Faster We Burn (28 page)

I kissed her, not being able to hold back anymore.

“You and me,” she whispered against my lips.

“No space.”

Katie

It wasn’t until I woke up in Stryker’s arms the next morning that I realized I couldn’t go to class the way I was. He’d drawn all the way up around my neck, giving me what looked like a lace necklace, not to mention my arms and hands and legs. Unless I wore a bodysuit, everyone would be able to see it.

“Was this some sort of ploy to get me to not leave this room?” I said when his green eyes finally opened. I would totally paint my walls that color.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” He rolled over me and his dick pressed against me, ready to go again. I stroked him with my hand and he growled in my ear. He tried to remove my hand, but I wouldn’t let him.

“Your turn to learn patience, my friend.” I kissed my way down his chest as my hand worked and he swore and moaned. It was nice to know that I could affect him as much as he affected me.

I took him to the edge and back with my hands and my mouth, making him mine until I straddled him and we became united again.

***

“I did have class today, you know. And I’m sure that any moment now someone is going to knock on the door and ask me to go to breakfast,” I said, still panting. Some of the beautiful drawings were smudged, but I was still covered in them.

“What, you don’t want to go around like a walking art project? Afraid of what people will think?”

“No, I just don’t want them staring. I can’t deal with more people looking at me. It’s like being at the funeral all over again.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”

“No, it wasn’t. You just forgot, and so did I.” Even if it was just for a little while. Knock, knock. Reality calling. “I can’t believe I forgot. Oh my God.” I sat up and moved away from him.

“Oh my God. My dad is dead and we had sex and you said you loved me and I said it back. Oh God, I’m going to hell.” I tried to get out of bed, to get away from him, but he held onto me. I squirmed against him.

“We shouldn’t have done this.”

“You have got to stop blaming yourself for things, Katie.” He shook me a little as he said it. “Do you honestly think your dad would want you to stop living just because he did?”

I knew he wouldn’t. I thought back to what he’d said to me when we’d had that chat in the basement. That I was strong and he was proud of me.

“No.” He took my moment of weakness to pull me into his chest, right next to his heart.

“What is the point of being alive if you don’t live it?” His eyes were bright and his voice was urgent. I’d never seen him like this. “I know you’re scared and I’m scared as hell too. That’s what love is, being scared as hell, but doing it anyway because it’s worth it.” He held me so tight, his arms like ropes that tied me to him, tied this moment together.

“You terrify me, sweetheart.”

“I terrify you. Me, with the pink obsession? I terrify the guy with the piercings and the tattoos and the, ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude?”

“Terrifying things come in pink packages.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Well, I’m not scared of you, big bad boy.” He unwrapped his arms and held my face.

“I never, ever want you to be scared of me.”

“You’re not Zack,” I said. “You’re not anything like him.”

“That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, sweetheart.”

Just as he was leaning down for a kiss, there was a pounding on my door.

“Um, you wanna get that? Just tell them I’m not feeling well, maybe?” He climbed over me and put his pants on as I pulled the blanket up to cover myself.

“Oh, hey, Stryk,” Simon said. Stryker made sure to keep the door only halfway open so they couldn’t see me. “We just wanted to see if Katie was up for breakfast, but…never mind.”

“She’s…she’s not feeling that great. We’ll probably just have something here.”

“Sure, yeah, that’s…that’s great.” I could hear other voices, but I couldn’t tell who they were. “See you later?”

“Sure thing.”

“Is she okay?” That was Lottie.

“Yeah, she is.” He wasn’t facing me, but I could hear the grin in his voice. “She just needs to take an extra day, I think.”

“If she needs anything…”

“I know. I’ll call you, I promise.”

He closed the door and I could hear them chattering. More than one of them had a problem with voice volume modulation.

“Thanks for that. I wasn’t sure what they’d say about all this.” I motioned to the drawings that had stained my sheets a bit.

“Anytime, sweetheart.” He took his clothes back off. “Now where were we?”

Chapter Twenty-five

Stryker

Katie and I spent the next few hours alternating between getting closer and eating the rest of the ice cream Lottie had stocked up on, and sometimes combining the two, which was the most fun.

“How long do you think it’s going to take to wash this off?” The marker had faded from her skin a little, but she was still a walking, talking canvas. “I would like to leave this room at some point and rejoin the world.”

“Why? The world is so overrated.”

“True, but I think our friends might like to see us.”

I kissed her shoulder. “You, maybe. I’m fine with staying in this room with you forever.”

“That would be a bit of an issue when the semester is over and summer break comes and we have to move out.”

“We could hide in the ceiling and then wait until everyone left and only come out at night to get supplies. Like vampires.”

“You have put way too much thought into this. But seriously, I need to shower. I need to…do something.”

“I have something you can do.” I took my hand and slid it down her stomach.

“Fine, if you want, you can come shower with me. I need someone who can reach my back.” She got out of bed, then put my hand on her waist.

“I wish we could save it somehow,” she said.

“Are you at all opposed to nude photography?” My phone sat on her desk, and I reached for it, turning it on.

“I guess not, as long as these don’t end up somehow plastered all over the internet.” I was about to answer her when I saw another text from Ric.

Enjoy it while it lasts
.

Katie was waiting for me to answer.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. Just…Trish, being Trish.” Fucking Ric. That was why I’d left my phone off.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, fine.”

I looked back at her, putting a smile on my face. She studied me for a second, and I thought she was going to demand that I tell her, but then she smiled.

“Where do you want me?” she said, posing and throwing her head back. God, she was stunning.

I moved the blankets on her bed so she could lay out and took first pictures of her front, moving from her neck on down. I grabbed a lamp to give us better light and she struggled with trying to stay still. I couldn’t believe she was letting me do this, and then it hit me.

