Like it’s trying to stop me.
I look back over my shoulder. Those trees in the park with their long, thin branches…
Are they hustling me out?
Or trying to keep me inside the safety of their might?
I frown…well, that’s a weird thought. All of this is weird.
Quickly shaking it off, I tighten my flimsy coat around my trembling body and pick up my pace. I need to get to Joey’s faster and not stand here, practicing philosophy of the storm. Jesus…
“There’s my pretty girlfriend!” Joey shouts as soon as he opens the front door, flashing me his signature crooked grin I love so much. “Did you get held up at practice? Wait, that dude from theOlympics school wasn’t coming today, was he?” His face twists in thought as he searches his memory for what I’ve told him before, and I shake my head, carefully setting my shoes by the door with the bag and the coat on the bench near it.
Carefully, because that bench alone is worth more than my whole house. And I always shudder to think just how much Joey’s whole place costs.
Where I come from, dirt poor with a runaway for a mother, a brother who likes to live on the wrong side of the tracks while constantly tormenting me, and a father who barely holds it together when his health is slowly deteriorating, Joey Kloss is the complete opposite.
The Klosses are basically royalty around here and don’t even live in town all year-round, splitting their time between our small town in Northern Vermont and the busy life of Boston.
However, I know Joey from when we were kids, seeing him every summer break having fun with his friends on the lake, and during the holidays when his family would come up to their vacation home here. Everyone knew the gorgeous guy with that athletic build of a football player, dazzling smile, and dark-as-sin hair. And no one’s immune to that charm. Least of all me. But it wasn’t until senior year of high school on Christmas that he accidentally bumped into me while I was skating with Electra.
According to her, she saw how he looked at me and made me show off. I blushed like a ripe tomato and hissed for her to stop pestering me about it for half an hour, because I wasn’t going to do that, knowing a guy like Joey couldn’t be interested in me. That’s when she took matters into her own hands. Electra sped off with me, linking our hands together, passing the guys in a flurry and when she jumped right in front of their faces, I knew I had to as well or we’d both fall on our butts and embarrass ourselves in front of them.
After the first jump, I heard whistles and hollers, and as soon as we stopped and I was slapping Electra mad for pulling me into this, Joey materialized in front of me, clumsy on his skates and asked me to teach him how to be magical like me, all while flashing me his dazzling smile.
A week later, he took my virginity. After a month, I knew I loved him with my whole heart.
That was a year ago, and every day since I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop because I was convinced fairy tales don’t exist, yet I’m living in one. Where a rich boy falls in love with a girl from as opposite a family as you could get.
But he chose me back then and continued showing his love every day since, so who cares how it looks. Who cares we aren’t a perfect match. Who cares we’re moving a bit faster than expected.
This is it! This is the start of our future because the life we created is living inside me now.
With that thought, I steel my nerves and move into the living room toward his black leather couch. His electric fireplace is on. And as much as I loved the modern look, I always missed the crackling sound of the logs.
“No, no, Filip is coming this Friday. I was meeting up with Electra.”
“Ah.” Joey smiles in understanding as he settled next to me on the couch, and almost immediately, his hand is moving up my thigh as he burrows his nose in my neck. “I have no idea how you two can literally spend over sixteen hours a day together and still have something to talk about every single time. You smell like rain.” He inhales my scent, and at that precise moment the storm touches down. An army of raindrops beating down, shooting the large windows like bullets.
Despite being in the safety of Joey’s home, a shiver runs up my spine, because I can hear whispers of that same threatening song just outside that window.
But before I can come up with a logical explanation as to why it keeps happening or if I’m finally losing my damn mind, Joey’s lips trail over my neck and down to my collarbone, making me forget it all.
“Yeah, I just barely made it here before it started,” I tell him, my breath catching when his hand slips into the waistband of my leggings. “But I haven’t actually seen Electra today. She didn’t show up.”
“Oh? So, what or who held you up from me?” Joey pulls his face away from me, one brow arched in a teasing question.
“I was just at the park, swinging, thinking.”
“At the park?” Now, one corner of his mouth tugged up in amusement as his fingers began teasing my belly, and I can’t stop the sharp inhale of my breath at the action which Joey takes as an invitation. “You must’ve been thinking very hard to stay there so long.” His lips return to my neck. “And it better be something very, very important.” Joey’s voice turns low and gravelly as his hand starts slipping into my panties. “Because I’ve been going mad here without you. Needed this pussy as soon as I got into town this morning.”
“It was. It is.” The words rushed out fast and hurried because I can’t think of anything right now. I can’t want anything until I told him.
My hand wrapped around his, trying to halt him but Joey was undeterred. “Joey.” His name goes through him as that wind outside.
“Joey, I need to—”
“I know what you need, baby.” Being much stronger than I am, he easily pushes through the hold I have on his wrist and starts up again.
