Page 74 of Eye of the Hurricane
There are a hundred things running through my mind. At the forefront is surprise, mostly with myself. I had never considered I would like giving up control this much.
“Stay here. I’m going to clean you up,” Ares says, rolling off of me and standing from the bed.
At some point during all of that, the weather must have picked up because now that I’m not distracted, I can hear the rain pattering against the house. Thunder cracks loudly, causing me to squeak.
Ares quickly comes back into the room, a rag and pajamas in hand.
“Are you okay?” he asks, approaching me. He sets everything down, taking a moment to pull his boxers back on.
“Yes, the thunder just scared me.” I laugh.
“Can I clean you off?” he asks, holding the rag up to show me. I give him a slow nod.
He brings a warm rag between my legs and wipes me off carefully. This moment is arguably more intimate than the sex itself. Especially when his eyes are locked on mine.
“Are you okay?” he asks, continuing to run the warm rag over my skin.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I prop myself up on my elbows to see him better.
His hair is messier than usual and his lips are a deeper shade of pink. He looks even more gorgeous and I can’t wrap my head around how that’s possible.
“Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head,” he says, sliding a pair of panties up my thighs. First, he put me through the mattress and now he’s dressing me and talking to me as if everything is normal.
“A lot. But also nothing. Does that make sense?” I ask.
The hurricane continues to rage outside. Thunder cracks and wind whips through every crevice of the house. It sounds like the house is being put through a car wash. Bellatrix comes running in the room at the increase in noise.
“Not really, no.” He slides my sleep shorts on me as he replies.
He holds out a hand, helping me to stand from the bed. I get quite the head rush upon standing. He pulls the matching pink floral pajama top over my head.
Little bells jingle at our feet, and Ares lets me go to pick Bellatrix up from the floor. She nuzzles into his neck and he drops a kiss to the top of her head before planting one on mine.
I takea moment to myself in the bathroom a few minutes later to properly clean myself up and to gather myself. I feel like I’m betraying myself by feeling different after having sex for the first time.
I want to roll my eyes at the girl in the mirror while she’s standing there with a smile glued to her face. But I’ve never felt more like a woman than tonight. I feel sexy and strong and desirable.
When I walk out of the bathroom, Ares is laid out on the couch in nothing but pajama pants with a cat fast asleep on his chest. It’s oddly quiet now.
“Will you check the weather?” I ask. The calmness is eerie. He pulls his phone out, looking for a stream covering Celine’s developments.
I go to watch over his shoulder. The eye of the hurricane has finally made landfall. What I don’t expect to see is that, at some point, she shifted and the eye is over us. We’re not at the center necessarily, but we are inside of it.
“Can we go outside and look?” I ask, slipping on the sandals Audra gave me at the campgrounds.
“Yeah, but it’s not over, so we can’t stay out there.”
We walk out of the front door and both snap our heads up. The sky is entirely clear. It’s beautiful and eerie all at once. You can see the stars twinkling in the navy blue sky.
“This is so cool,” I gush.
“Not so cool when you realize your palm tree is laying in your yard,”he says, pointing.
Sure enough, one of the two palm trees in my yard is pulled entirely out of the ground and lying there. There’s debris big and small scattered all over my neighborhood. No houses seem to be destroyed, though.
“How did we miss that happening?” I laugh.
“We were busy,” he mumbles, sliding his strong arms around my waist. My heart speeds up and my breath catches in my chest. I think I’ve lost my common sense when I’m asking myself if twice in the same night counts as once. And I know I have when I decide that it does.
