I walk to him, putting my hands on his face and feeling him. "Then have me," I whisper. His arms fly around my waist, and he moves his hand into my hair. His tongue slips into my mouth, and I get lost in him.
"I want," he says as he trails the kisses from my lips to my chin. "I want to pick you up and carry you to the couch."
"How about," I say, my eyes are still closed as he kisses me, "we walk over to the couch?” I turn in his arms and slip my hand in his as I drag him to the couch, sitting down and pulling him next to me. "I know you are almost healed, but I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, and he pulls me to him.
"You won’t hurt me," he says, his voice gruff as he buries his hand in my hair and kisses me again. We kiss until we are both breathless. "We should get to bed," he says, and I lean in, kissing his neck. He gets up now and holds out his hand to me. I slip my hand in his and turn to walk over to the hallway. "Good night, Chelsea," he says, leaning down and kissing my lips. "Sweet dreams."
Turning, I walk to my bedroom, and I miss him. I wish he would have followed me to my room. I slip into bed and look toward the hallway. The minutes turn into over two hours, and I finally get up to make myself some tea. I try not to make noise, but when I walk out of my bedroom, I find him lying on the couch, looking out the window at the stars. "What are you doing here?" I ask, and he looks over at me.
"I couldn’t sleep," he says. "So I thought I would look at the stars and try to see the beauty in them." My heart speeds up in my chest, and my stomach flutters.
I smile, walking over to the couch. "And?"
"The only thing I could think of was you." He reaches up and grabs my hand, pulling me down to him. I try not to squish him. "Lie with me," he says, and I don’t answer him because I can’t. The lump in my throat threatens to come out like a sob, and he might freak out. Instead, I lie on the couch with my back to his chest as he wraps his arms around me. We don’t say anything as we both look at the stars, and it takes me less than ten minutes to finally fall asleep.
My eyes flutter open when I feel him move behind me. "Am I hurting you?" I jump up, afraid I’ve hurt him.
"No." He shakes his head. “I was trying to," he says and stops.
"What?" I ask, looking him up and down to make sure he’s okay.
He looks down, almost as if he doesn’t want to tell me. "I was trying to place my hard-on down."
My eyes suddenly fly to his cock, and I can see he’s definitely up. "I didn’t want you to wake up and have it poking in your back."
"Um," I say, and my cheeks blush now. "I’ll make coffee," I say, ignoring his eyes. He gets up from the couch, and I hear him walking to his bedroom. Looking over, I see it is almost five thirty in the morning. When he comes out of his bedroom, I say, "I made you coffee."
He takes the cup from me and then turns. "Let’s sit outside," he says, and we walk out to sit outside on the stairs.
"I’m sorry," he says, and I look over at him, the coffee cup at my lips. "About before. It was—"
"If you say it was a mistake." I shake my head, taking a gulp of the hot coffee and burning my mouth. "That is going to be a hard one to swallow." I laugh now. "Get it? Hard one."
He shakes his head and looks down. "I meant I didn’t mean to disrespect you like that."
"I’ve never been with anyone," I finally tell him, my head telling me not to say anything and my heart holding on for dear life. "Like I’ve dated guys, but…"
"Are you saying…?" he says, and I feel suddenly so dumb.
"My mother was known as the town slut,” I say and blink away the tears. "I mean, not now, but when she had Ethan." I swallow down. "Shit went down, and I don’t really know the whole story because frankly, it doesn’t matter. My mother is amazing. She is kind, she is loving, she is selfless when it comes to the people she loves and us." I look up at the sky as it starts to turn colors now. "She’s been with my father for over twenty years, and people still talk about her. Less than before, but you would hear whispers even when I was in school." I wipe away the tear coming down my cheek. "So I wasn’t going to give them anything more to talk about. I was going to show them that my mother raised a lady. That she wasn’t what those people said she was." He wraps his hand around my shoulders and pulls me to him, kissing my head. "So you may think that we have this amazing family. And we do. But every family has some cracks in the foundation. It’s about finding the crack and sealing it shut."
He doesn’t say anything. We just sit and stare at the colors that fill the sky. We finish our coffee and walk in with the empty cups just as the door swings open, and Ethan walks in.
He stops in his tracks and smirks at Mayson. "You ready to hunt?" he says, and my stomach falls to the floor.
"Fucking right, I am," Mayson says without missing a beat. He walks to the bedroom.
"What’s going on?" I ask Ethan, trying to control the beating of my heart. I don’t even blink when Mayson is back and dressed in camo pants and a black T-shirt. The tattoo on his arm sticks out so much, or maybe I’m just focusing more on it.
"We are going to the base and share what we found out," Ethan says, looking at Mayson. He walks over to him and slaps his shoulder. "You look skinny."
"Fuck you," Mayson says, pushing Ethan away.
"Okay, let’s go," Ethan says, and I stand here with my heart in my throat.
"I’m not leaving her alone," Mayson says, stopping Ethan in his tracks.
"Quinn is on his way," Ethan says, and I’m both annoyed and a little pissed but mostly sad he’s leaving.
"I don’t need a babysitter," I say, turning and not looking at either of them. "I have plans today anyway," I say, walking into the kitchen. "Have fun hunting," I say over my shoulder and walk to my bedroom. I make it to the bed before I hear the front door slam shut.
I don’t move from my bed, and I don’t know why I think he’s going to come back and kiss me goodbye and tell me everything is okay. Deep down in my heart, I just know I’ll never have him.
I ignore the pain in my chest while I get changed into my jean shorts that show off my lean, toned legs and a white short tank top that molds to my chest and falls just about my belly button. I slip on flip-flops, and I’m walking out the door when Quinn arrives.
"Where are you going?" he asks from inside his truck.
"Home,” I say.
"Get in. I’ll drive you," he says, and I know that I can argue with him and take my car, but he’ll only end up following me there, and then my father will be all over him for not looking out for me. Instead, I just open the truck door and get in.
"Someone done pissed you off," he says, pulling away from my house.
"Why do you say that?" I look over at him.
"You just got in without arguing with me, so you are either fucking pissed or you’re angry." He smirks at me, and I roll my eyes at him. "I’ll shut up now."