Soul Screamers, Volume 1

Nash rolled his eyes at his mom and held the screen door open as I stuffed both arms into my jacket sleeves, then took the backpack he held for me. “Bye, Mom…”

We didn’t hear her reply, because the door closed behind us, and we were already walking hand in hand, in spite of the cold numbing my fingers. We walked in comfortable silence, and I opened my own front door with a key ring conspicuously missing my car key. Nash came inside, in spite of his mother’s warning.

“Want a snack?” I shrugged out of my jacket and backpack and let them fall onto the couch, and when I looked up, Nash was there, so close I caught my breath.

“I want you.” His eyes smoldered, and his lips came apart a tiny bit. Just enough to make me want to fill that gap with my own. To taste his lower lip, and leave a trail of kisses over the stubble on his jaw and down his neck.

“Mmm,” I murmured as his lips found the hollow below my ear, and vaguely I realized that was the same sound Emma had made when she bit into her first cookie.

Nash was just as delicious, in a completely unsatisfying way. Unsatisfying, because no matter how much time we spent together, no matter how closely I pressed myself against him, I always wanted more.

But what if more was too much for me, and just enough for him? That fear lingered, that secret certainty that if I slept with Nash—if I gave us both what we wanted—he would move on in pursuit of the next challenge. It had happened before, over and over again. The list of his past conquests was long and distinguished, at least by Eastlake standards.

I couldn’t put my paranoia to bed. In fact, it grew with every groan he let slip, because they told me how badly he wanted me. But what if wanting me was like waiting for popcorn to pop, or coffee to brew? They both smelled so good, but the taste could never live up to such delectable scents. And neither made a very satisfying meal.

What if I was the sexual equivalent of popcorn? Suitable for light snacking only?

Nash’s lips met mine, and I pushed those fears away. I opened for him, sucking his tongue into my mouth, tasting it. He leaned into me, and we would have fallen onto the cushions if he hadn’t braced his hand against the back of the couch. He shoved my backpack and jacket to the floor, then lowered me gently, slowly. With infuriating patience.

Even drowning in my own doubts, I had no patience.

He settled over me, hips pressing into me, chest heavy on mine, holding himself up on one elbow. His knee slid between mine and I gasped, sucking air from him. Heat rose from the pit of my stomach, tingling all the way up. He tasted so good. Felt so good. And I understood him in a way no human girl ever could.

Surely he knew that…

Nash’s lips trailed down my neck, setting off a series of tingly explosions, adrenaline pumping through my heart. My hand clenched the tail of his shirt, then I pushed it up, trailing my fingers over his stomach.

And in that moment, I became a fan of football, for the simple fact that it had literally shaped him. I couldn’t resist running my hands around to his back as it twisted and bunched beneath my fingers. He was strength personified, and simply touching him made me stronger. Harder. More capable of everything ahead of us.

If I had Nash, I could do it. I could do anything.

The phone rang, and Nash groaned into my ear, his breath a puff of warm frustration fueling my own. “Your dad?”

“Probably.”

He collapsed on me, pinning me to the couch momentarily as the phone rang again, and I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want him to get up. He had to, of course, but he did it slooowly, sliding off me one delicious inch at a time until he sat on the floor beside the couch, one hand flat over my stomach.

I arched one arm over my head and grabbed the phone, moving as little of my body as possible. “Hello?”

“I take it you’re at home?” my father said as metal clanged in the background.

“I answered the phone, didn’t I?” I closed my eyes in regret; my answer had come out harsher than I’d intended, my voice sharpened by irritation at having been interrupted.

My dad sighed, and I heard hurt in his exhalation. “Is Nash there?”

“He walked me home.”

He sighed again and raised his voice. “Nash, go home.”

Nash scowled. “I was…just going.”

“Say hi to your mom,” my father said. Then there was only silence and the clang of more metal over the line, and I realized he was waiting for Nash to leave. Right then.

“Um, I will.” Nash stood and leaned down to kiss my cheek, the most he would do with my father there, even if only in spirit. And in voice. “See you later, Kaylee,” he said, then closed the door on his way out.

“Happy?” I snapped into the phone. I wasn’t sorry that time.

“No, Kaylee. I’m not happy. I’ll be home by seven-thirty with dinner. What do you want from the Chinese place?”