California Dreamin'

The worry might be for me because he frowns and looks me up and down as if he can’t believe I’m here, and to make sure that I’m okay.

“Fallon?”

“Hey.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snaps, his biceps bulging out of his black t-shirt, strained.

“You weren’t answering my texts or calls and…”

“And what?”

“And I wanted to see you.”

His frown deepens for a second, twitches between his brows before smoothening out. “You shouldn’t have come, Fallon.”

“I had to.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re hurting.”

Something happens when I say that. To him, I mean.

I can’t really describe it other than saying that he draws back, but I know that he hasn’t moved even a micro-inch.

Something ripples through him though, through his entire body, a spasm almost, and his dark features look tighter and more ferocious.

Before I can ask him about it, he grabs my arm and pulls me inside his house. The door snaps shut behind me and he pins me against it.

I’d be scared to find myself inside a house that’s as dark as the night—darker, in fact. The night contains the moon to light it up. Inside Dean’s house, there’s no such relief. No lights, no flickering flame of a candle.

And I’m stuck between the door and him.

Oddly or maybe not so oddly, the very fact eases my fears. The fact that I’m secure, safe, because he has his body draped over mine like a blanket.

“Dean?” I whisper because even though we’re so close and my hands are clutching his t-shirt, I can’t really see him.

I hear him though.

I hear his deep, wild breaths and I hear the slap of his palm against the wall before light floods his entryway.

It takes me a few moments to adjust to the sudden brightness.

But when my vision clears, I find him only inches apart from me. I mean, I knew he was this close to me; I felt him. I felt every inch of him but still, it’s a surprise.

A nice one. A glorious one.

“How’d you get here?” he asks, both his palms on either side of me.

“I snuck out after everyone fell asleep,” I tell him.

He watches my lips as I speak before looking up and into my eyes. “Because I was hurting.”

“Yeah,” I whisper, unfurling my fingers from his shirt so I can bring up my hands and cup his hard, scruffy jaw. “I’m sorry for whatever happened, Dean. I’m sorry for whatever my dad said to you. I’ll talk to him. I’ll fix—”

“Have you ever broken a rule, Fallon?” he asks, his warm, tasty breaths fanning my lips.

I’m not sure why he’s asking me this all of a sudden, especially when he already knows the answer. But I shake my head. “Uh, not really.”

“Not really,” he repeats, his gaze penetrating and probing. “Ever snuck out of the house after your parents fell asleep?”

I shake my head again. “No. Why?”

“But you did it tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“You walk here?”

He asked me the same question back at the motel the night I knocked at his door. It was also the night he said that he wasn’t into little girls like me.

Even though his words are the same tonight, the air around us feels different. More charged up and electric. More dangerous and sharp.

“I did, yes.”

“You did.” He licks his lips and I have to tamp down the urge to touch the tip of his tongue with the tip of my finger or better, with the tip of my own tongue.

“And you did all of that because I was hurting,” he whispers, making me look away from his mouth.

I swallow when he repeats my words for the second time. “Yes.”

“Like you moved across the country because I moved across the country.” His expression turns rigid for a second like he’s seeing that fact in a new light, my moving to the west coast. “That’s what you told me, right? You told me you moved across the country to be with me.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“You’ll do anything for me, won’t you?”

“Yes, anything.”

In the wake of my eager words, his chest moves against mine, rubbing my nipples as he exhales a sharp breath. A sharp, angry breath that strangely turns me on and makes me want to take away all his anger and hurt at the same time.

“What happened, Dean? Why are you asking all these questions?” I rub my thumbs over his harsh cheekbones. “What’d my dad say to you?”

“He told me the truth.”

His words come out smashed and gritted between his teeth. He does the same with his hands. He presses his fingers into the door. And he presses them so hard that his knuckles, his nails become colorless.

The vein on the side of his neck becomes taut and stiff.

I rub his jaw in soothing circles. “What truth?”

“Truth about me. About how I hurt the girl who’ll do anything for me. Who’ll move across the country. Who’ll sneak out of her house in the middle of the night. For me. Because she thought I was hurting.”