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“I want it real—I don’t want it sweet.”
Scott almost lost it right then and there. He felt himself chuckle, the sound deep and dark. It had been so long since he’d let go in this way—and he couldn’t think of anybody he’d want to let go with more. “Oh, Ceelee. I can so deliver on that.” Then he brought his mouth down on hers and the fuse was lit between them.
She gasped against his lips as his hand turned firm on the side of her neck, pulling her to him. She snaked her arms around him in return and her short trimmed, painted nails turned to claws biting into his back, the pain a sweet surrender he hadn’t ever expected to make.
They rolled so he was on top of her with a thigh between her knees, their kissing hard but not aggressive, fast but not frantic.
He lifted himself so he was on his hands and knees and looked down at her, admiring the way the color was high in her cheeks, her lips parted and kiss-swollen.
She reached for the hem of her tank, but he took it from her. He started to wrench it up, but remembering the fresh tattoo, he forced himself to go slow and gently peel it up instead, holding it away from that sensitive skin. She arched her back, then lifted her shoulders, bringing her hands over her head. He tossed her shirt away into the dimness around them, but when she reached to touch him, he caught her hands.
She gasped when he brought them up over her head and pinned them to the pillow. Then she stared up at him, her eyes urging him onward, daring him to continue, begging to know what was coming next.
He pushed his face into her neck, where he kissed her hard, nipping at her skin like he’d imagined doing so many guilty times.
But there wasn’t room for guilt here—not between them, not when she looked at him like that. He nipped at her collarbones, her shoulders, then his gaze swept downward—and landed on her breasts.
Thank you, universe, for letting me forget to turn off the lamp when I came to bed! Her tits were fucking fantastic.
Keeping her arms pinned with one hand, he brought the other to one of her round, pale breasts, the pink nipple taught. Her breathing changed as he massaged her for a moment, careful not to touch the straining tip, just relishing the weight and fullness, the softness of her skin. Then, deliberately, watching her face and listening for her reaction, he ran his thumb over the taut bead of her nipple.
Her head pressed back into the pillows, her mouth falling open and her chest rising from the bed as the most delicious whisper of a moan escaped her.
He brought his mouth down onto her breast, rolling her between his lips and against his tongue until her gasps turned the corner to painful need. Then he went to the other, where it took only moments for her to turn that corner again, her legs pedaling beneath him but unable to make friction because of the knee he had between them—but not against her.
He pressed his face between her breasts and drew a breath, pressing a kiss to her sternum.
This was so much better than anything he’d dreamed up alone in his bed at night.
Looking up at her, he pushed her hands deeper into the pillow. “These stay here.”
The way her lips pulled into a hell-yes kind of smile as she panted told him just how turned-on she was.
And oh, he had every intention of showing her how turned-on he was in return.
He let go of her wrists and let his palm skate down her arm to join the other on her breasts. Then he continued on, his fingers sliding beneath her so her back arched as she inhaled deep. He kissed her ribs, her stomach.
He feather-light kissed the tattoo he’d inked into her skin.
Then he went lower, past her navel, until his palms were pressed against her backside, and his fingers grazed over an edge of fabric, almost as soft as her skin. He pulled back as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of what he expected to be shorts, like the night before—
His breath caught in his chest.
They were panties.
She’d been sitting in his bed in nothing but a thin black tank and her black panties. And something about that was so fucking hot his cock strained, begging to get through that thin layer of damp fabric.
But not yet.
Instead, he kissed her hip bones as she lifted her ass off the bed and he tugged the soft fabric down. Then she lifted her legs so he could slide them off over her feet.
He looked up her body to find her head up, her eyes blazing as she stared down at him with one leg stretched long, the other bent and fallen to the side so she was bare and open to him. Her hands were still obediently held above her head, but the way she pulled at the top of the pillow made it clear it was taking effort to keep them there.
Good, he thought with satisfaction. That was the point.
She didn’t want sweet, after all.
“You good?” he asked, barely recognizing his own voice.
Her nod was quick, her own voice breathy. “Hell yes.”
