“Well, should we show ourselves?” My heart palpated. I considered myself her shadow. Shadows shouldn’t show themselves. They stayed hidden.
The slick sound of wet grass, Tweetie moving.
“Wait!” I don’t know why, I’d never considered myself a romantic, but suddenly my heart was pounding. “Close your eyes.” Her mouth parted like she would say something, instead she sucked in a breath. Did as she was told.
I took a moment to look at her.
Really look at her.
The soft of her round cheeks. The red of her button nose. The dip just before her lips.
And, of course, the wild tangles and brambles of her curls.
“Goddamn,” I hissed. “You’re beautiful.” I could stay like this for hours, learning things only possible up close: she had two small moles just beneath her left eye, spider bites; an almost unnoticeable divot in her chin.
But her eyelids fluttered like she was going to open them, and panic mobilized in my blood along with the first wet kiss on my cheek. Rain. Or snow.
This could be the last time.
The only time.
So I took her, held her, and kissed her like my world was ending.
She was surprised at first, lips unmoving. It was wrong in every way. She was too young, I was too corrupt. But when she melted into me, her sigh dripping down my throat, any thoughts beyond her disappeared.
I angled one hand on the back of her neck, the other on her lower back. Her lip bent by her moan against mine. Soft. Supple. Intoxicating.
She was addicting.
An elixir.
Her fingers made rosettes on my shirt, pulling me close. “Who are you?” she asked on a hot breath. “Please tell me.”
Crack, slam, shatter—the sound of reality breaking from the moment and falling to the floor.
I stepped back. Her eyes remained closed, still lost in our kiss. Slow, intermittent drops of rain and snow veiled her in blurry harmony.
So. Goddamn. Beautiful.
A goddess.
An uneven breath, then I spun and left before she could answer her own question.
“Wait,” she called after me. “At least tell me your name.”
I stopped. “Nate.”
Twenty-Four
Bail: To fall.
FLIP
Present
Tweetie went silent after I told her my name. Staring at me with a face I couldn’t figure out. The snow behind her fell thicker and faster, and for some reason, I was thinking of the night she’d first asked my name. It was slow then, wet and rainy.
I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to do more than kiss her.
“I’d pay a thousand dollars to know what you’re thinking right now.” My voice was sandpaper.
She smiled, biting her lower lip to keep it from growing, looking down at her warming fingers.
“Alright, two thousand.” She laughed, throwing her head back, and I knocked my head against the wall, focusing on the pain and not her laugh or the way it matched the stars in the sky.
Quiet grew after her laugh faded. She watched me with the same inscrutable thought swirling over and over again on her face.
Uncomfortable?
Probably.
She was naked beneath her blanket and I may as well have been a leering, unwanted stranger.
I stood quickly. “Fuck, I…” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ll sleep in the other room.”
“Flip,” she called after me.
I stopped short, shoulders tight. “Call me Nate.”
“What?” Breathless, a blush in her voice. I stared at the door, focusing on the knots in the wood and not the bubblegum I knew was leaking into her cheeks.
“Nate. My name.”
“Oh, um…Nate.” The quiet in her voice let me know the blush was spreading. “Do you still want to know what I’m thinking?” I looked over my shoulder, just enough to see her let the blanket drop, exposing the slope of her shoulder.
I sucked in a breath, eyes back on the door.
“Nate—”
“Do you know what you’re asking?” Was that my voice? Low, warbled—speakers with the bass turned up too high. Quiet continued, and against everything in my brain saying not to, I looked back over my shoulder. Tweetie bit her lower lip, looking down like she was embarrassed by the smile, and nodded slowly. The blanket dropped more, exposing the delicate line of her collarbone, the tops of her breasts.
And then I was done for.
“Tell me not to do this.” Even as I cautioned her, I went to her. “Tell me to go into that room and shut the door.” I lowered myself on top of her, weight on my arms, searching her lakewater eyes.
“I want this.” Her throat bobbed with the breath. I zeroed on it.
“You wouldn’t if you knew everything.” I dipped my head to her neck, sucking the peachy soft bone through my warnings.
She groaned. Fuck. I’d do anything to hear that again.
“But I do.” She arched into my lips. “It was you. You were the boy I was waiting for. The boy who kissed me and left me with a mark on my heart. The boy who met my checklist. It was always you.”
I paused, lips at the base of her neck. She’d waited for me like I’d waited for her? My heart rammed against my ribcage.
But all I could think about was that there was still so much she didn’t know.
“I know everything,” she said as if sensing my hesitation. “I’ve put the pieces together.” I lifted my head, her eyes pierced mine. “I know everything. It was you the whole time. You were there the night my life changed.”
I paused. My simultaneous hope and fear had fallen from her lips and I stared blankly, not certain I’d heard her correctly.
Unsure if this was a dream or a nightmare.
She knew I’d killed her dad. She knew.
You were there the night my life changed.
I had to sit up, get space, but stayed on the chunky flannel, plaid blanket.
My throat was thick, my heartbeat fast and tense. “What did you say?”
