My eyes flick up and I realize with a start how damn close our faces really are. And also, that I just stuck my fingers in Chasm’s mouth. And then touched his dick without meaning to.
With a grimace, he reaches out and takes me by the shoulders, pushing me back a safe distance from the surprising heat of his body.
“Little Sister,” he grinds out, but even if he calls me that, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t put distance between us or hide what’s going on. They say you grow closer to the people around you in a crisis. I just didn’t expect how quickly it would happen or how hard I would fall. “Give me the backing.”
I pass over the tiny piece of metal, careful to drop it in his palm so that our hands don’t touch.
He fiddles with the piercing for a moment and then slides his tongue over his lower lip, poking at the two metal studs before finally looking back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say as Chasm drags a pillow over his lap and rests his hands atop it, drumming his fingertips against the fabric. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for. Touching him yet again when he asked me not to. Or because I’m essentially accusing his father of being involved in Parrish’s disappearance.
What he can’t see, however, is the proof of my own arousal.
Even though I don’t want it, even though it makes me feel guilty, I can feel a warmth between my thighs, a throbbing pulse that seems so much worse now that I’ve awoken the sleeping dragon of my sexuality. Being with Parrish was amazing. If he hadn’t gone missing, I imagine we’d have recreated that night over and over and over again.
“Sorry for what?” Chas asks, turning away from me toward the windows on his left. Across the lake, the lights of Seattle burn like fireworks in the night, blinking and flickering, proof that there’s life out there in the darkness. Is Parrish across the lake somewhere? Is he within walking distance of us even now? “For me getting a hard-on every time you’re around? How is that your problem? That’s on me, Little Sister.”
I shift uncomfortably, tucking one leg up on the couch and wrapping my arms around my knee.
“Maybe … you shouldn’t call me Little Sister anymore?” I suggest, and he snorts.
“Maybe I should keep calling you that and something about it will stick?” he suggests, but we both know that it won’t help. We’re attracted to each other. We have been for quite a while, I think. My mind strays back to the very first party I attended here in Medina. I remember how Chasm came up to me right away. At the time, I figured he was just looking to tease me. From my current perspective, it sure seems like he was offering me company when I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.
He looked ticked-off that night when I asked about Parrish, like something about the question was borderline offensive. Again, new perspective, maybe he was jealous? I also can’t help but think about the bikini-clad brunette who cozied up to him. Was he helping her the way he helped that other drunk girl at the lake?
“Are you a virgin?” I ask, and Chasm lets out a snorting laugh. I glance his way, but he still isn’t looking at me, staring out the window instead. My eyes trail across the tattoos on his bare feet, his arms, his chest. Basically, his neck, face, and hands are the only parts of him that have been spared the kiss of ink. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked that.”
My face flushes crimson—as do my boobs—and I turn toward the electric fireplace embedded into the wall. It’s set to purple right now, the flames an eerie, unnatural color that bathes us both in strange light. The only other light on down here is the one above the stove; it’s dim and does little to push back the shadows in the room.
“That’s a weirdly personal question to ask,” he says, and then he adds something very softly in Korean. “What do you care anyway? I thought you were in love with Parrish.” His mouth twitches as he turns back to me, sorrow and fatigue burning their way into his expression. “I mean, I hope you are. Don’t fall out of love with him while he’s gone. I … he doesn’t deserve that.”
“I don’t think I could ever fall out of love with him,” I add, and then groan, putting my face into my hands. “We’ve only known each like … three and a half months? And he’s been missing for that whole half bit. If he were still here, I’d think I was a crazy, hormonal teenager. But knowing that I could lose him, I … it’s like when lightning strikes and everything in the world is limned in that strange, white light. As if the whole universe is outlined in stark relief; everything is both obscured and also disturbingly clear.”
