Equilibrium

by Katey Hawthorne

  "Yeah. That's all I mean. It was shitty of him, even if we know where it comes from. More of a…like, an explanation, not an excuse." Daly smiled, obviously relieved, then slipped out of the booth. "Back in a few. Gotta see a man about a horse."

  When he was gone, Nessa leaned over and lowered her voice. "Was it really one of…you guys who did it?"

  "Yeah," I admitted. "In a general sins-of-my-people way, there's a shared responsibility. But only in the abstract. Whether Sam likes it or not."

  Three days since the fire, and he hadn't been morose, exactly, but he still hadn't said much. Affection, yeah; words, not so much.

  "We're like loaded guns," he said. He didn't sound pissed, or even sad, really. Just kind of matter-of-fact.

  I made a mental note to give him a good talking-to when we got home.

  "Sorry, sweet cheeks—them's the breaks. And here's my ride now."

  Jarrett rolled up, proving her point. "Hey, guys." He kind of flinched when he got to Sam, but Sam just smiled.

  Technically, Jarrett had broken the guy code, going out with his friend's ex before at least talking to him about it. We all knew it, but Nessa didn't—and I had the feeling if she did, she'd kick our asses for even thinking it. Still, he was kind of off the hook since, you know, she'd asked, and Sam and I had been holed up getting splinters in inconvenient places and playing with lightning.

  Also, that thing with the friend going crazy and the fire. Puts life into perspective, I guess.

  Jarrett caught my eyes then, and his grin got bigger. "The hero himself. What's up, man?" He high-fived me over Sam's Jack Daniel's.

  "Working on my own comic book, you know, that kind of thing."

  "I'll bet. The crazy fire-eater, huh?"

  "You have no idea, Jarrett. No fucking idea at all."

  *~*~*

  Sam spread his hand out on my stomach and let it crackle, blue and white and sharp, so my skin came to life. It was like static shock, but gentle, all over my torso.

  I arched my back and made a quiet mmm sound.

  "You really like it?"

  "It's hot."

  "You could get it up for a good-looking couch." He snorted. Then he stopped the electricity, only to start it up again, sharp and fast.

  "Look who's talking." The sensation ran all over my skin that time, up to my chest, down to my thighs, before it died.

  He kissed me and curled up against my side, his arm over my middle, his cock lazy against my thigh, his lips against my shoulder. I played with his hair and stared upward at nothing, just—enjoying it.

  The new place was all right. Ranch-style property on the edge of town, owned by some professor on sabbatical who knew better than to rent to undergrads. Nice big yard. No picket fence or dog just yet.

  Also, we were sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor of the master bedroom. But like I say, I'm not a complainer.

  "You don't even feel a little guilty?" he asked.

  And there it was.

  I said, "No. I feel for Trent, yeah. I'm pissed at the guy who fucked with his family. I hope he finds a doctor who can help him out. I don't blame him for not being able to separate his delusions from reality. That's not on him, and it sucks."

  "You feel guilty, though."

  "Yeah. It's like everything got so fucked up that I can't tell whose fault it is. But it feels like mine."

  "That why you're so quiet?"

  "Yeah. No. Sort of."

  I smiled and played with his hair some more—it was getting long enough to flip out at the bottom now. Absurd and wonderful. "Feel like clarifying? Or even just picking one?"

  I felt him smile. He rolled onto his pillow to stare up at the ceiling. A little square of moonlight made it through the venetian blinds, but otherwise it was dark. Made his face look pale blue and kind of pretty. For a guy. "Sort of. I do feel bad. But I feel good too. I feel…way better than I should. So I feel guilty, but for not feeling guilty."

  "That is some kind of convoluted bullshit, man."

  "I know, right?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "I'm just lucky," he said. "So fucking lucky to have you."

  And suddenly I was choking on my heart. Sure, we didn't talk about it, but I couldn't really doubt he was into me. Not even because of all that shit we'd been through, but—

  Well, we'd signed a new lease, so he was at least thinking he'd hang out with me for a year, right?

  He said, "I've tried to tell you—so many times. Either you don't listen, or I can't make it come out right."

  "Tell me that you're lucky? Jesus, Sam, if we don't think that, the hell are we doing?"

  "I know. But there's something else you never want to hear." He paused. Then, "After I zapped Trent, I just kept thinking that I should want to die."

  I sat up on my elbows. "What?"

  But his face was placid apart from a slight furrow in the forehead. He linked his hands together and laid them across his belly, like he was sunbathing or something—moonbathing, if that's a thing. "It was just like being fifteen again and blowing up random shit on accident. But worse. Just pure fucking negligence, and I almost killed the poor guy.

  "I get it. I get him. Way more than I did before he figured out what we are."

  I wanted to shut him up, tell him he was crazy and it wasn't his fault and how the fuck could he say he should ever want to die; I wanted to just let him talk at me forever, tell me everything, finally. So I did the only reasonable thing I could and kept quiet, just watching him spill his guts all over the bed—or what passed for it.

