Before Sebastian can reply, Spider saunters into the room, and my powers of speech leave me for a moment.
“Your hair . . . it’s white,” I whisper when I finally regain my faculties, my eyes greedily moving over his sweptback style. The bleached strands perfectly frame his face, accentuating the sharpness of his cheekbones, the darkness of his eyes, the long tan column of his throat. My chest squeezes at the sight of him. How can one guy be so dang hot? It’s not fair to the rest of the fucking world. “What happened to the blue?”
He touches it. “It’s a throwback, but always a favorite. You like it?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice breathless.
I take a step back, my legs bumping into the couch, causing me to suddenly sit. I don’t mind because I feel like something big is happening, and I just needed to grasp hold of it and own it.
“You okay?” he asks. “You look weird.”
I shake my head, thinking . . . about a boy with white hair.
The accent.
That devil-may-care shrug.
A distant memory reaches out and tugs me into the past. There I am, at the back of the Quickie Mart. I swallow, my head burdened by things I locked in a coffin with Mama years ago.
I see my mother on the floor, dark bruises on her neck.
I see . . . a beautiful boy.
HIM.
Sebastian and Spider are both eyeing me and then each other, but I ignore them as I pull my cell phone out of my purse and dial a number, one emblazoned on my brain and on my body.
I push in the digits, but like it always did before, the call goes to a disconnected line.
Even so, it must be him.
It must be.
Years may have blurred his face in my childlike memory, but it’s all coming back now. “What’s going on?” Sebastian looks confused. “Are you trying to call someone?”
I come to a decision and focus on Sebastian. “I don’t know you, and I hate to be rude, but can you please leave us alone for a bit?”
Spider sends him a quick nod and Sebastian straightens his tall form, his gaze reading me. Whatever he sees makes him act. “Gotcha. I’m outie. Call me later Spider.” He walks out of the apartment, the door shutting softly behind him.
“Is everything okay?” Spider asks me.
I shake my head as I shrug out of my sweater. I pull my silk tank up and over my head, tossing it on the hardwood floor. He inhales sharply, his gaze going straight to my white lace bra.
“Rose, put your shirt back on.” His voice is steady, but his eyes—oh God—those eyes are burning.
“No.” I march over toward him and he backs up against the wall.
“Rose?” His chest expands, and I know he’s breathing me in.
“I know you.” My voice is soft, aching with memories, wanting him to see. “From Tin Town . . . when I was eleven and you were sixteen. You were at the Quickie Mart and you gave me three hundred dollars. It was the morning after Mama died. You . . . you gave me your cell phone number and told me to call you if I ever needed you.”
There’s a dawning in his eyes.
Lifting my hair up with my hands, I turn around to show him my back. I know what he sees: the butterfly tattoo on my upper back, inked in orange, green, and purple. Although small, his cell number is etched inside the swirls of the right wing.
“The butterfly . . . it’s in memory of you, a reminder of the boy who flitted by for an instant and gave me hope and then was gone, flying away somewhere else. I-I got it done in New York. Your old cell is inside the wings.”
I can’t see his face, but I hear him inhale as he traces the numbers with light fingers. My body shivers as goose bumps rise at his touch.
There is a deep silence as he processes this.
I don’t mind it.
His voice is filled with awe. “That’s my old number. My father disconnected it when I didn’t go to college. How do you—” His voice stops. “I remember you. You were hungry.”
I turn back around and face him, gazing up into those fathomless eyes, the ones I carried in my heart for years. I repeated those digits over and over in my head when I was faced with mean foster siblings, hungry nights, or just plain loneliness.
His eyes meet mine and we stare at each other.
My brain knows he’s going to be a rock star. It’s plain as the nose on my face that he’s going to break my heart.
But I can’t let him go.
I take a deep inhale, my eyes still clinging to his. “Staring at someone for longer than six seconds signals that you either want to have sex with them or murder them. Which one is it?”
He closes his eyes, and I weave my hands into his white hair, tugging on the ends as our lips come together.
He hesitates slightly and then groans, his hands going to my ass and pulling me against him.
With a swift movement, he flips me around until I’m the one against the wall and he’s in control. He kisses me back hard with a desperation that says he’s afraid I might disappear in the space of a heartbeat. There’s scruff on his jaw and it rubs my face and throat as his lips work me over, devouring me.
He wrenches himself from me, his breathing ragged, his shoulders quivering as if he’s holding himself back with the utmost restraint.
“Don’t stop,” I say.
My body gravitates toward his, my breathing shallow as a swell of emotions flies at me. I go in to take his lips again but he holds me at bay, leaning his forehead against the wall behind us.
He finally speaks, his voice rough as if it’s been dragged over rocks. “I told Father I’d leave you alone, but I can’t.”
“Thank God.”
He raises his head and looks at me, and I feel like I’ve ensnared him, captured him. I feel like a siren that calls sailors to jump from their ships and worship them forever.
“You’re too good for me,” he says, his hand lightly touching my shoulder before dipping down to caress my arm. His lips hover over mine . . . waiting.
“I’m not. I want you just the way you are. I don’t care about anything else.” I trace the outline of his lips, pulling on the bottom one until he groans. I take his mouth, my tongue nipping at his, inhaling his scent of spice and leather. I’m rough with him because I want it rough back. I want his desperation. I want his need.
He groans my name and pushes down the straps of my bra until my breasts spring free. His mouth encircles one of my nipples and tugs as his hand cups the other, tweaking it with his thumb. “You’re so beautiful. I want to touch you everywhere.”
“Yes,” I moan.
He kisses the side of my neck and sucks the skin. “I want to fuck you, Rose. I have since the moment I saw you.” His voice is guttural and harsh, and his dirty word makes my core clench.
“I’m not stopping you.”
My hands go to his jeans and unsnap them, reaching in to wrap my hands around his hard cock, my fingers sliding up his velvet skin.
He hisses, his mouth claiming mine once again.
Amidst our heavy breathing, his shirt disappears as he whips it over his head. I kiss my way down the hollow of his throat while he slips his hand inside my pants and underneath my underwear. I’m wet as he touches me, sliding in and out.