Subject to Change (12 page)

Chapter 11

Hawk
let out a long breath and looked up at me with weary eyes. “Still want to come up?”

He looked so tired that I half-wanted to tell him to go to bed. But with stuffing that note in my pocket, I’d changed something about myself. For that moment, all I wanted — all I wanted in the entire world — was to sit beside him, hold his hand, and listen to whatever horrible storm in his life was making him this unhappy.

We stepped into the apartment, and a chill swept over me.

Hawk rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “Goddamn, it’s freezing in here. I’m sorry. I turn the heat down during the day…”

“To save energy. Good earth move.” I smiled and tried to keep my teeth from chattering.

“Yeah.” He strode over to the thermostat and pushed the knob up. His eyes met mine like he was trying to decide what to do with me. “Coffee. Right.” He spun around to face the kitchen, then groaned at the broken pottery all over the floor. “I can’t believe she broke that plate.” He kicked some of the larger pieces aside as he went into the kitchen.

I watched him work, the way those forearms flexed, the way his shoulders slumped. His eyebrows furrowed, and he moved slowly, ploddingly. Like his world was crumbling all around him and he was just trying not to let the pieces bash his head in. He looked exhausted from the weight of it all.

A small red light glowed from the dark kitchen, and the rasping sound of the coffee pot started a few seconds later.

“It’ll just take a couple minutes.” Hawk crossed over to the couch and perched himself on a saggy-looking ottoman facing me. His palm swept over his eyes, sliding back down along his cheek, and finally squeezing the back of his neck.

I nodded, still looking at him. I didn’t know why I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Somehow, I knew how badly he needed someone to listen.

“My phone died,” he finally said, staring at the ground. “Like, completely died. It was four years old and finally just wouldn’t turn on or anything. I tried to get a hold of you on Friday and Saturday. Sunday, I worked. Then Sunday night, all this shit hit the fan.”

“Your sister?”

“She’s been having trouble ever since Dad died. It was her freshman year in high school, and things are shitty for kids then anyway, you know?”

I remembered the braces and frizzy hair that had been my trademark in ninth grade, plus the fact that my name was Josephine. Changing into Joey my sophomore year was crucial to kids actually starting to let me sit at their lunch table.

“Yeah, high school sucks, I guess.”

He glanced up at me. “Even more when your only surviving parent dies, and your brother’s still a teenager. I was nineteen.”

“So what’s going on now?”

“She moved in with my aunt and uncle in Radnor. Rich neighborhood with good public schools. Only problem is that rich kids have lots of money for alcohol. And drugs. And Olivia takes after my dad.”

I shouldn’t have asked. Josephine wouldn’t have asked. And sorority Joey wouldn’t have. It wasn’t polite to pry, especially when you were talking about family drama, but when I was around Hawk, something strange happened to me. I became someone who dared to ask, dared to challenge.

“How?” My hands trembled because somehow I knew how awful the answer was going to be.

“Dad loved everyone. He loved life. He was a risk taker, and with the bar, it worked out for him sort of. But he was also obsessive, addiction-prone. An alcoholic. Any of the money we should have had when he died he’d already pissed away on drinking.”

My voice was a whisper. “Because of your mom?”

“Partly. But I don’t like giving him excuses. Just like I don’t like giving Olivia excuses for getting caught with a fucking open container in her locker, stealing my aunt’s car, and running away from home.” He rested his elbows on his knees and raked his fingers back through his hair, letting out a deep breath. “My aunt wanted me to take her for a couple days, let her cool off. But obviously, I can’t control her either.”

I left a few seconds of dead air and then asked, “Where is she now?”

Hawk looked up, shaking his head. “Her damn skeezy boyfriend’s. It fucking sucks, but it’s cold outside and at least there she’s safe. Has something to eat.”

His voice broke at that, and I saw his ’Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“You really love her, huh?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Even when she pisses me off, I love her. She’s all I have left.”

I nodded. “I know that feeling.”

Hawk looked up, his eyes meeting mine. “Yeah?”

“My dad died. Four years ago. Cancer.”

Hawk looked at me, his eyes full of pity. “Sucks.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again, looking back down at his folded hands.

