Chapter 11
I settled him into my bed and he fell asleep again, immediately, in boxers and a tee shirt on top of the comforter. The sunlight made the golden down that covered his arms and legs glitter, and I settled into an armchair across the room to work, glancing up every ten or fifteen minutes to make sure he was still breathing. Each time I peeked up at him, my eyes were stuck on him. He was so… pretty. Almost laughably so, compared to Dom and Vince. His hair was curly, would have probably been ringlets if it were longer, and those eyes…And Mia…What was up with that? She had been just hanging over him, sobbing. I'd never seen more than a hint of a smile or a trace of a frown on her face, so this open display of affectionate distress was baffling to me.
I got about halfway through my summer thesis for English Lit III before the sun turned the ocean into a shimmering blanket of crimson and gold. Brian hadn't so much as moved, and I was beginning to worry he might be comatose. I crossed the room to the bed and my heart was pounding as I looked at him, yet no sparks flew as I put my hands on him and shook gently.
"Brian," I said. "Hey." At first he did nothing, and I felt an instantaneous cold sweat, a mild panic. He was breathing. I shook him again. "Wake up, Brian." He grunted and buried his face in the pillow, then looked up at me, blinking and disoriented. "I'm Izzie," I said. "You remember me from a few hours ago?" He narrowed his eyes against the harsh orange light blaring through the window. Shook his head. "Me and Mia and Letty brought you here, to my house, so I can keep an eye on you. You got smacked in the head. You remember that?" He blinked a few times, thinking hard, brow furrowed, then nodded, dropping his head back into the pillow.
"Dom," he managed, one eye in the pillow, the other staring up at me, beautiful blue surrounded by bloodshot red. "Am I all right?" he asked.
"Yeah, man," I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs.
"Can I sleep more?"
"Sure," I said. And the eye closed. And he was completely out before I got back to my chair.
I don't know why…I was so tired. I couldn't think straight and the words fast became meaningless squiggles across my paper, and I fought off sleep until my eyelids overrode my command and drooped shut on their own.
I woke to find a pounding headache, my notebook on the floor beside the chair, almost blinding moonlight streaming through the window. The entire room was bathed in pale, cool blue. And somewhere there was a steady knocking.
The cobwebs and curtains of recent sleep cleared gradually and I knew it was the door long before I acknowledged the realization and headed down the hall toward the staircase. I ran my fingers through my hair and gathered it at the nape of my neck, stretching a scrunchie over it to hold it there, felt it streaming down over my shoulder blades, hot, sticky, curly from the humidity. There was a cool breeze. I could feel it as I stepped into the open air of the kitchen, where the simple white curtains danced against the window frames. It was the dead of night, but the moonlight was so bright I didn't think to turn on a light, and, too tired to be cautious, swung the door open drowsily. And gasped.
Filling the doorway, large and somber, was Dominic Toretto. Wearing a white ribbed tanktop that ended just at his waist and pale, baggy jeans that hung low on his hips. He was soaking wet, but he smelled of ocean and wind, not sweat. His feet were bare and he wore no underwear beneath the jeans, his iguinal canal so deep and obvious, two beautiful creases running from his hips to meet somewhere in a 'V' inside his pants. I wished my eyes could trace the lines down, down to their disappearance into what I imagined to be coarse black curls. The clean scent with a hint of his musk filled my head and dizzied me instantly, and I gripped the doorknob, white-knuckled, terrified by and thrilled with him at once. I was afraid he would tear through my house, find Brian, kill him.
"Spilner here?" he asked, and those two words set my flesh on fire. I felt light-headed and hot, my heart pounding, frozen, speechless. My mouth was working but no words were coming out, and I couldn't stop staring at him, the way he completely filled the doorframe, one elbow propped up above his head. He was so animal, his entire body a cool, wet mirage in the heat of the night, and my mouth was burning to kiss him, my palms itching to touch him, run up under the torturously thin white of the wifebeater, over the slick, brinewet ridges of his abs, cup the firm mounds of his pecs and run my thumbs over the hard little nubs of his nipples.
He saw my fear and acknowledged it right away.
"I won't hurt him, Izzie."
If he noticed my lust, he said nothing. I sensed a calm in him and nodded, my heart clenching up like a fist and as I realized I'd have to stop show him to my bedroom, where Brian slept.
"He's sleeping, I said. "He's got a concussion."
"Is he all right?" That low rumbling thunder voice behind me in the pulsating black of the stairway made me shudder, as if it were a live entity of its own and would reach out and grab me.
"I think so. He's real confused and lethargic right now, but every time he wakes up he's a little better." I turned my doorknob and the old hinges complained softly as I gave it a gentle push to swing it open.
