Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(28)

He says my name in an almost quiet voice, “Alex,” then explodes inside me, hot and wet.

It only makes me thrash harder. I bury my face against him and rake his back with my nails as another peak ripples through my body in a quivering wave, and I feel myself clenching him. He kisses me all over, showering heat on my shoulders, my throat, meeting my lips with his own. Raw instinct drives me to buck in his lap as his tongue rides over mine, squeeze every ounce of pleasure out of his quivering body. I nip the side of his neck, a quick squeeze of the skin between my teeth, and he yelps and smack, cracks his open palm against my ass. I jerk, shocked.

I… I liked that.

Behind us, the fireworks fade as the music drops out. One final rocket sails skyward and goes off with a whining pop, and the fireworks are over.

For now.

I want to laugh. I want to lay with him for hours. I want to keep him inside me.

If I don't get home we're both f*cked.

I climb off him, find my shorts, and pull them on, hoping I can get home and get changed before I have to explain the big wet spot on the front of my clothes or the mud on my knees. Hawk gets up behind me and rests his hands on my hips. My legs can barely hold me up.

"I have to go," I blurt out, "Right now."

"Alex-"

"Hawk, please. I have to beat everybody back to the house. I have to go."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," I whimper. "I don't know. Just don't leave me. Please."

"I won't."

He zips himself up, and touches my arms.

"We can meet somewhere, I…I don't know, we'll figure something out. I have to go."

No time, no time. I pull away from him and break into a run, going full tilt, the most awkward run I've ever had to run. I go faster, panting, as I clear the gates and turn to cut through a vacant lot and a backyard, taking the most direct route back to the house. I throw myself into it, until I'm running so fast that if I stop I'll just flop right down on the ground, until my lungs burn and my calves are fire and I can see the house. I run at the front door, think better of it, sling around the house and up the back steps, through the back door and up to the second floor.

No Lance, thank God. He must have been at the park. I duck into my room, strip, grab a towel, and run bare-assed into the bathroom, turn on the water full blast and sluice the mud from my legs, hold the spray between them and shudder as I cleanse myself.

Terror rips through my body. Tom will know. He'll know. He'll smell it on me.

He'll know I've been bad and they'll come and take me back to the hospital no, no, no, no, no, no…

It doesn't stop until I've sat under the spray for five minutes, clutching myself. I f*cked up. I should have grabbed May, gone with Hawk, and we should be a hundred miles from Paradise Falls by now. Why do I stay?

I know why.

Slowly, I rise, finish rinsing myself off, and wrap the towel around my body. I leave a trail of wet footprints in the hallway and lock myself in my room, tuck the chair under it for good measure.

As I towel myself off, I pace. Inside, a storm rages as I try to process everything at once. I can't even tell if I'm mad at him anymore. Fuck, it wasn't his fault. He thought he was protecting me, the big lummox. I…

Oh my God, I just lost my virginity. That was my first time. In the woods.

Kind of appropriate for us, now that I think about it.

He liked it when I bit him.

What am I going to do? Tom will never let us be happy together. He'll hurt me and if somehow I escape his reach, he'll hurt my sister, my little sister who used to sleep in my bed wearing footie pajamas and leave Fruit Loops under my pillow after eating the goddamn things all night. I don't even care what happens to me, I can't let that motherf*cker strap May to a table, feel her up, and hold a knife against her thigh and threaten to kill her. That's not going to happen to me. The son of a bitch killed Hawk's mom, too.

That crushes me. I sink to the bed and then to the floor and weep softly, trying to contain myself. I want Hawk right now. I want him to hold me and make it go away. I loved his mom. Her name was Laura, and she was so beautiful and kind and sweet. The weight of memory rounds my shoulders as I remember all the times she was subtly pushing us together, trying to make it happen, helping us click. Tom hated me, but she adored me. The way my dad liked Hawk before he died in the bridge collapse.

Why couldn't they be the ones to live, and get married? Then we'd all be happy.

I look up at that, and laugh to myself. Oh yeah, Alex. That's normal. I can't help but laugh, even though I'm crying.

If anybody saw me now they really would think I'm crazy.

Eventually I manage to get up and find a ratty pair of lounge pants and an old t-shirt to wear.

I used to have a lot of Hawk's clothes. I doubt he had any of mine, but somehow I ended up with a dozen of his shirts. I don't have any of those anymore. Just thinking about that makes me sad. God, I used to sleep in a shirt he gave me, one of his. Why couldn't I see what we had together? Was it the familiarity that blinded us to what we were, or something else? Were we just too young?

The image of him staring at me in the wave pool floods back into my mind. The way he looked at me. He looked at me like that today, tonight, he always does now. Like I stepped out of a dream, like we just met and he's known me forever. He looks at me like he's never seen me before.