  "I thought about it so many times when I was a kid. How it'd just be easier if I…didn't exist." He looked up at me then. "I told you, you saved my life. And I mean, that was just when I was shorting out small kitchen appliances."

  "Sam." I had to stop before I really got started, though, because there was some awful, impassable roadblock in my throat. I swallowed hard and lay back down on my side facing him. "I did what anyone would've done. You don't owe me a fucking thing."

  "I know." His gaze dropped, ran over me once, then back up to my eyes again. "But after Trent—it was different because I had you the whole time. While we were at your parents', I just kept thinking, god, I almost killed someone, and here I am just so happy to be alive. And then after the fire, I mean, I know your uncle checked him out and said it wasn't the shock I gave him that sent him off the deep end—hell, he tried to tell me yesterday it probably delayed it, if anything."

  That was news to me, but this didn't seem like the best time to debate the efficacy of electroshock therapy. I bit my tongue.

  "But part of me thinks, you know, he was my friend, and I should've tried to help him more. And, Jesus, I'm still happy to be alive. And I look at you, and I know, I know you're the only reason."

  "Don't say th—"

  "Shut up," he said, reaching up to put a finger against my lips. A smile tugged at the corner of his. "I'm soliloquizing here."

  I bit back a nervous laugh and obliged.

  He traced my bottom lip with his fingertip. "It would've happened anyhow. You would've slipped up eventually, and I would've taken the hint and jumped you. Like you did, and then I did."

  I grinned, and he took his finger away, then looked back up at the ceiling and continued. "But I was really lucky it happened now, because…because I just needed to know that someone—that you could still love me when I—even when I was fucking up the whole world."

  "Lots of people love you, you idiot."

  "I know. But they can't really know me. You do, and, like, that's worth…"

  He'd run out of words, and thank god, because if I actually had to hear him say nothing felt like it was worth living for, I was going to scream or cry or kick his ass or…something.

  He lifted up on his elbow and bore down on me, one hand on my chest, his lips inches from mine. The smell of warm breath—and gingersnaps, since we'd tanked a half dozen before bed. "How you feeling about this equilibrium thing now?"

  "
Never gonna forgive me for that, are you?"

  "Did as soon as you said it. But if I'm gonna fall for an economist, I better learn how to bullshit a bullshitter. Soccer metaphors don't go that far, and consultant ones make me sick; I'll take all the ammo I can get." He kissed me, laying his palm flat against my belly and letting go with a faint static charge just as he licked the roof of my mouth. When he closed the kiss off and pulled back, letting the current die, I was already short of breath. "So what do you think?"

  "About the equilibrium?"

  "Yeah."

  "Sorry, brain isn't working right now. First you lay that shit on me, and then you start this. I need a minute."

  He grinned.

  I pushed him onto his back and straddled his legs, giving him time to sit up against the wall and adjust the pillows. And then I sat down on his thighs, leaning forward to kiss him, hands on his hips. When we were all adjusted and I'd gotten a good kiss out of him, I said, "We're good. It'd be stupid to make a different move, since this one's paying off."

  He laughed and kissed me some more, grabbing my ass and pulling me forward until I sat down with his cock in my ass crack. We stayed like that for a long time, just making out, me dragging myself over him, him pulling me forward so I could rub off against his belly. He'd bite my lip, and I'd grind down on him. I'd heat my hands up and pinch at him, and he'd send a little shock down my spine.

  I didn't give a fuck about Nash, either way. What was the point of not giving him what was his anyhow?

  It's not business or politics or any of this pointless bullshit you throw up around yourself to make you feel safe. This is not a competition.

  My boyfriend is smart.

  I pulled myself closer and sank down lower, as low as I could get with my knees on either side of his hips, pushing into his belly and flattening him against the wall. This time a little different—this time I didn't stop. He ran his hands up my sides, then back down, then wrapped his arms around me and started kissing my neck. A shock ran through me when he bit gently at my ear—not a real shock, just a rush of sensation—and I heard myself say, "Fuck me."

  He was busy kissing me but seemed to figure out what I'd said after a few seconds. "Like—really?"

  I rubbed my ass against his erection, and it sent heat raging through me, almost made me scream. Imagining him coming inside, hitting that spot up in me that he'd only found with his fingers before, simultaneously getting off himself. The sensation of him so close, driving myself crazy, and I started to leak against his stomach. "Really. Like, now."

  "Fuck, yeah. But how do we, um, who—"

  "Trust me, honey." I grabbed for the K-Y—no nightstand yet, but there are some things you can't live without at the bedside.

  He grinned like an idiot.

  I put some in his hand. "Fingers first." I sat up on my knees. "It's been a while."

  Yeah, I was desperate. But with a cock that size, first things definitely first.

  He did as he was told, sliding his hand between my legs and rubbing lube against my asshole. I fucking hurt for it, but I didn't grind down on him. I leaned forward with my hands on his shoulders, said into his lips, "Get it ready."