“I know about us.” She cupped my cheek. “Our past. Our history. Our connection. You’ve been in my life so much longer than this year, Nate. I don’t know why you kept it from me.”
The wrinkles in my brow deepened. “Did King tell you?” She shook her head. “How?” Before she could answer, I asked what I really wanted to know: “You’re not mad? Not…hurt?” Tweetie moved closer. So close our foreheads nearly touched, shadowing the blanket between us with our bodies.
“Why would I be?” she whispered. “You were my lost god. I searched for you for two years—” she cut off, looked away, embarrassed. Another jolt, my heart kick-started like someone pressed electric paddles directly to the skin.
I grasped her chin, pulling her eyes back to mine. “You did?” A split second pause, like she was embarrassed to admit the truth, then she tried to nod. I reluctantly let her go.
“I gave you my heart years ago, but I gave up hope you’d come back to get it.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My heart pounded, the blood rushed in my ears, a roaring river. She’d been searching for me. She wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Tweetie shifted and the blanket fell. She quickly scrambled to cover herself, cheeks red. I tried to keep my brain focused—How do you know? How much do you know? How long?
All I could see was her, forever tattooed in my memory. A body I’d been imagining in forbidden bursts for years. One I knew I needed the day she’d handed me my shirt.
The pads of my fingers slid along the fabric, thumbs dipping beneath the flannel edge, feeling her soft skin along a razor-sharp line like the one I rode. Her heartbeat thumped against my fingers, breath gusting my chin.
Suddenly there was only one question I cared about.
“If I asked, would you let go?”
“Yes,” she said it as she sucked in. Our eyes connected in the shadows our foreheads made.
And that’
s the moment I decided to figure out how Tweetie learned about me later.
“Let go.”
She did.
The blanket dropped to her lap and my mind went blank. Memorizing every forbidden inch. A silhouette I’d learned through her window, now in the flesh. I decided then and there I would relearn it with my tongue. Kissing, sucking, swallowing fingers that had settled on her sill.
“Flip…”
“What’s my name?” I said, tearing my eyes from her body. God, her blush was adorable. It stained her cream cheeks red like paint drops in water. And just like I’d predicted, it spread everywhere.
I thumbed her lip, memorizing her reaction.
“Nate.”
I swallowed a groan and pressed a hand between her breasts, pushing her down gently.
“Do you want this?”
She nodded, lips pouty and perfect.
“Words,” I ordered leisurely as I continued to drag my thumb across her silky lip, twisting, massaging, eliciting jagged moans that made my own breath rocky.
“I want this,” she breathed, eyes locked on me, breath ghosting over my thumb. “You.”
She couldn’t know what those four simple words did to me.
I’d wanted this moment for years. Dreamed of it. It had driven me insane. Driven a wedge between my closest friends—my brothers.
And here she was, offering it.
“I’m going to take my time with you, Tweetie.”
TWEETIE
Flip was so caring.
So gentle.
So sweet.
And so agonizingly slow.
How could I not have seen it? The boy who couldn’t meet a single item on my checklist was somehow also the only one who had. Flip was Nate. Nate was Flip. He was there the night my life changed, the day I left Patchwork.
“I can’t wait to see the faces you make,” Flip said, biting the skin at my collarbone softly. “I’ve memorized almost everything about you. Like how you always sleep in an oversized Ramones shirt, or your inability to talk without a full mouth. Or the way you realize halfway through and freeze, covering your face with both hands.”
“Please,” I breathed, dragging my hands down his back, then up, feeling a body that had once been pasted above my bed. Hard. Muscles flexed and worked beneath my fingers.
He lifted, catching my stare. His eyes were fire. Absolute fire.
“But those are for the world, Tweetie, and I want the secret sighs. To swallow them. To see the moment your blue, blue eyes change after I’ve just given you everything.” His voice dipped low in the way that drove me nuts, making my gut clench with how his tongue licked over everything.
Just when I couldn’t get any hotter, he said something like that, and my blood became lava.
He grinned, tracing a knuckle along my jaw, down my neck. “Like that one.”
Then he kissed me.
If only we’d kissed sooner.
I would have remembered this. His voice, his eyes—everything that I instinctively felt, but had written off as coincidence, this was not one of them. His lips were forever inside me. Soft yet unyielding. Hot. Promising. I was catapulted back to that night, the tattoo he’d put on my heart suddenly white-hot and searing.
“You idiot,” I said against his lips. He paused, eyes opening as his brows rose. “Why did you take so long?” Flip grinned and kissed me more.
He ruled me. Bit my lip, dragged it out. His tongue found mine again, harder and deeper. Fervently making up for all our wasted time. All of our almosts.
I parted for him, begging him silently. He slid between my thighs, jeans scratchy and torturous against my skin. I just wanted to feel him. He broke the kiss, palms grasping my face.
Then everything stopped.
There was an emotion in his eyes, pain and hurt and sorrow swirling like a violent storm. His grip was so tight, but it was nothing like his jaw. Granite—no, even that wasn’t hard enough. He didn’t look at me, at least not my eyes. My lips. My nose. My neck and farther down, keeping my head locked between his palms as if I was going to disappear at any moment.
