I slideOasisnext to a copy ofTorchedon the bookshelf in my bedroom and promise myself that I’ll never read it.
27
Present Day
I thought timewould fade West from my memory, but it didn’t happen like that.
It happened like this.
I close my eyes and remember. I hold on to everything. I preserve him in resin. I fall asleep and trace the crooked line of his nose. I run the pad of my thumb over the swoop of his lashes. I lick the divot above his lips.
Tonight, he stumbles into the darkness of my room, and it’s achingly familiar. I’ve imagined his hands on me more times than it happened in real life. I feel the drag of his fingers over the bare skin of my hip before they slide forward, flattening over my stomach. I roll onto my back, desperate for contact. His hand slides to my ribs and stops. I arch into him, groaning in frustration. His touch has me in shambles.
His face is over mine now. He’s shirtless, in the same gray sweatpants he was wearing earlier. His thumb brushes against the underside of my breast, and I wriggle against the sheets, looking for friction I can’t find.
His lips fall to my neck. The scrape of his whiskered jaw against sensitive skin makes me shiver. I run my hand down his chest to his waistband. He swears loudly and collapses to his elbows, his weight pressing me into the mattress. It feels so good I almost pass out. He drags his tongue from my collarbone to my ear, and I’m panting.
“Can I touch you?” he rasps. He sounds like he swallowed a fistful of gravel.
“Yes,” I beg. I press my hips against his, the shock of contact threatening to burn me alive.
He slides his hand down to the inside of my thigh and nudges. My knees fall apart.
“But I thought you hated me.” I hear the smirk in his voice.
“I do.” I grind out the words. My eyes fly open, and I catch a glimpse of chest, forearms, muscles, before he rolls off me and flips me over. I’m on my stomach, my hands scrabbling for purchase.
He presses a line of kisses down my spine and then traces back over his work with his tongue. He settles his chest against my shoulder blades, crushing the air from my lungs so perfectly I want to ask him to do it again. I bite my lip to keep quiet as his mouth ghosts over my ear. “Do you want me or not, Jupiter?”
“I don’t know,” I pant.
I feel the whisper of his hands everywhere. “I’ll have to help you decide,” he promises. I don’t know if it’s a vow or a threat.
I wake up, sweaty and flushed, West’s sheets twisted around my ankles and damp heat pooling between my legs. I don’t dare reach down and feel, knowing I won’t be able to stop myself from finishing the job. I bite my lip and screw my eyes shut tight while my heart slows and I try to repress the feeling ofWest’s weight pinning me into the mattress.His mattress. The one he claims he’s been waiting to get me on.
I need to get out of here.
I pull myself up and make West’s bed look less like I had a sex dream about him. When I find my clean pajamas folded on his nightstand, I ignore the possibility that he might have walked inwhileI was having a sex dream about him. I step softly into the hall and stop in my tracks at the soft murmur of voices.Plural.
I tense for whatever I’m about to walk into, but a smile blooms on my face as I enter the kitchen. “Gabbi?”
“Hey, Mars.” She looks up from her phone. She’s wearing a matching orange workout set and has two neon star-shaped zit patches on her chin. She’s folded up comfortably in one of West’s kitchen chairs. He’s standing over the stove, stirring something in a saucepan. He glances over his shoulder at us, his eyes sparking with interest, but he doesn’t say anything.
“You remember me?” I ask Gabbi.
“Sure. We went to those caves that one time, and you bought me one of those black velvet souvenir bags filled with shiny rocks.”
I lean my hip against the counter. West wordlessly hands me a cup of coffee, which I accept without taking my eyes off his sister. I need more distance between the dream and the next time I look at him. “I did?”
“I think I still have it somewhere. I fucking loved those things.”
“Wow. Good for me,” I say. West chuckles.
Gabbi’s eyes dart to her brother before she looks back at me with an apologetic grimace. “I didn’t realize you’d be here when I came over.”
“It’s fine,” I assure her quickly. “It’s not what it looks like. I’m just crashing here because of a fire in my hotel.”
“I know,” Gabbi says.
