Page 21 of Theta

"Fucking hell, Story," I breathe.

"What?"

"You. The way you kiss me." I cradle her hands in mine at my face. "This. Can't fucking breathe when you touch me like that. Can’t—can't fucking think. I've…I've never—" I trail off, shaking my head.

She does it again, kisses me softly and tenderly with those fingers on my cheeks just above where our mouths touch. "This?" she asks.

"Yeah," I manage, my voice a ragged gasp. "That."

"You've never what, Killy?"

"When you kiss me like that, Story, I…I feel…I mean I've never felt so—"

"So what? Say it. Please."

"Wanted," I murmur.

"You are." She runs her palms up my back, clutches my shoulders from behind, and then her hands roam down again, to my waist, my sides. She hooks an index finger in each belt loop to either side of my fly. "You are wanted, Killian. More than you know. More than I think I've ever let myself examine."

She touches her forehead to my lips, and I clutch her waist just above her hips, on the verge of diving my hands under the waistband but still hesitant to push things just yet.

"Say what you're thinking," Story says. "No filter. Right now. Crazy honesty."

"How soft your ass is," I blurt, "how bad I want my hands on it again. How bad I want…you. Just you."

“Oh." It's faint, the tone beneath it unreadable.

"Your turn."

She shakes her head, forehead rolling against my breastbone.

“You started this," I point out.

"If I say it, I'll do it."

"Your words, Story—crazy honesty. Right now. No filter."

"I'm thinking about how big you felt." Her voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear her over the hammering of rain on the roof of the container. "And how weird it is to be this turned on in a situation like this."

My mouth opens to reply, but at that moment, the container door wrenches open with a jarring clank-grind-thunk-squeal. A blinding flare of light blazes in the opening, and we both shy away and turn around from the assault on our dark-adjusted pupils.

"It's too soon for more food," I murmur. "I don't know what's happening. This is new."

Story's hand flaps at my knee, my thigh, and then finds mine, and we tangle fingers and grip each other hard with shaking hands.

A footstep rings loud on the container floor, and then two more blinding circles of light join the first, followed by the unmistakable sound of an assault rifle being charged.

"Approach. Slow. Hands on head." The voice is deep, male, and thickly accented—Slavic? Eastern European? Russian? I don't know.

Slowly, hands laced together on our heads, Story and I shuffle toward the lights and the voice.

A cold metal O touches my forehead at the center of my T-Box. "We have problem. And problem for me is problem for you."

Something tells me the problem has something to do with my sister. If shit goes sideways and people are pissed off, Brynnie is usually involved somehow.

4

Into The Storm