Page 49 of Going Home

"Better be," he growls and helps her stand.

"Are we staying here tonight?"

They move to lie on the bed, and he almost wants to take her home. Leave her there and come back here to sleep alone. "I figure we can sleep at my place unless you want me to take you home."

"How much sleep were you planning on getting?"

Sex is almost becoming exhausting, but maybe it's because there's nothing more than a physical connection with her. She doesn't let him in enough to know her on a personal level, and sex is really all they have between them. If someone asked her favorite color, he'd have to guess. Her favorite food? No fucking clue. But worse, she knows nothing about him, either, and she doesn't seem to want to know.

"I wasn't thinking about going to sleep right now."

"Any chance you have any lube sitting around here?"

He narrows his eyes. Cinder never needs help in that area. In fact, it borders on too much wetness sometimes. "Feeling a little dry?"

"What I want you to do to me requires a little help."

The meaning isn't lost on him, and he lifts his eyebrows. He's never done it, but he's immediately standing at attention and ready to give it a shot. "I know who I can get some from."

"Lex?"

"Gross, no. Jace and Mel. They're freaky as hell. I heard they have a sex swing set up, and there have been requests to have them soundproof his apartment. Give me a sec, and I'll be back," he says, scrambling to put on his jeans and heading into the hallway.

Shep grabs his arm and pulls him away from his room, and he wants to push the man off him. He's got an opportunity he hasn't had before, and he wants to find what he needs and get back to the naked woman in his bed.

"Look, I gotta go get—"

"Dude, you gotta be careful with that one," Shep says.

"What?" The look passed between the two of them comes back into his mind, and he realizes Shep knows Cinder in the way Venom knows Cinder. Maybe better. "Wait, you and Cinder...?"

He looks at the ground. "Heidi can't know, or she'll lose her fucking mind. Cinder's someone I sort of hooked up with for a while right before Heidi. No one knew because that chick is batshit crazy, but the sex was fucking incredible. Until it got to be too much. She took a bat to a bike she thought was mine, pushed it in front of a semi-truck, and then put it in her dad's car crusher. It wasn't mine, thank God, and the owner pressed charges. She spent twenty months in county for it."

"You fucked her?"

"Every which way and then some. Let her do some freaky things to me, too, but it got to be too much. I called it off, and she lost it. The only reason she never came after me when she was released is because there another guy she fixated on. Heard he ended up in an institution afterwards. Not sure how true that one is. Just... be careful. She's got more than a few screws loose."

The older man walks back into the main room, and Venom looks conflicted. He can handle a crazy chick, but should he? Does he stop this before it goes too far?

She's offering up a golden opportunity, idiot. I'll figure this out afterwards.

He hurries towards Jace and Mel's room, pushing the concern he's had nagging him since he met Cinder out of his mind for at least one more night.

Chapter Seventeen

Griffin's Beach

Hailey

Lettingoutadeepbreath, Hailey walks up to the sliding door and looks into the backyard to see Lex swinging slightly on the swing set wearing her robe and holding a cup of coffee. For the past couple of days, she's wanted to talk to Lex, but one thing or another prevented her from doing so. Including her own cowardice. But she knows without a doubt that every morning, before everyone else wakes up, Lex makes a pot of coffee and sits outside on the swing.

She squares her shoulders and opens the door. The breeze chills her, creating goosebumps along her skin as she walks out and sits beside Lex in her thin pajamas. "Hey."

"Hey. What time is it?" Lex asks.

"Six-thirty."

She chuckles. "You're never out of bed before eight on the weekends. Need to talk to me, huh?"

---