"Shit," Dom said, hefting his hands up with one hand, running one back, tired, over the short stubble on his head, staring at the broken guy in my bed. He stepped cautiously to the bed, and as he did, his pants inched down and I could see in the dim lunar glow the bare brown beginning curves of his ass and the innocent, shadowy cleft and I clenched fistfuls of my dress as an irrepressible urge to tear his pants down and sink my teeth into his skin ripped through me. I was shaking. I had no idea who I was or where this was coming from, and I wasn't sure if I was afraid or in awe of myself.
He must have felt a draft or heard me gasping for breath, because he hitched them up and held them there with one hand while he leaned across the hideously huge bed and punched Brian lightly in the shoulder.
"Spilner," he said. "Hey." Brian stirred a little.
"Brian," I said, moving to Dom's side and shaking him lightly. He coughed shortly and lifted his head, that blank stare, gazed at my face. "Dom's here to see you," I said, and Brian looked at him.
"Great." He lifted his head, squinting and blinking at Dominic, no fear there.
"I'm sorry, man," Dom said. "Last I heard you ratted every fuckin' thing you knew." Brian nodded, as if with complete comprehension. "I didn't know about the charges, and your badge. Made a few phone calls about an hour ago and now…" He shrugged, as if to say Take it or leave it. I looked at Dom. His brows were furrowed, his black eyes unreadable. When Brian was silent, he continued. "When I'm wrong I say it," Dom said. Brian nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open. "I overreacted. But I got more than just me to look out for here." Dom was a little drunk, but his words were clear and his intent was good.
"It's all right," Brian said. "Just here for…for…" The name wouldn't come, and he looked frustrated.
"Mia," Dom finished. "I know. Don't sweat it, man. I'm too plastered to get you home right now. Sleep here and I'll come get you in the morning." As if hypnotized, the second the word 'sleep' left Dom's lips, Brian's eyes thunked shut and he was out.
"Come on," I said, not able to keep the extra husk out of my already-low-for-a-girl voice. "Let's leave him be." Dom nodded and followed me out, down the stairs. I walked slowly, half hoping that he would stumble and pitch forward into my back, all that cool, moist bronze skin against me, that hard chest against my hair, and maybe, maybe I would turn around, smile at him, show him I was glad he'd fallen, and we would sit down on the stairs and he would see I had no underwear on and he could use those long, sturdy fingers on me the way he'd…
I cleared my throat loudly to stop my own typhooning thoughts and was grateful
when we came into the open air of the kitchen. I took a deep breath, could
feel his eyes on me, and he stopped, folding his arms over his chest and
fixing me with this dark glare and half of a cocky, lopsided smile. When
I noticed he wasn't following, I turned and looked at him and my heart skipped.
Shit. Busted.
Chapter 12
He unfolded his arms and stepped so we were just inches apart. His muscles played off each other, moving, changing the shape of him as he reached for me, rested giant hands on my shoulders and when he touched me, my heart lurched into overtime. It was an instant, overwhelming response, stronger than the quaking jolt I'd felt when Leon had slipped his fingertip into my body, stronger than the soaring weightlessness of my first kiss with Jackson, and it was only my shoulders.
"Look at me in the face, Izzie," he said, and when I did, I was shocked to see something…Fear? Uncertainty? Surprise that he felt…What? He swallowed hard, his black eyes milky from the moonglow. "You want...and DESERVE...more than I can give you tonight." He squeezed my shoulders gently before dropping his hands off of me and shoving them into his pockets. I couldn't breathe, trying to find my voice, dizzy from that rasping, ethereal growl of a sentence. I stuttered out the beginning of an apology as some of the blood returned to my brain, but he stopped me.
"Relax," he said, but somehow I couldn't obey. "Where are your parents?"
"I don't know," I whispered. I went slowly to the window and checked the driveway. "They're gone."
"Your dad drink?" he asked, drawing one large hand slowly from his pocket and rapping his knuckles absently on the white marble island's top.
"Gulps like a fish," I said, and swallowed hard. "Why? You want a drink?" He hiked his pants up and eased onto one of the larged stools near the island, long legs draped open lazily, his feet resting on the floor, elbows on the island's countertop. His head was freshly shaven, the skin there pale and untouched by the sun as of yet. He seemed to like the feel of it, the fingers of one big hand, bruised hand back and forth over it.
"Sure," he said. "What you got?"
"I don't know," I said, and I could feel his eyes on me as I turned my back to him, crossed the kitchen and entered the main room where the full bar was located. "I don't think he's stocked it yet...Tequila. Scotch and Whisky. Captain Morgan's."
"Got Coke?" he asked. "For with the Captain's?" I bent at the waist and checked the cooler at the rear of the bar.
"Yeah," I reported over my shoulder, somewhat calmed by being forced to concentrate at the task at hand. "That what you want?"
"Sure," Dom said. "Not too strong. I was drinking 1800 earlier. That shit is lethal. I remember being pissed. I don't remember hitting him at all." He shook his head slowly. But he didn't look too broken up about it. He was watching me like a hawk, his eyes absolutely pinned on me. I felt as if there was a pillow over my face; my cheeks were hot nd my breath was short and shallow. "You have brothers and sisters, Izzie?"
