There.
A dark figure coming from the opposite direction of the gym, the same area the woman disappeared into. This person is in all black too, but they’re bigger, taller. My heart leaps to my throat. I hear a bird caw in the distance and I stand again, then take a step back from the approaching figure. Even the hum of the fountain can’t drown out my rapid pulse now.
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, bumping against my two front teeth, and try to relax. Ely is safe, isn’t it? I know there’s crime in Ellicottville like anywhere, but we’re good here, aren’t we? I’ve never been hurt on campus. Never really had any bizarre situation.
The figure saunters closer from the mist.
Then I see Storm Leary’s dark hair, his black clothes, his gaze fixed fully on mine, and relief, warm and relaxing, spears through my body. I almost sink down to sit on the bench again but I pull myself together enough to stay upright. I slip my phone into the pocket of my sweats and fold my arms over my chest, hugging myself.
He gets closer, and I can see the blue of the hoop in his nose. From this distance, though, his eyes lookdark.I know they’re not, it’s the low light, but with his full lips and the tattoo on his neck and the ones down his fingers, he’s eerie.
A shadow more than a man.
When he’s a step away, I catch his scent, the same one that enveloped me on the couch over the weekend when he held me close.
Are you a monster, Storm Leary, or are you more?
He lifts his dark brows, almost as if he read my mind.I’m whatever you want me to be.
But those phantom words are just my daydreams talking.
Because when he gets close enough, he looks down his nose at me, scans my entire body, then meets my gaze again, and he doesn’t say anything I want him to say.
He doesn’t say anything at all.
A muscle in his throat moves, then I see his pulse beating at the blue vein in his neck. I have the wild urge to lick it, to fuck him, and I wonder if he’d imagine me being so deviant. Most guys don’t. Most guysaren’t.
But his lips around my finger were so hot and he was so hard and?—
“When you left your apartment this morning,” his cold voice breaks into my fantasy, “did you notice anything on your doorstep?”
I blink a few times and hug myself tighter. As close as we are, my forearms almost graze his core, but he doesn’t touch me.
It takes me a second to think through his question, because it doesn’t make any sense.
“No,” I finally answer him as he tilts his head, watching me. His eyes dart down to my lips, then back up. “Why?” Panic squeezes tight around my throat.
“Are you hungry?” he asks instead of answering me.
“Storm,” I say, mimicking the tone I’ve heard Heather use many times when she wants an answer out of someone. A disapproving voice; directed at me, too, but Henry most often. “Why are you asking me that, and why are you here?”
He doesn’t look away from me and he doesn’t blink. “Are you hungry or are you not?”
I clench my teeth and narrow my eyes. I swear I see a bone in his jaw jump, like he’s fighting back a smile. “No. But I could use some espresso.”
He nods once, then he turns his back on me.
I don’t follow him.
I won’t.
But without looking at me, he extends his hand behind his back, palm up, like he wants me to take it.
Butterflies tap dance in my low belly.
And he melts through my pretend defenses.
I take a breath, knowing I’m fucked, then I take his hand, and he closes his fingers around mine to pull me beside him.