He dipped his head again and her breathing turned to that fast rushing gasp that flexed her ribs as he kissed her hips, her thighs, staying so close but never going where he knew she wanted him.
Then finally, when he heard the smallest mew behind her breath, he lowered his mouth to the apex of her thighs.
Immediately, her chest shot up off the bed and her gasps turned to moans she kept locked in her chest.
He didn’t go easy, didn’t take it slow. He dove in like it wasn’t the first time he’d tasted her, like he’d wanted to do the night before.
And she went with him, rocking against his mouth, gasping and whining, until her gasping turned staccato and her rolling hips jerked—
And she gasped his name as she came.
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
Cecily wasn’t sure she even had bones in her body anymore. Or muscles. She certainly had no desire to move them.
She was laying with her head on Scott’s chest. His arm was tucked around her, holding her to him like he thought she might float away. Then again, she sort of felt like she might float away.
How was it possible to feel at once heavy with satisfaction and weightless with giddy happiness?
She opened her eyes, then brought her fingers to the tattoos that ran across his chest and shoulder. She traced the lines and images that usually sat underneath his shirt—the ones she’d wondered about so many times. Many of them were runes, the same shapes and symbols that he’d tattooed on her side, but simpler. His tattoos more resembled pencil sketches than the oil and watercolor effect of hers.
“Did you do these yourself?”
The way he drew a breath before he responded made it clear he was as relaxed as she was. His voice was low when he spoke. “Most of them, yeah. Some I had my boss ink for me—he has a different technique, you can tell them apart.”
Damn. That was seriously impressive.
“They’re beautiful.”
He just hummed a sigh.
When she looked up at him she expected to find his eyes closed, but no. He was peering down at her, a gentle smiling on his lips.
Cecily smirked. “What?”
“I’m glad you’re in my bed.”
Her smirk pulled into a grin. “Me too.”
She laid her head back down and settled in against him, and they laid like that for a number of minutes—just long enough for her mind to start working again. Start working on things outside of the two of them.
“What are you thinking?” Scott asked, almost like he knew her thoughts had taken a step back toward real life.
“Two things at once.”
His chuckle reverberated in his chest beneath her ear. “Okay, what’s the first thing?”
She looked up at him. “That was... so worth waiting for.”
He laughed and, drawing a hand to the side of her face, slid down farther beneath the covers so they were face to face—just how the night had begun.
God, this felt right.
He’d made her come with her back on the bed. Then she’d flipped him over and taken him in her mouth. Then, minutes later, she’d crawled on top of him and they’d kissed while he let her take control. At first she’d kissed him because she wanted his lips against hers while she rode him—then, as the pace picked up and she could feel herself climbing toward that precipice—the sister peak to her first climax—they’d kissed to muffle the sounds they wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet otherwise.
When she’d come the second time, it had been a slow, building, driving kind of orgasm. Not the kind that jerks and rushes like an explosion, but the kind that rolls through like a tide—leaving her languid in its exit. And he’d gone right over the edge just as her tide was just starting to ebb, so she got to watch him come apart.
He was even more beautiful in those most unguarded, most animalistic seconds.
“My thoughts were along the same lines,” he replied, pulling her mind back into the moment of their afterglow conversation. “What was the second thing?”
There was that dose of realism again. She paused, and, again, it was like he could feel the shift in her.
“Ceelee, what is it?”
Just say it, Cecily. If this is the beginning of what you hope it is, you have to start talking to him.
“You were really cool this morning—about Trevor and everything.”
He smiled, but there was question in his eyes. “I like to think I was just being a decent human being, but thanks.”
She laughed. Scott would think that way—because he was a decent human being. “Just... I don’t know—tell me if you start to feel less cool about it. Okay?”
He studied her for a moment. “I will. I swear.”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m still hung up on him—”
On the bedside table her phone buzzed with a text message, but she ignored it.
“I don’t think that,” Scott said. “I get it.” Her phone buzzed again, and he smiled. “And, apparently, you should get that.”
