He doesn’t react.
I take a chance and move closer, invading his space, his everything as I lower my hands to slide them over his hips, fingers skimming the skin exposed by his low-slung waistband.
His whole frame shudders and it’s not my magic touch. It’s the tension I’ve felt in him before, but a thousand times worse. Like he’s strung so tight, if he snaps, he’ll never be the same when it’s over.
“Sky.”
Another whisper.
And still nothing, as if he’s barricaded himself from the inside, every muscle and nerve braced against something I can’t see. That he doesn’twantmeto see, but he’s so fucking tired of hiding he can’t find the will to push me away.
I’m good with danger.
Bad at caution.
But I try to be careful as I let one hand ascend his spine to the base of his skull and wrap my other arm tight around him, guiding him with wordless affection until he’s flush against me and fucking him doesn’t cross my mind.
I cage him in an embrace he didn’t ask for. He lets me for long enough that I find the balls to tangle my fingers in his hair and rub his neck, kneading the taut muscles and tendons as I coax him to rest his head on my shoulder.
Skylar. I don’t say his name again, but it reverberates in the echo chamber my heart has been since my mam was killed doing the exact same stupid shit Jack pulled twenty-five years later. Because their hearts were too big—too full. Mine’s just fucking faulty, but holding Skylar pours oil on the corroded valves and I breathe easier as some of the fight leaves him. I press my face into his neck and kiss him there, soft and static, not leading. I rub my scratchy cheek to his and beg him with every silent voice I have not to shove me off.
For long moments he doesn’t.
Then he tilts his head and we’re kissing before I have the brain power to stop it, and it’s like the kisses we shared in the water at the lagoon. When I was naked and he didn’t seem to notice. And maybe that’s what’s happening here, except it’s not literal. It’s that Skylar’s flayed wide open and he can’t let me see, because he doesn’t know how.
Sol’s words come back to me.
You’re a hate fuck waiting to happen.
Maybe it already has and this shit…it needs tostop. But the current thrumming between me and Skylar, it’s a wicked thing. His lips taste sweet, and his cool fingers slipping under my threadbare t-shirt are even sweeter.
I stagger a little, holding him tighter for balance. Hit the wall behind me anyway, and after weeks of pinning him with my taller frame, the sensation of his hard muscle pushing against me spins my head.
He’s not a cornered animal anymore.
He’s corneringme.
And fool that I am, I’m letting him.
But his mouth on mine, his hot breath stealing the literal air from my fucking lungs, it’s so good I lose what little cognitive function I ever had around him in the first place. I lose the ability to separate the primal attraction I know is real for both of us and the masterclass in derailment he’s treating me to.
My blood rushes south, and I know I could come like this—from the friction we’re tearing from each other in the hallway while Sol and Jack work downstairs. From the thrill of letting Skylar manoeuvre me into his room.
It’s dark and airless.
Blinds closed. Window shut.
Skylar shoves me against the door and I wonder if he wants to fuckmethis time. Get dizzy at the notion. It’s been years since I’ve wanted that. Too many to count. But Skylar—fuck. I wanthim in any capacity he’s willing to give, and I’m pretty sure he fucking knows it.
He bites my lips, going for the loose button on my shorts.
I don’t fight it.
I tip my head back, swallowing a moan as he grips me in his fist, my own hands grasping at him, wrenching his shirt up his lean body.
He lets me go to lose it.
It leaves him in the low-slung sweats he wears to work sometimes, blue scrubs stuffed in his bag, and I’m as much a goner for his inked torso as I was the first time.