“Yeah. A lot.”

“I…” Hawk cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded. Then, after another stretch of silence, I said, “Why didn’t you tell me? About your sister?”

He shrugged. Looked away. “We were just partners on a class project. Strangers. I mean, that’s all we were, until… Well, anyway, I have way more baggage than anyone needs to know about.”

I couldn’t argue with that. In fact, I could say the same about myself. But we weren’t talking about me right now. So I dodged. “I thought…the morning after we…you know…”

Hawk looked back up at me with those sparkling, gorgeous eyes, and it felt like they were boring into my soul. “Yeah. I know.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I’m really sorry about that. One of our distributors for the bar fucked up one of our orders and…”

“It’s…whatever.” I hated that I’d felt like a one-night stand, but even though I was still annoyed, I allowed him this concession. Stuff came up, and apparently, in Hawk’s life, that stuff always took the “batshit crazy” form. “I found some of Olivia’s things under the sink when I was looking for toothpaste. I think they were hers anyway. And I thought…I don’t know. I guess I thought you had a girlfriend.”

“Oh, Christ. Of course you did. I’m….shit, Joey. I’m really sorry.” He stood up and sat next to me on the couch. Then, as our thighs grazed, he seemed to realize he was actually acting like a normal guy for a change, and he sat up straight, stiff.

And for all the moments I had envisioned touching him, holding him, grabbing him and kissing him, now I was frozen myself. Completely paralyzed.

It only took a few seconds of feeling like that to want to get the hell out of there.

“So…maybe we should set up times for the project now before I lose track of you again.”

“Oh. That’s why you came up.”

“No! I mean…” Shit. “Is that why you wanted me to come up?”

“No.” He watched me steadily. I could have sworn he moved a fraction of an inch closer. “I wanted to explain why I didn’t text you back.”

“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would normally go to such great lengths to tell a girl he’s sorry for not texting her back.”

“I’m not.” His eyes held mine steady.

I could barely breathe. “So why did you?”

“I don’t know. I guess… I didn’t know I’d end up liking you so much.” The corner of his mouth pulled up into a crooked smile.

My heart twisted and jumped in a way that kept anything coherent from coming out of my mouth. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Hawk could hear my breaths becoming shallower and shorter.

I managed a mangled stammer before Hawk leaned forward, cupped my jaw with his hand, and kissed me. He formed his lips to mine like he’d been planning exactly where they would go, how they would move, since the moment we’d started talking.

He pulled back, sliding his hand down to the base of my neck. My pulse pounded against his palm, and our breath steamed up the space between us.

“I’m sure you want to go,” he murmured, his eyes searching mine.

“I don’t,” I whispered. I felt like a wisp, like an ethereal vapor, like all my energy, all my substance, was wrapped up in this moment, in the decision we would make right now. Depending on what happened, I could either escape reality or be forced cruelly back into it.

I didn’t want to face my life right now. The only thing in my whole life I knew for sure that I did want was Hawk, right here, right now. I hoped he felt the same way.

He kissed me again, the same soft, molding pressure surrounding my lips, making my heart race, totally enveloping my every thought. This time, though, he tugged my bottom lip between his teeth just the slightest bit. He pulled back again, leaving his forehead resting against mine.

“I’m sure you don’t want to stay over again, though.” His voice rasped out in a shallow whisper, and there was ten times more questioning in it than anything else.

The old Joey would have made a guy take her out for drinks. She would have followed a plan for flirting, dating, and sex, everything matching up with “how things are done.” Just like she had with everything else in her life.

But the version of me that was sitting in this apartment and trading breaths with the motorbike-riding, class-skipping, bar-owning, hotter-than-hell guy just wanted to tear his shirt off and lose herself in him just like she’d done a few days ago.

So I closed the gap between us in the space of half a breath, my fingers curling in his shirt, my heart tripping and stuttering. The second my lips parted against his he took advantage, slipping his tongue against mine and making me gasp and arch my back to get even closer to him. His hands trailed down my back and gripped my waist, his fingers frantically digging into the skin there and pushing my shirt up higher and higher. Hawk leaned back, tugging me on top of him. My hands brushed his sides as they pushed his shirt up and out of the way, then yanked it up over his head. Within five seconds, my shirt was off, too, and we gasped and grinned with the ridiculousness of this whole wonderful mess.