"Brothers," I said. "Two."
"Older?"
"Yes."
"Uh-oh. They gonna come after Leon?" He smiled a little as I handed him his drink.
"Not likely," I said, hoisting myself up onto the counter beside the fridge, swinging my legs slowly. "They'll probably never even know he exists."
"Unless you marry him," Dom grinned, taking a large gulp of the drink and licking his lips. I laughed.
"Even less likely."
"Just slummin for the summer?" he asked, a little edge to his voice, some underlying sensitivity I couldn't figure.
"What?" I repeated dumbly. "Slummin'?"
"Yeah, slummin. You know, keeping yourself busy all summer with some charming, broke little working class boy from the wrong side of the tracks until you dump him before school starts and go back to all those Ivy League pricks." I gaped at him in utter incredulity.
"NO. Where do you get off thinking that? God, money means nothing to me!"
"Really," Dom said, a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
"Yes, really." I couldn't keep the offended perturbation out of my voice. "In fact, I wish I didn't have any. I wish I could drive around a Lexus that isn't mine picking people up from the airport, scrub swimming pools, serve drinks all day instead of going to some shitty, stuffy ass school with self-absorbed snobs under the impression that the world belongs to them alone, they are the nation's future, and the galaxy shifts with a brush of their fingertips." Even drunk, Dom followed every word. I could see the subdued intelligence in his eyes and a new, sincere expression overtook those beautiful features. I knew the discussion of money was over and, that, at least between us, the topic would never be reopened.
"You gonna sleep with Leon?" Dom asked, and I could feel the fire climbing my cheeks.
"I…I don't know."
"He's not pressuring you."
"No, I know he's not."
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes," I conceded. His tone was so genuine, so chaste, that my humiliation faded and I was able to answer him--and myself--honestly.
"But dying to know," he said, grinning, and I laughed out loud.
"Yeah."
"You'll know when you're ready," he said, standing up slowly
and handing me the empty glass. I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded.
"I have to go home. Letty's pro'lly pacing and swearing." He went
to the door, pants drooping again, and I couldn't follow him. Stood shaking
on legs that barely supported my weight. He opened the door himself and
looked back over his shoulder at me a minute. "Thanks for letting him
sleep here," he said. "For watching him." I nodded, tried
to think of something else to say to him, but with a final smile, he was
gone.
It was about eleven the following morning when I woke, blinking. I was in bed with Brian, and Mia and Letty stood over me, their heads cocked, smiling down at me.
"Rough night, you two?" Letty asked me, and Mia laughed.
"I sat down here to watch him," I croaked groggily. "I must have fallen asleep. God, I'm exhausted."
"Well, you're one up on me," Letty said. "I didn't sleep at all last night. Dom came home-"
"Please," Mia broke in. "My psychiatric well-being depends so much on you not finishing that sentence." Now it was my turn to laugh. I stood and stretched, yawning deeply, and Mia crawled up onto my bed, pressing her front against Brian's back and closing her eyes, smiling against the nape of his neck. Me and Letty watched as if transfixed as his body warmed to her touch, coherence quickening his features, and he rolled to face her without opening his eyes, his mouth seeking and finding hers instinctively. They kissed deeply for a long, almost chaste moment, then he pulled away, opening those insanely blue eyes.
"Hi," he said. "I missed you." Mia nodded, but couldn't speak, dark eyes welling with tears.
"I'm sorry," she said, voice choked, after a pause. "I'm so sorry."
"It's gonna be fine," he said. "Don't be sorry. I'm not sorry." He kissed her again, then folded her against his chest with impressively built arms.
"Hey," Letty said, tugging on my arm. "Time to go."
"Where?" I asked. "I need to bathe." She made an 'are you serious?' face.
"Fuck it. You're fine. Come on."
"Jesus, at least let me change my clothes." She sighed, but I wasn't giving her an option there, and I grabbed underwear, bra, tee, and jeans before barreling out of the room and closing the door on Brian and Mia's increasingly heated reunion.
"Wait while I change," I said, ducking into an empty guestroom and shutting the door behind me. I ditched the dress, donned the digs, and pulled my fro-ish hair back away from my face before heading out into the hallway and fixing Letty with a curious smile. She dragged her eyes up and down my getup, shaking her head.
"Your clothes are awful," she said, and I burst out laughing, but she was serious. "You wanna be bad, right? Wanna be one of us?" I nodded. I loved Letty's clothes…As long as I could remember, I had wanted something other than the conformist shit the other girls at prep schools were wearing. "Well," she said, laughing a little. "No doubt you'll be a badass at the end of today. Let's go, then."
"What?" I blinked. "Where?"
"On a road trip, esa! God. What else you got to do?"
I felt a slow, anticipatory smile spread across my face like frosting.
"One second while I write my mom a note."