She trusted me. Not only did she love me, but she trusted me.

Fuck.

She trusted me enough to let me take pictures of her naked and keep them on my phone and not share them. That meant she probably trusted me to not fuck anyone else. Too late.

I took the pictures of her back and her hands and finally, the bottoms of her feet.

“Done.”

I kissed them and she squirmed.

“Shower?”

“Only if I can come,” I said, making her squirm again as I dug my finger into the arch of her foot.

***

I wrapped her up like a mummy and made sure the coast was clear before we hit the shower. The handicap shower, which was bigger, was known as the ‘couples’ shower’, she said, and more than a few couples had partaken in water conservation.

“Is it working?” She said as I scrubbed her with her most exfoliating soap and this loofah thing she’d brought.

“Sort of.” I rubbed harder and her skin turned red, but there was still a little bit of the drawing left behind. She was busy working on her front, checking her arms and stomach to see if it had faded.

“You know, you could have just kept it. Would have come off eventually.” I ran my hand down her back and touched her, sliding one finger into her.

She made an incoherent sound and I dropped the loofah.

“Maybe we just need a little more friction,” I said.

“Mmmm,” she said, bracing herself on the shower wall.

By the time we were done, the pounding water had taken care of most of the drawings.

“Too bad neither of us has a tub, because a good soak would have probably taken care of this, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun,” I said, pushing her back up against the wall as the water poured down on our heads.

“True,” she said, putting her hand on my heart. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” So much that I wasn’t sure if I could take it, if I could handle how I felt about her. I pressed my forehead to hers and kissed her drenched lips.

“I have to tell you something.” I couldn’t fill myself up with her until I got rid of Ric.

She stared up at me, and the words wouldn’t come.

“I want you to be my girlfriend,” I finally said, and I felt her relax in my arms.

“I think I’d like to be your girlfriend.”

“Just like?”

“Love. I’d love to be your girlfriend.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Katie

Lottie knocked on the door when she came back from class. Stryker and I were working on my wall. Apparently he hadn’t used up all his artistic talents on me.

“Oh, hey.” She cracked open the door with her eyes closed.

“We’re not naked, Lot,” I said, jumping down off my bed where I’d been helping Stryker fill in the leaves of a vine he’d been drawing along the top of my wall.

“Oh, I didn’t think you were.” She opened her eyes and set her bag down.

“Then why were your eyes closed?” Stryker said, swapping markers with me.

“Just being cautious. What are you doing?”

“Changing my wall up a bit since I can’t actually paint it.”

“Cool. How are you doing?” she said, looking at me.

“I’m…good, actually. Not fine.”

Lottie smiled and I could tell she’d been worried about me all day.

“So, I got elected to ask, since I’m your roommate, what’s the deal here?” She pointed at Stryker and me.

“We are officially together-together,” I said.

“Boyfriend/girlfriend?”

Stryker jumped down next to me. “Yes, we are. Right, sweetheart?”

“Yes, my beloved.”

He put his arm around me and I leaned into him.

“You’re not going to talk like that all the time, are you? Because I think I liked you better as fuck buddies if that’s the case.”

“Look, I’ve suffered through you and Zan, so you can deal,” I said.

“Fine, fine. Look, I have to text your sister because she’s been up my butt about asking since I told her that you had spent the night together.”

“She didn’t say anything, did she?” Stryker said, his arm tightening around me, just a little.

“Say anything about what?”

He tried to shrug it off. “I don’t know. She’s Trish.”

“True,” Lottie said, taking out her phone. About three seconds after she sent the text, my phone rang. I would have been shocked if it hadn’t.

“I should probably take this outside. I have a feeling I’m about to get reamed out and emasculated at the same time,” he said, laughing a little, but I could tell he was tense. He did that jaw-clench thing that made his face even more attractive.

He closed the door and Lottie seized her moment.

“Well that was unexpected. I mean, I always sort of knew you’d end up together, but I didn’t know it would be this quick, and…like this. Not that I’m judging you, because I can’t throw stones, especially where relationships are concerned—”

“Lottie. It’s cool. I swear. Do you remember what a hard time I gave you about Zan? And also that I kept it from you that I slept with him?”

Her face went red.

“Yeah. Right. That.”

“It’s okay. I feel good, and under the circumstances, that’s…good. He loves me.”

“He said it?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Wow. Just…wow.”

“Why so shocked?”

“Well, it’s just that Stryker doesn’t date, seriously, at least according to Trish.” He’d told me some about his dating history, but in this instance, I kind of wanted to be kept in the dark. Besides, it was a bit of a pot and kettle situation.

“Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t date him.”

“I know, Lot. It’s okay.” I put my hands on her shoulders to stop any future verbal geysers.

“Okay.” She let out a deep breath. “Um, so now can I be super happy for you?”

“Yes, you can.”

“What’s that?” She pointed to a drawing on my neck that hadn’t quite faded.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

***

“How did it go?” I said when Stryker came back from his chat with Trish. He looked like he’d just been told his entire collection of musical instruments had been smashed.

“Oh, you know Trish. She doesn’t pull any punches.” He tried a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Is she mad at you?”

“Just mad that she didn’t know first. I guess when I make declarations of love from now on, I’m supposed to inform her first.” He was still hiding something, but Lottie interrupted.

“You guys want to go to dinner?”

“Seeing as how we’ve only eaten ice cream today, yes, I could use some real food,” he said.

“Ice cream is real food,” Lottie said. “Did you eat all of it?” She ran to the mini-fridge and pulled open the now-empty freezer.

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, closing the door. “We can always get more.”

***

I called Kayla before our dinner to check in on mom. I still couldn’t believe that I’d let everything with Stryker happen, but he was right. I couldn’t let dad dying ruin the rest of my life.

“She had some soup, so that’s something, I guess,” she said.