Studying me.
Memorizing me.
“What?” My insecurity leaked through. I thought Flip liked me, the real me, but maybe I was wrong.
Then his eyes shot to mine.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.” And then he kissed me ferociously, the intent behind his rocky words in the feverish way his lips met mine. Every slow minute before sped up as I tangled my hands in his hair and he tangled his in mine. He bit me, sucked on my lip, dragging it out with my groan.
With a jagged breath, eyes still closed, he pulled back.
“Are you ready?” he asked, voice low and steady and enthralling.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Twenty-Five
Faceplant: Landing directly on your face.
TWEETIE
“I’ve wanted your orgasm for years.” My eyes grew at his confession, then slacked as Flip pressed a kiss between the dip in my hip bones. The muscles of his back flexed and rolled like waves in the ocean.
“How many have you had with others?” he asked.
“None,” I whispered. Small. Shy. Afraid he’d judge me. His groan filled the small room, touch bruising my skin.
“It belongs to me. Do you know that? It always has.” I nodded as he came up to me, chest to chest, and dragged his pointer finger along my lower lip, back and forth, knuckle to tip. A slow, delirious meditation. “Say it.”
“It’s yours,” I said. He was at my thigh, hard. Wanting. Growing with my words. So tauntingly close and yet far.
“Again.”
“It’s yours, Nate.”
“I’d give you the world if I could.” He pressed his lips to mine, talking through breaks in his kisses. My cheek. My jawline. Beneath my ear. “It still wouldn’t be enough.” His lips found mine again. Searching.
“Just give me now,” I said against his mouth. Another groan I swallowed, and then he was there. Only the fabric of his boxer briefs between us. He reached down to tug them off, lips never leaving mine, tongue in my mouth hot and deep and—
“Perfect,” he said. “You’re perfect. I’m going to make this perfect for you.”
Knock, knock.
Our kiss stilled.
The cabin had been our own personal castle, alone on the mountain, just us. Now pale, powdery blue light leaked through wood slats. The night had already come and gone?
The same realization passed through our eyes: King was back.
I quickly scrambled off him and he me. I’d barely managed to put on a shirt just as the door opened. Daniel and King stood like shadowed knights in the wintry light.
“Uh, hey,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “You’re back.” Heat drenched my skin. Seconds ago Flip’s tongue had been in my mouth, his everything between my thighs. More red bled to my cheeks and I looked anywhere else.
Oh my god.
My bra.
A beacon of my promiscuity on the plaid. In my haste, I forgot to put it on. Flip took a subtle step to the left, concealing it beneath his foot. My knight in shining skater shoes.
“We would’ve been here earlier, but someone insisted he come…” King trailed off annoyed, and out from behind Daniel stepped a third. I think my heart dropped to the floor, or maybe I did, because Flip grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“Romeo,” I gasped. I hadn’t seen him since I left Patchwork, and he was changed. The boy who used to think leather was the only viable clothing option was wearing jeans and a shirt—and his hair. What had he done with it?
“Hey, luv,” Romeo said, an amused tilt to the corner of his lips.
“You’re…you’re in a shirt! And you cut your hair.” Romeo had always been fists and fucking, leather and piercings. I could count on one hand the times I’d seen him with a shirt. His hair was his pride and joy. I couldn’t for the life of me begin to imagine what would make someone like him go legit.
<
br /> He shot me a grin. “Is that really what you want to talk about right now?” Yes. No. But really, yes.
I stared at all four of them. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen all three of them together, much less with Flip, who apparently should have been with them all along.
The Rebel Gods of Patchwork House.
Finally together again.
I ran and wrapped my arms around Romeo’s waist. He always hated hugs, but he tolerated mine. “Oh fuck, she’s crying.” I stepped back, wiping my eyes and pretending it was nothing. It had been so long.
“Why are you up here?” I said after I’d gotten my eyes under control. A silence followed.
“Someone put up the bat signal,” he replied simply, wiping the tears under my eyes. Then with a faux-stern brogue said, “Have you been getting yourself into trouble again, luv?”
“So much trouble she can’t find her own shirt,” King said wryly. My mind went blank as I met King's eyes. I didn’t understand, then I looked down. In our rush, I’d put on his shirt. Heat bled into my cheeks.
I heard Flip’s soft, satisfied laugh behind me.
“Are you back?” I said quickly, voice high. “Are we all back together?”
Romeo gave me a sad smile and threw his arm around me, shepherding me outside. “I hear there’s a party being thrown in honor of you not being dead.”
When we got back to Patchwork, the party was already raging. Porch lanterns jiggled with music just as someone fell through the open door, somehow covered in glitter and feathers. The Rebel Gods stepped over him like it was nothing.
I lifted my foot to the step, but was yanked back before it could land.
Into the arms of Flip.
“I was going insane being apart from you, even just for the ride.” His hand slid up my shirt—his shirt—stopping just at my stomach. My breath caught. We were barely hidden by the porch. People moved above us, streaming past the open door like fish in an aquarium for the debauched.
Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1) Page 22