With a smile of her own and a generous eye roll, she untangled herself from Scott just enough to roll and pluck her phone from the table beside the bed. She laid on her back and lit the screen, ready to see a “how are things” text from her mom, or a drunk text from a friend back home—which she’d read, then set her phone to Do Not Disturb—but it wasn’t either of those things.
It was a text from her soon-to-be roommate.
Hey. I got let go from work today. I have to live with my parents until I find another job, so no-go on the apartment. Sorry.
“What the hell?” Cecily only realized she’d sat up when she felt Scott’s hand on her back.
“What’s the matter?” His tone had lost all of the sleepy deepness it had had just moments ago. Now it held an edge of ready-to-go-to-battle-for-you that she’d heard in his voice only a couple of times before this—and appreciated in a new way now as she looked to him, hair a mess, shirtless because of her.
“The friend I was going to get the apartment with—she just backed out.”
Scott’s expression turned to instant oh-no-that’s-awful. “Shit. That sucks.”
Cecily looked at the message on her phone again, then back at Scott’s face—and made a decision.
She was not going to worry about this now. She had made the decision to move out of the apartment she shared with her mom and Alyssa, and she would do that—even if she had to make that happen in a whole new way now. But she was not going to make those plans here, in Scott’s bed, in the afterglow of the kind of sex people wrote poetry about. She wasn’t even going to think about the plan, the apartment, or her friend’s text message. They would be waiting for her tomorrow, or next week when she was back in Seattle. Now was not the time.
She would not let them steal this moment with Scott from her.
So she put her phone back on the bedside table and smiled at Scott as she slid back beneath the covers. “I’ll worry about it later—”
“Move in with us.”
Cecily’s mind went blank. She stared at him. Had she heard him right?
“Move in with us,” he said again, with more fervor this time. “There’s a spare bedroom. I’m not saying we have to share a room—”
“But I’d want to,” she cut in, shocking herself. She hadn’t meant to say that—even though she meant it. But before she could worry, Scott’s smile grew.
“So would I.”
“Wait.” She needed to think rationally here—which was becoming harder and harder to do through the ringing excitement building in her chest. “Should you ask Callum and Zander if they’re okay with me moving in?”
“Maybe? But, think about it, Zander’s not going to say no, and Callum loves you like a sister. It’ll be fine.”
He was probably right. No, he was definitely right.
She laughed quietly as she slid across the mattress. She brought her hands to his backside and her hips to his hips where she could feel that he was as ready for another round as she was.
She smirked up at him. “Are you sure you won’t get tired of me?”
His appreciative growl told her everything she needed to know. “I’m sure I’ll be exhausted because of you—but never tired of you.” His kissed her.
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
Callum startled awake. He didn’t remember falling asleep, so waking up proved disorienting. It was silent in the house; the gray, almost-light around the edge of the blinds made him think it would me morning soon. He rolled his head a couple of times, stretching stiffness from his neck. He’d fallen asleep sitting up—not exactly the best sleeping position.
His stomach felt sour, like he’d been drinking even though he hadn’t.
He reached to check on Zander, maybe lie down and tuck himself around her but his fingers landed on mattress.
She wasn’t there. Rumpled sheets were the only evidence she’d been lying beside him.
Panic spiking in Callum’s still sleep-jumbled brain, he shot a glance to the bedroom door—closed. Then across the room to check the clock that sat on the desk—only to find Zander before he’d found the time.
She was standing at the end of the bed. Staring at him.
He pushed his adrenaline reaction down, ignoring the shiver that went up his spine.
He’d woken up with people standing at the end of his bed before, when he was a kid—they’d just never been living.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered. “You scared me. You okay?”
There was a pause before she spoke. “I’m leaving.”
Callum felt his brows furrow and his jaw get tight. “What?”
“I’m leaving you. I can’t stay here.”
She wasn’t even speaking with inflection.
“Are you awake?” he asked. Or was she sleep walking? Was this a reaction to the meds?
“I’m awake,” she replied, the timing still stilted and off. She was too still, standing there. Unmoving.