Our lips crashed together again, like the two seconds we’d just spent apart had been completely unbearable. His hand cupped my breast, his thumb teasing under the edge of my bra, and then his mouth was on the top of it, his tongue working down beneath the thin fabric. I moaned and threw my head back, and with that, his other hand lifted me at my waist and laid me down on the couch.

“Do you want to move?” He whispered as his mouth progressed to my other breast, his tongue darting out to tease my nipple, making me dizzy and mad with the need to be closer to him. No way I was breaking this delicious contact with him.

I clawed at his back, and he grunted. “Don’t you dare go anywhere,” I whispered into his ear before sucking at the skin right below it.

“Do you have anything?” He mumbled against my lips. “Because that last one was the only one I had.”

I laughed and kissed him hard. I’d bought one of the small boxes of condoms and stashed it in my purse after last week. Not that I’d anticipated ever sleeping with Hawk again, given the way he ditched me, but not having any protection on me was one of the most colossally stupid moves I’d made in ever. I had no intention of ever repeating that, even if it took me a year to find another guy I was remotely interested in sleeping with.

“That was really all you had?” I asked.

He nodded, his eyes the picture of honesty.

Thank God I’d dropped my purse right next to the couch. There was no way I was getting up for it, and the new Joey might have done something exceedingly stupid.

While I fumbled in the huge tote bag, Hawk’s lips traveled south, paving a hot path down from my breastbone. His tongue circled my navel, and his teeth nipped at the skin around my hip bones.

“Dammit,” I groaned. “Give me a second.”

“That’s fine,” Hawk murmured. “Plenty to do down here.”

Jesus. This boy was trying to kill me. His hands slipped under the wide band of my yoga pants, and I said a silent prayer of thanks that I had put on some decent underwear today — all black, stretchy, cotton lace. He worked my pants down over my butt and sucked in a breath when he saw my panties.

“I won’t rip these,” he said reverently.

I laughed, still tearing through my purse to find the small cardboard box. Finally, my fingers brushed against it, and I whispered “Thank God,” just as Hawk started scooting my panties down and covering every inch of skin he revealed with his lips. He looked up with a wicked smile.

“Oh God, I didn’t mean that. I meant, I found the condoms.”

He brushed a light kiss across my hipbone. “So I should stop?”

“No!” I practically shouted.

His shoulders shook with laughter.

“I mean, no. That’s really good.”

He was already kissing me again, his mouth moving down the front of my thigh, then up the inside, and dangerously close to the spot that would make me totally lose control. The feeling of anticipation was almost as delicious as the sight of those solid black tattoos rippling with his muscles as he settled his body into the perfect spot.

And then he was there, his tongue pressing and searching, his fingers brushing and teasing, and the entire room disappeared into a tailspin of bliss.

No guy had ever even come close to paying this much attention to me before. Compared to this, everything else I’d called “foreplay” was as exciting as waiting at the bus stop. I didn’t know if there was something magical or supernatural about Hawk or his lips or — oh! — his teeth, but this was damn near heaven.

The room that had been freezing just minutes ago warmed around me, with my body as the flame at the center of it all. It was a core of energy, the pressure mounting inside of it, intensifying by the second. An anxiousness formed all the way down in my toes, and the pressure inside me completely exploded, sending flames of pleasure through my limbs.

My head was spinning. The room was spinning. I wanted to live inside this feeling forever, memorize it, carry it with me. Not just the orgasm — as incredible as it was — but the feeling that I deserved to be lost inside something someone did just for me, and that someone cared enough about me enough to give it to me.

“Hawk,” I half-gasped, half-moaned after a few seconds’ recovery.

“Yes?” he murmured, kissing his way up my stomach until he finally, blissfully, reached my lips. “Want more?”

My fingers brushed at the hair above his ear, sticking up every which way, wild and untamed, while I looked into his eyes. I grazed my lips gently across his. “Yeah, I really do.”