Page 114 of Ominous: Part 1

I don’t think about it. I just grab her by the waist and lift her up, her legs wrapping around me as I spin us both, setting her on the counter beside our drinks. I’m between her thighs, and she rocks her hips, whimpering into my mouth. I turn my head, my lips over her cheeks, her jaw, hers on mine, her fingers finally off of my shirt and running through my hair. She pulls and I like how it stings.

My hands squeeze the sides of her thighs as she trails sloppy kisses down my face, over my jawline, toward my throat.

“You are unreal.” I couldn’t have stopped those breathy words even if I’d wanted.

She licks a line up my throat as my fingers slip beneath the hem of her shirt. My shirt. What’s the difference anymore? We’re the same.

“I’m very real,” she says over my mouth, her fingers wrapping around my neck. She hooks her ankles behind my back, ensuring there’s no space between us. Her eyes are glassy as they lock on mine, my fingers reaching the hem of the shorts she pulled on in the bathroom after our swim. “Keep going,” she says, glancing between us. “Why won’t you touch me?” There’s a shyness to her voice that makes me want to fuck it out of her.

I don’t want her to be shy with me. The irony though, is I am with her. Tentative, at the very least.

“What do you want?” I need a boundary. I have to know when to stop, or I won’t. It’s something they talked about at Montford. Clear lines, far ahead of danger zones. Dad needed concrete rules. I had to have a curfew and mealtimes and all the things he gave up on within three weeks of me coming back.

That was in the spring. He thinks I’m fine now. Or maybe he just didn’t want to put in the work when he realized I wasn’t.

Eden looks down between us. “Touch me.”

I’m already touching her, but when she widens her thighs, there’s no room for misunderstanding. Except… “You don’t like when I touch you.”

Her fingers are still curled around the back of my neck, and I feel them flex when I speak. Slowly, she drags her gaze from my hands on her body, to my eyes.

“Do I look like I don’t like it right now?”

Fuck.“I don’t know. Take off your shirt. I can’t see all of you.”

She leans back, her head tapping the cabinet door, arms extended as she keeps her grip on my neck. For a second, I think she might do it. I think she might release me, pull her shirt off, and let me see her.Everywhere.

But then she shakes her head, grinning. “Maybe when I’m a little drunker.”

My stomach sinks with those words and my dick kind of hurts, too. I think of Montford and razor blades and closets that smelled like bleach.

Eden glances at the drinks I made us, eyeing them like I want her to look at me, and I lift her chin with my fingers, steering her gaze back to mine.

“I want you to have fun.” I mean it. “But…”

She pulls her brows together, confused. “But…?”

“I want you to remember it.”

There’s something in her face I can’t understand. She averts her gaze, her lips pressed together, and she doesn’t speak for a moment. But finally, she says, “Okay,” and it sounds like a promise.

I glide my hands up her thighs, over her hips, her waist, until I’m cupping her face again, her own fingers still laced behind my neck as I stare at her, taking in her swollen lips, the fullness of her cheeks, even the thickness of her hair at the crown of her forehead, she’s just fucking beautiful.

“I’m sorry about the pool,” I tell her, and I mean it, mostly.

She doesn’t look away, so I keep talking.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you. I just wanted us to do all those things we talked about, as close as we can.”

She squeezes her legs around my waist, a smile creeping on her face when I least expected it. “It’s okay,” she tells me, like she means it, and it loosens something tight in my chest. A ball of nerves, maybe. Fear, possibly. “It’s supposed to be a little terrifying, isn’t it?” She leans in toward me, pressing her brow to mine. Her breath is so sweet, and I let my eyes flutter closed, inhaling all of her, still tasting her on my tongue. “If it wasn’t, you would’ve been doing it wrong.”

For long minutes, we stay like that, pressed together, my thumbs playing at the line of her lips, my eyes still closed. I don’t know if she’s watching me. All I know is I feel content, right here, just like this, doing nothing at all but standing in my kitchen.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my own house.

* * *

“You saidyou’ve lived here all your life.” She fumbles with the wrapper of the vegan peanut butter cups I bought and kept in the fridge, just for her, and I bring my beer to my lips, watching her over the cup holders between us set in the theater seats in the entertainment room. “Why do you talk funny?”