Page 27 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

27

Loren

We drove across town with the truck windows down and the radio blaring. Indy squirmed in the passenger seat, twisting his hands in his lap when I knew he would rather be rubbing them over mine.

We didn’t talk, both lost in our thoughts and consumed with anxiety that followed us from the parking lot to the Airstream’s front door.

Once inside, I shouldered out of my sweater and tossed it onto the couch. I felt like I was burning. Hot and sweating like I hadn’t done this hundreds of times before, like I didn’t want it…

I didn’t know what I wanted.

Indy stepped in front of me and touched my arm almost timidly. Blinking, I met his gaze, and my heart regained its rhythm.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he said. “We can just hang out. Maybe cuddle?” He aimed a meaningful look at the couch a few feet away.

I stood, stalled, until Indy tipped his head and said, “I’m gonna need you to use your words because all this back and forth is giving me whiplash. I like the chase and all, but playing hard to get is only fun if you wanna get caught.”

My mouth went dry as I stared down at him.

“So, do you?” he asked.

My brows pinched.

“Do you want me to catch you?” he whispered. “Or should I let you go?”

It was profound, and so potentially final that I couldn’t keep the words from leaking out.

“Please don’t let me go.”

His features relaxed, and something sparkled in his eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

I dipped my head in a nod.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I bent to let him press his lips to mine. It was one of a thousand kisses spread over decades, but my first with this version of him. His first, too, and he withdrew from it pink-cheeked and grinning.

“I knew you’d taste good,” he murmured.

His hand traveled higher and curved around the nape of my neck so his fingers could tangle in my hair. We stood like that for a few seconds, closer than we’d been in this lifetime.

I searched his face, traced his full, soft lips, and almost got lost in his glittering eyes. I had memorized the pattern of his freckles and knew the exact spot on his throat where his pulse fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings. I had savored his skin while kissing every inch of him, and all of it was utterly divine.

Indy seemed to echo my thoughts when he said, “ You’re really pretty. Like boy pretty.” His brow furrowed until he came up with the word. “Handsome.”

A tentative smile pulled at my cheeks. “I’m okay with pretty.”

He leaned in, and his scent washed over me, thickly sweet. When he kissed me this time, I let my hands move the way they wanted to. One palm pressed into the small of his back, and the other cradled his head. His mouth crushed against mine, hungry and deep. His tongue slipped past my teeth, and a moan escaped me, full of longing.

Indy looped his arms around my neck, then hopped up to wrap his legs around my waist. His advance drove me back a few staggering steps, and we landed on the couch with him straddling my lap. Our lips parted for nothing but breath while his knees pressed into my sides, and he pinned himself against me.

My cock stiffened inside my slacks.

Indy’s wrap skirt blanketed our legs as he scooted in close. When he pulled back from another ravenous kiss, his perch atop my thighs put him at eye level with me. He studied my face with determination I’d seen before. He was trying to remember.

“What changed your mind?” he asked. “About this? About me?”

“I told you I liked you the day after we met.”

“Then you said we were friends,” Indy countered.

“Aren’t we?” I paused, holding onto his hip and half-wishing he would grind on me. My erection swelled, begging for friction.

I wondered if he felt it, and if that was what prompted his gaze to cut away and his blush to deepen. “Is it normal to wanna fuck your friends?” he asked.

I chuckled. “Maybe not all of them.”

Indy’s head dipped in a nod. “No,” he replied. “Just you.”

His fingers dragged across my chest, then up, tracing my jaw, then my cheek, and ending on my lips. “I’ve dreamed about this.” He spoke slowly, touched gently. “I’ve dreamed about you, Loren. I think about you all the time.”

I smoothed my hand through his curls, torn between wanting to ravish him and wanting to linger in this moment. It was tentative bliss, and I couldn’t bear the thought of ruining it.

Indy cupped his hand atop mine where it rested on his shoulder.

“Do you think about me?” he asked, his voice soft. “When you’re alone?”

Not only when I was alone. I thought of him every moment. All the time.

“Yes,” I said.

His smile brightened the dark trailer; it lit my whole world. I would give, and had given, everything for his happiness. It was the only way I felt joy: when his reflected onto me.

He dotted my throat with kisses while his breath ghosted over my skin.

I remembered this like I remembered everything. I knew how to make him sigh and shudder. I had mapped every tender spot on his body, and I dove into him, visiting those places with my fingertips and mouth .

Indy arched as my hand splayed on his back, trusting my grip to steady him. He gave me access to every part of him, making needy sounds that caught me up.

I remembered so much that I almost forgot. I was so willing to pretend that I would have put aside all the hurt and betrayal, just for tonight. But, when I pulled back to give Indy a moment to breathe, he grabbed the links of my collar and yanked.

Everything stopped.

The heat that had warmed my skin vanished, leaving me as cold as if I’d been doused in ice water. I gasped, and my eyes stretched wide. The sensation—the strangling feeling—threw me out of the moment and into Moira’s bedroom. Onto her floor because she liked me best beneath her, too busy fighting for air to fight against her.

Indy used the choke chain as a tether to pull me to him. He might have kissed me again, but my stiff muscles and stricken expression stalled him.

I wanted to shove him onto the floor, to break his hold on me and bolt because my Indy would never treat me that way. He wasn’t like the demons who saw me as an animal to be caged, corralled, and collared. I wasn’t less than human in his eyes. He didn’t jerk me around to get me to behave. He didn’t use me.

“Loren?” Indy asked.

He let go of my collar, and I grabbed his waist to move him swiftly aside. I stood unsteadily, and he followed. My move toward the door was unannounced and unexplained until Indy caught my shoulder and spun me around.

His golden eyes were pinched, pleading. “Was that too rough?” he asked. “I thought… the lifestyle thing… ”

“I said I wasn’t into it.” My voice pitched low.

“Then why…?” He trailed off.

Forced to face him and feeling trapped in a place where I should have been safe, I acknowledged the truth I had wanted to deny. I thought of him, yes. Every moment, all the time, but those thoughts were of ghosts. Past versions of him haunted me because I refused to let them go.

I shrugged off his grip and hurried out of the trailer without bothering to close the door.

This Indy wasn’t my Indy. I was beginning to fear he never would be.