioning, panicked look within them, but then Ryan’s fingers gently stroked a path across her breasts, like she was a guitar in his arms, and Callie’s back arched to encourage his touch, her eyes fluttering shut as Ryan’s parted her lips with the tip of his tongue and then rather forcefully, pushed her face back to Hunter’s.
‘Our friend needs us to calm her down Hunter,’ Ryan whispered. His hands now resting on Callie’s hips and running along her waistband until they were plucking at the button of her jeans. He pressed his lips to Callie’s neck and then gently drew his teeth along her shoulder, his expression agonized. Callie moaned gently, her lips turning back towards the boy behind her needfully. Ryan made a whelping sound and kissed Callie hungrily, then tore his lips away. ‘Both of us...’ Silently his blue eyes communicated the threat: ‘Try and keep me out of this and we’re going to battle.’
Callie’s face fell forward, resting her forehead in her palm, and she drew in a shaky breath. She looked uncertain and vulnerable and Hunter knew they should back off, should actually stop and ask her permission, and yet the idea that given the chance to think it through, she might choose neither as opposed to both was so terrifying that he leaned forward, batted her hand out of the way and caught her mouth with his, kissing her even more passionately than before, needing to one-up Ryan and keep her in the moment. He knew it was a dog act but she looked too damn good, bare-chested, kneeling between them in skintight wet jeans with her hair in disarray. He devoured her mouth, lashing her tongue with his, still able to taste the salt from her tears on his own lips. His hands sought out her breasts and he palmed them, murmuring how beautiful she was so softly and erratically that she probably couldn’t understand anyway. He chanced a look down their bodies and saw that Ryan was peeling back the
fly of her jeans. He groaned in anticipation, his eyes skating briefly to Callie’s upturned face, just as Ryan jerked the jeans down so they bunched on her thighs.
And then Hunter couldn’t kiss her anymore- could not drag his eyes from the sight as Callie’s firm, full rump, barely covered by her plain black cotton panties was kneaded greedily by Ryan’s hands. His friend groaned under his breath and reached one hand around her, delving into her panties first and rubbing her in a way that made Callie’s body jerk. Her head fell onto Hunter’s chest and she sucked in a breath, shuddering as Ryan’s other hand slipped into the back of her underwear, his shoulder dropping, his wrist twitching as he pleasured her from underneath as well. Callie’s hips were dipping to meet the exploration, and she was panting as Ryan did to her with his fingers, what Hunter wanted to do with his erection. Jealousy flashed through Hunter again- jealousy that Callie’s responses to Ryan’s hands were so strong, that Ryan technique was upstaging him again. He bent down, jerked Callie’s panties to the side and exposed her delicate flesh to his greedy gaze, before gently pinching her pretty, pink bud between his thumb and forefinger and pulsing it gently.
Callie made a garbled noise as her head fell back onto Ryan’s shoulder, arching now to Hunter’s touch. ‘We should stop…’ she whispered, eyes closed, brows knitted. ‘Stop making it feel so good. It’s wrong… oh Hunter…’ she panted his name, throwing her arm behind her around Ryan’s shoulder and groaning when Ryan’s hand cupped her breast. Hunter dipped his finger inside her again, the blood rushing in his ears when she bucked violently, impaling herself more deeply.
‘We’ll stop if you need us to…’ Ryan assured her, his tone seductive and low- his gaze firmly fixed on what Hunter was doing to her. ‘But if you want this like I do- know that I’m going to be gentle sweetheart. And safe.’ He nuzzled his face against her neck and whispered: ‘Trust me to make love to you, Callie, to make this a moment you’ll never forget or regret.’