Obsessed(38)

“Cindy,” Patrick said, like he was trying out her name. “She’s a bit of a drama queen, isn’t she?”

“She’s…different.”

“But she’s not like you.” His puppy eyes were killing me. I felt so bad, it hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

He shrugged casually, but I saw straight through him. “It’s fine, I guess. I had other things to do, so…”

We stood around, looking at each other and then away. It was so awkward, like a nightmare that wouldn’t end.

“Does this have something to do with Aston?” he blurted out questionably.

I froze. Did he know? Was it obvious? Denial time. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he’s your brother and he sees you around me, and he never looks happy. The dude hates my guts.”

I let out a relieved breath. He didn’t know. “He doesn’t hate you, Patrick.”

“He does. When I came to him and asked if I could take you out, he said no, and when he found out I didn’t listen, he put his finger across his throat.”

What the hell? I shot him a perplexed look. “Um, what?”

“Yeah. A finger across his throat.” He then proceeded to show me. He slid his index across his throat while giving me crazy eyes. “And that’s how he looked, El.” The crazy eyes grew fiercer. “Like this. He slid it across his throat like he was planning on cutting me open, and then he mouthed ‘you wait’. I felt like a pig brought to the slaughterhouse. The dude was serious. I didn’t doubt it for a second.”

So Aston knew about the date. It explained how calm he was at the dinner table. With the images of how he must have looked making that threat – all Thor-like with that long hair and built body and scary – it took everything inside of me not to cackle. I bit the inside of my mouth so hard, I tasted blood. I cleared my throat every time a giggle began to surface, and then I coughed profusely.

“Aston is protective of me,” I tried to explain, though my voice was high as a kite.

“Maybe I dodged a bullet then,” Patrick whispered under his breath. “I like my throat in one piece.”

He spent the rest of the day away from me, and Aston smirked at the distance between us when he came through the door an hour later.

Another win for him.

*

I lay in bed that night, waiting for a sign of…something. Mom had gone to sleep a half hour ago and Dad was on night shift and wouldn’t be back until morning. I couldn’t hear Aston like I usually did. There was no bed squeaking, no audible sigh to be heard. It made me wonder if he was even there. Until…

Knock. Knock.

Yes! I slipped out of bed and tip-toed to the door. If I was sneaking out of my room for any other reason, I wouldn’t have been so cautious, but this…this required caution to the umpteenth degree.

I opened my bedroom door and looked down the dark hallway at the last bedroom where Mom was sleeping. It might as well have been on the moon, and with her door shut, I was a little more at ease. I felt like James Bond – or Bondette for more of a feminine touch – as I moved to Aston’s door, peering over my shoulder, at the hallway, at the staircase, at the walls even. When the coast was totally undeniably clear, I opened it, wincing every time it creaked in the silence. Were these doors always so loud? Were they designed so that parents could catch their teenage kids doing questionably wrong things? I stepped into the darkness of his room and shut it behind me. Yes, yes, yes, I did it! James Bondette for the win.

I didn’t make it all the way around before hands wrapped around me, slamming me into Aston’s hard body. His mouth was on mine before I had a chance to think. God, yes!

“Aston,” I moaned.

He breathed raggedly, tightening his hold around my body. “No,” he bit back. “No talking.”

Okay, I could handle that.

He took me to the bed without a word and pushed me back on the mattress. Then he stood there, looming over me from the edge of the bed for a few seconds, looking me over, a concentrated expression on his face.

I breathed heavily, anticipation building within me. He slowly moved on to the bed and over me, his eyes fluttering across my body before his mouth touched mine. His hair draped us, obscuring me from the walls of whom were bearing witness to our crimes. He savoured our kisses, languidly drawing his tongue over mine, tasting me, until my blood burned with need and my body writhed beneath him. I spread my legs readily for him this time, part of me hoping he’d slip my shorts off and take me that way. But he didn’t. His hands slid down my body, gripping my hips and then my thighs as he settled between them, never leaving my mouth, never stopping to breathe.