  He kissed my mouth, his breath ragged against my face, and started out slow. First one finger, up inside until he almost hit it. Something started to uncoil down deep inside me, then spiral back up my spine, just the beginning. I sighed, then managed, "More."

  He pulled out and added another finger. In and out, slow and careful, a groan building in his throat. "You're so fucking perfect."

  I could almost believe it, just then. I kissed his face, his mouth, his neck while he built it up, stretched me out, and got me going, that spiral getting tighter and tighter, winding up and up, my cock dragging sticky over his stomach. When my thighs started to burn with the strain of it, and I calculated I had about five seconds before I came all over him, I said, "Let's go."

  He pulled out slow, panting, kissing me everywhere his mouth could reach. I reached for the bottle again, then sat down on his thighs. I took his straining cock and slicked it, and he arched his back against the pillows, biting his lip.

  I smirked.

  "Goddammit, Hansen—"

  I got back to my knees. "I'll be quick; don't worry."

  His fingers pressed hard into my ass on both sides. He closed his eyes and sighed, his hips pushing forward, then back, causing him to sink down into the mattress and pillows farther. I crawled forward, angling my ass just right and guiding the slippery head of his cock to it. I pushed down, thighs burning, letting out a long breath to relax—

  Fuck.

  I lowered myself slowly, getting used to the stretch of him inside me. So. Fucking. Full. My cock ached to explode with the mad feeling, the impossibly perfect pain-and-pleasure combination of it. Lower, lower, and that spot inside me came to life when he rubbed against it, shooting heat through my whole body in waves—distant but repeating. I worked back and forth, until I could take it. I realized he was gasping then. He pushed up into me, one hand, still slippery, holding my ass, the other moving up higher.

  He put it against my neck, then ran it up to my cheek and held it there. His chest heaved. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah." I sat forward and pulled up, and that coil of hot sensation tightened around him inside me.

  Back down, and he gasped again, clutching at me. Closed his eyes and bit his lip—so hard that a little black bead of blood welled up. He licked at it, didn't seem to realize what it was. I put my hand at his lip to brush it off, and he kissed my fingers, sucked them into his mouth and licked them. His mouth, hot and wet and perfect, closing around me; him filling me up, back and forth as I rocked my hips, worked my thighs until they burned, and then kept going, because everything that hurt, everything that was hot, just made that electric feeling inside me curl tighter, faster, harder. His head fell back against the wall, and he sucked my fingers in till I could feel the soft, wet back of his throat.

  The whole thing, me, him, became a wash of pure energy. I made it last as long as I could, but I once I started fucking him, I couldn't stop—just faster and harder, and that was all there was. Finally, his palm connected hard with my ass; I sat down, combining the sting of it with the pain and fullness, the spiral of heat inside me, squeezing with my legs, my ass. I gasped. The world started to fade out.

  "Fuck, I'm—" He shoved himself up into me and growled. "Ah, fuck."

  I felt it inside me, the sudden swell and rush of warmth from his orgasm. I kept riding him, but the heat and frantic push of him brought it on hard. I grabbed my cock and put it against his belly, grinding down and forgetting how to breathe. My body rocked from the inside out. The coil inside me snapped, sprayed heat all through me. I closed my eyes, blind, and came so hard all over his stomach that I swear to god my heart stopped.

  Five seconds later I collapsed into him, my forehead against his, arms on his chest. Dizzy as fuck.

  "Holy shit." His cock throbbed inside me, and he gasped again. "Sorry, I couldn't—"

  I kissed him to shut him the hell up, still spinning. He kissed me back, both of us breathing too hard to be very effective at it, but trying all the same.

  His cock gave another thump. Mine did too, but I smiled and rocked my hips a little.

  "Unh, Christ. That's not going down as long as it's in you."

  I smirked. "That supposed to make me want to climb off?"

  "God, I fucking love you."

  And for the first time, I really believed it.

  FIN

  SUPERPOWERED LOVE WILL CONTINUE IN RIOT BOY

  Picking pockets can lead to a lot of things—most of them bad—but Etienne's never had a lift lead to a first date. And it only takes a look to know that Brady is pure trouble. But resisting him is a futile effort, even if Etienne had bothered to try.

  But despite the many and varied pleasures they find with each other, it's hard to overlook that Brady is also one hell of a mystery: he disappears in the night, won't leave a phone nu
mber, and refuses to discuss his past. He needs saving, but Etienne doesn't know from what, and Brady is in no hurry to explain.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Katey Hawthorne is an avid reader and writer of superpowered and fantastic romance, even though the only degree she holds is in the history of art. (Or, possibly, because the only degree she holds is in the history of art.) Originally from the Appalachian foothills of West Virginia, she currently lives in Ohio. In her spare time she enjoys comic books, B-movies, loud music, Epiphones, and Bushmills.