“Okay, look.” Callum swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. He reached for her as he drew near, wanting to comfort her. “It’s the middle of the night, and you’re on some seriously heavy shit right now. Stay here tonight—sleep it off. You’ll feel better in the morning and we can talk about this.”
She just looked at him, with his hand on her back. She wasn’t even dressed, standing there in a pair of his boxers she wore as sleep shorts and a tank top.
She shrugged his hand away with a gasp like she’d only just realized he was touching her.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “And don’t try to make me stay. You’re always convincing me to stay.”
Huh? “What is that—” supposed to mean? But he stopped himself. Instead of blowing them into a fight, he pressed his fingers into his temples for a breath. Then he dropped his arms and reached for her again—to herd her back toward the bed this time, instead of touch her.
“Please come back to bed,” he begged. “You don’t have to leave. I love you, and we’ll figure this out. Remember? That’s what we said as we fell asleep.”
She stepped around his arms with a scoff. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how long I’ve been faking it?”
She wasn’t in her right mind, Callum reminded himself through the pain cracking in his chest. The doctors had said she might say things she didn’t mean—and probably not remember them later. So he wasn’t sure if the pain behind his ribs was in response to what she said, or the fact that she was saying it.
“God, I’m so sorry,” he found himself breathing, his head falling forward, despair and guilt lacing up his spine.
“Callum?”
He looked up at her and found her looking at him with concern and worry on her face.
“Callum, no. This isn’t about you.”
He reached for her, frantic, realizing that his real Zander was there. Feeling her in the room—having not realized she was gone. “Zander?” He pulled her to him, wrapping an arm around her waist and bringing a hand to the side of her face. “Baby, what’s going on?”
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I can’t hold on.”
“What? No, you don’t have to leave. Please,” he begged her through a clenched jaw.
She pushed him away. “Don’t ‘please’ me,” she spat. “There’s nothing here,” she motioned to the space between them. “And I took care of what was here.” She put her hand to her chest, over her heart. “So stop trying to make me stay.”
Dizzy from her mental gymnastics, Callum stepped back. The back of his knees hit the bed and he let them give out so he dropped down to sit onto the mattress behind him.
He was about to watch her leave—and then he was going to call 911. Because something was seriously wrong here.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” she spat at him. “You don’t even want kids.”
Wait. What?
Everything ground to a halt in his mind.
In all their time together, they’d talked about the future a lot. And never, in any version, did it include wanting children.
He sprang up from the bed and grabbed her wrist when she made to walk to the door.
They were of a like mind on the kids thing.
So where the hell was this coming from?
His fingers still tight around her wrist, he spun to put himself between her and the door, then he flipped on the light.
She squinted, turning her face away and closing her eyes against the brightness but he forced his eyes to stay open.
“Look at me,” he demanded. Bringing his free hand to her jaw, he turned her face to him and waited for her eyes to open while she tried to pull away.
“Open your eyes,” he gritted out.
Her eyes sprang open and he gasped.
He dropped her hand, pulled his fingers away from her jaw, and stepped back as fear and panic rose to a fever pitch in his chest.
“Fuck.” Her eyes were black.
The doorknob bit into his back and shot him into motion. Grasping it, he turned, yanked the door open and flew through the frame, slamming it closed behind him.
“Cecily!” he called as he ran down the hall, his brain a buzzing whir of panic and thoughts that were flying a hundred miles an hour in his skull.
It was the Shadow. Just like Zander had known.
He’d dismissed it
He’d exiled her. He was an accomplice to her suffering.
“Cecily!”
He hit the back of the sofa and reached to shake her awake—only to bring up a fist full of blankets, with no Cecily beneath.
“Callum, what? Is Zander okay?”
He spun back to see Cecily standing in the doorway to Scott’s room, tugging the hem of her shirt into place—one of Scott’s shirts.
His brain stuttered for a second, then dismissed the whole thing outright.
Later.
“No,” he said. “It’s the Shadow. The Shadow has Zander.”
