Page 76 of Demons in My Bed
My gaze snapped to Slade, and the air seemed to crackle when I found his intense hazel eyes boring into mine.
“You good, Vale?” he asked, his voice deep and gritty. I squirmed in my seat and broke the stare in favor of staring out of the window. I remained silent. I didn’t trust myself right then, who knew what would come out of my mouth if I opened it.
Suddenly, the car jerked to the left, bumping as he drove the car down a little dirt path. “What the hell are you doing?” I reached out and braced myself against the glove box.
He slammed the brakes and threw the SUV into park. “Palmer. I can’t take it anymore. You’re driving me insane. It’s impossible to read you.” Slade looked a hundred times more serious than I’d ever seen him before.
“What are you talking about?” I glanced around, still alarmed at the off-roading he’d just put me through in the middle of the night with no warning. “I thought you were taking me home?”
A growl of frustration left him, and I didn’t know what to say. “That was the girl from last night. On the phone,” he said quietly.
My stomach sank. “I figured that.”
“She wants me to come over. Do you know why?”
I swallowed. “I can guess.”
“And you don’t care? That doesn’t bother you?”
“Should it?” I whispered. My heart was pounding. “Why are you asking me, Slade? Why does it matter if I care or not?”
“Because I don’t fucking want her, Palmer! I can’t stop thinking about you. All day. All the time. Tell me I’m way off base here. Tell me you don’t feel it too.”
My mouth popped open. Of all the things he could’ve said, I wasn’t expecting that. The car suddenly felt too small, too confining. I scrambled for the door handle and tugged on it as I hit the release on my seat belt, throwing myself out of the damn SUV and into the night air. We were in some secluded, little, pine forest just off the country road.
Slade’s door slammed seconds after mine, and I spun around and pushed him away just as he reached for me.
“How dare you!” I pointed my finger at him. “You’re my trainer. My friend....”
“I’m still those things. I just want to be more than that. We’d be so good together, Vale. You know it.”
“Asrael will kill you,” I fired back.
Slade shook his head. “He doesn’t need to know.”
I laughed. “He knows everything, Slade! He probably knows we’re here right this second, having this stupid as fuck conversation! You’re ruining our friendship right now.”
“You’re scared, I can see that. I think we’re just two sides of the same fucked-up coin, but we’re whole together. Telling you how I feel doesn’t ruin anything. I know you feel it too. I can see it when you look at me.”
My chest was heaving, but I let him reach for me. I let him pull me in and wrap his arms around me.
“You were going to drop me off and what? Go fuck that girl?” I had to know. I stepped back and stared up at the guy who was terrifying me right now. He was scaring me, because I’d never felt these things before.
“I thought about it. It would’ve made me sick to do it. That’s why I had to know about this, do you understand? If you didn’t feel it, then I was going to force myself to move on.”
That created a mental picture of Slade with a girlfriend, one that he spent all of his free time with. She’d be the one he took out to dinner after training, not me. We wouldn’t have this anymore. Panic gripped me; I couldn’t lose Slade. Hunter wasn’t around much these days, and I’d be alone...
“Slade,” I choked out, emotion taking over. I hated crying. I hated needing anyone.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” He tipped my chin up, and his thumb traced my jaw softly. Each pass felt like another rock landing heavily in my belly.
I shook my head. “Don’t leave me, okay?”
He studied my face as he stepped closer to me. “I will never leave you. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. You’re in my head now, and I don’t think I’ll ever get you out.”
I barely had time to suck in a breath before he bent down and pressed his lips against mine. I’d never been kissed before. He was soft, yet hard at the same time. The little whimper that escaped my mouth sounded nothing like any sound I’d made before, and Slade used that opportunity to slip his tongue past my lips. His groan made me feel things in my body that I was positive were witchcraft.
His lips left mine in favor of my neck, and the ache between my legs was at an all-time high when his tongue skimmed my throat.
