Page 131 of Till The Sun Dies (Checkmate 2)

“Crap. I gotta hustle. I’ll be fast, I promise.”

“It’s okay. We have time.”

“Okay.” With her arms full of clothes, she inches the door closed. “Back soon. It’ll be like a time lapse video. This is what I look like now…” Smiling, she slams the door in my face and leaves her sentence hanging.

Chuckling under my breath, I move back to my bag and tug out a pair of jeans.

Glancing back at the closed door and hearing the roar of a hair dryer, I push my shorts down my legs and tug the jeans on before she can come out and find me naked in her room.

I toss my tank to the floor, and pull out a can of deodorant. Spraying under my arms and throwing it back into my bag, I step up to the large mirror hanging on the wall and study my hair.

Still looks as good as when I left Caitlin’s salon.

I run a hand through the short stubble covering my jaw, and with a deep sigh when the hair dryer stops and drawers slam, I push the loose hair back off my face and press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.

Way back then, when my mom was busy getting fat lips and my dad was busy helping her achieve that goal; back when I went to the Turner’s house on weekends for something to do and something to eat, they rented that movie based on Hercules’ journey. We sat in front of the TV, eating popcorn, and when he came on the screen and became the hero, with his long hair whipping around in slow motion, that was the day I decided to grow my hair long.

It was a silly hero worship thing in a world where I had no other heroes. It was something I would have outgrown just like most other kids, but one day, Laine Lenaghan mentioned how she liked it.

She mentioned how Luc always cut his hair short, and how Marcus always kept his styled the way he did… and she liked how I was different.

She liked that I didn’t care to be the same.

So I never chopped it off, because my Hercules hero worship transferred to Laine worshiplongbefore I should have cared what she thought.

I shake my head at the idiot boy that turned into an idiot man, and when the bathroom door opens a second time, I almost choke on my tongue when she steps out in a stunning little black dress.

“…and this is what I look like now.”

From wet hair, to flowing and straight.

From small freckles on her cheeks, to flawless makeup.

From water in her lashes, to eyes done up smoky and dark the way she used to do before Graham came along.

“Fuck me.”

Her lips – red and succulent – turn up into a shy smile as she drops her head forward and peeks through long lashes. “Looks good?”

“You look beautiful.” I clear my throat and remember belatedly that I’m only wearing jeans.

No shirt.

A problem she compounds when she walks closer, stops in front of me, then turns. “Can you zip me up? I can’t reach the zipper on this one, and normally we have a girlfriend around to help. But, you know… you’re it, tonight.”

“Yeah.” My hands shake so much, I have to draw in a deep breath and hold it. Her dress, tight around the torso, and loose from the hips, has no straps. It bows over her chest to create a heart shape, and in the back, dips enough that I want to smash my head against a wall just to think of something else.

I rest one hand on her back and hold the material together, and with the other, I grab the metal zipper that sits in line with two deep dimples that mark her back. Her spine bows in, and a single freckle sits in one of the ridges and draws my eye.

I wonder if she even knows it’s there?

Her lungs fill and empty to the same rhythm as mine. Full, almost to bursting, and when we can’t hold it any longer, it explodes out and we start again.

“Um…” I tug on the zipper. “It’s stuck.”

“No, you just gotta be kinda forceful with it. You gotta…” She reaches around and grabs my hand. “You just gotta…” She pushes my hand up as far as she can manage until her shoulder blade pops, then lets out a breathy laugh. “I’ve never had to explain it before. Girls just kinda know to grab on and yank.”

I don’t yank.

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