Sloth (Sinful Secrets 1)

I drank a shot of Snow Queen for you 8/7 also. Maybe in an alternate reality, we were drinking them together.

Just as hot tears start to come, something pale near the ground attracts my gaze: a smoke cloud. I know without question that it’s Kellan.

Why did he tell me he never smokes? What’s the point in lying, I wonder as I trek down to the river. I want him to feel like he can tell the truth with me. So I can tell the truth with him. Raw pain slices my heart as I wonder if I’m being foolish, letting myself feel this way.

No choice.

I have no damn choice, I’m finding.

It feels dangerous. So dangerous, especially tonight.

Oh God...

I cross the lawn with long strides, my flip-flops sinking into warm, damp grass. Please be okay, I find myself chanting.

With this loss sitting heavy in me, the night air seems to vibrate. I can’t see in the growing darkness. Unease is a small hand knocking on my chest.

I find Kellan leaning against one of the thicker pines, his bare feet planted in the muddy riverbank. The fingers of his right hand cradle a blunt. Truman sits beside him on his haunches, stiff-backed, as if he’s trying to make his wayward owner more respectable.

I stand a few feet from them, waiting for Kellan to look over at me. When he doesn’t, I press my trembling lips together and wait until I can’t wait anymore. I murmur, “Hey.”

His gaze glides to mine, and I feel cold in my soft dress and flip flops. The sweater I’ve got on doesn’t shield me from the river breeze. The air slaps at me, seeping into my chest.

I fold my arms under my breasts and try to read his face. It’s so... still. At the moment I need connection more than ever, Kellan gives me no clues to his mood. When he shifts his eyes back to the water, I look him over frantically.

The guy before me doesn’t look a thing like the Kellan Walsh I met in the student center. He’s wearing that same charcoal t-shirt from last night and what I think are black jeans. His soft blond hair is sticking up, like he’s been running his hands through it. His handsome face, so kind at times, so open in quiet moments, has its doors closed.

I feel a sharp ache in my chest when I think of his arm around me at Olive’s grave. The way he looked holding the mug of spiked hot chocolate... was that yesterday? God, I feel as if we’re in some kind of time warp. Again, the sensation that I’ve known him for a long time. That I know him well. And now, the bitter truth that I need him.

I need something...

The sound of my exhale is louder than the rushing river, but he doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t want to look at me. I may not be a Kellan expert yet, but I can feel his withdrawal—his isolation.

It makes me desperate. I want to grab onto his shoulders and just... bite him. I could bite him hard enough to taste his blood. I want to throw him down and ride his cock. I want to sob into his chest.

I fold my wants away and level him with an impassive look. “I thought you didn’t smoke,” I say softly.

“I don’t.”

I wait a moment for his gaze to brush my face. I need the softness of his gaze, the touch of his interest. But his attention is mired in the river.

“Well you do,” I say. I chew my lip.

“Sometimes...”

I want to grab his thick forearm and pull him close in that proprietary manner he uses with me. But the thought of it burns—because I don’t feel like I can. Kellan calls the shots with us, and that’s a shame, because he’s stormy. Changeable. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting close, and then he flits away. Like now.

“When you go to sleep that night, be sure you’ve had some alcohol or even Xanax. If that’s not your scene, fall asleep... I don’t know. Reading. Or doing something else.”

Kellan leans his head against the tree’s trunk and slowly brings the blunt up to his lips. I watch the cherry flare as his chest expands; he holds the smoke in his lungs. A second later, his shoulders slacken, and a thick cloud pours out his mouth.

He takes another drag, then turns quickly to me.

He doesn’t cup my mouth or take my shoulders in his hands. He wraps an arm around me, pressing my breasts against the hardness of his chest—and then his lips close over mine.

For a second I forget what I’m supposed to do. His mouth is closed so tightly over mine, I inhale instinctively, to ward off the sensation of being suffocated.

Stinging smoke fills my lungs, and Kellan’s mouth lifts off mine. I gulp fresh, damp air. I brace myself for the removal of his arms, but instead, he holds me tight. He wraps an arm under my backside, so my feet come off the ground. He’s holding me to his chest.