Unspoken Rules

by Eliah Greenwood

  He starts moving again. Every muscle in my body relaxes all at once when he starts rotating his fingers exactly where he should.

  Okay. Wow.

  I don’t know what I expected, really. I didn’t think Haze Adams would be bad, obviously, but I’d somehow convinced myself that he couldn’t possibly be attractive, funny, and good in bed. I told myself that it wasn’t possible. That surely the Universe took pity on regular humans and put a limit of perfection on individuals like Haze. But apparently, there is no such thing as a limit of unfairness in this world. What’s up with that, Universe?

  He presses down on me in a rough way that drives me completely mad and listens to my body, adjusting his speed to every sound I make and every tiny reaction I have.

  I throw my head back with a sigh and think I see something flash in his eyes when I bite back a moan. I find myself wrapping a hand around his arm without realizing it and tighten my hold every time my body ignites with delight. He takes his lower lip between his teeth, watching my facial expressions change.

  I’m slightly surprised when his fingers travel downward. Again, he dives his blue eyes into mine, waiting for the green light. I tremble in anticipation and nod yes.

  My heart gives a jolt when he pushes a finger inside me.

  It slightly hurts at first, but the way he begins moving in and out of me all the while letting his thumb start up the circles again quickly shatters the pain. It’s getting hard to be quiet.

  He tries to add a finger but sees it’s not going to work just yet, so he doesn’t force it. Soon enough, the moisture between my legs tells him to add that second finger.

  “How does that feel?” He brings his mouth to my ear, his voice packed with lust. I don’t reply. When he sees that I’m not going to answer, he speaks again. “Does that mean you want me to stop?”

  I bite on my lower lip and shake my head like I’m afraid that opening my mouth will release the moans building up in my throat.

  “I’m sorry, did you say something? I didn’t catch that.” He smirks. “Do you want me to stop?”

  I shake my head again.

  “I want to hear you say it, Winter. Tell me how it feels.”

  I have no idea how I could expect Haze not to mess with me even in such a heated moment. This is still Haze we’re talking about. Sometimes, I think his entire purpose for existing is getting me out of my comfort zone. Oh, and annoying me.

  “No?” he insists. “Okay, then.”

  He stops moving, his finger abruptly ceasing their thrusting and circular motion. What the hell? The sudden absence of sensation immediately drives me nuts.

  “What are you doing? Don’t stop,” I pant, tightening my hold on his buff arm and clenching my teeth.

  “Why not?” he whispers. “What? Does it feel good?”

  He’s driving me crazy on purpose. He won’t stop until he hears me say it.

  “Yes, yes,” I relent, raw desperation lying between every word. “It feels good. It feels so good. Don’t stop.”

  He grins, my begging satisfying him. He starts moving again, curling his fingers in and out of me faster than he did before and speeding up his circles.

  He applies more pressure, and I go from holding his arm to sinking my nails into it. That’s for sure going to leave a mark, but I know he’s probably used to having girls leaving marks on his body.

  The thought of his fingers entering another girl while her toes curl leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, but it quickly dissolves when an overwhelming feeling starts building up inside me. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.

  I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never climaxed before, or that it took Haze five minutes to get me there, but I know from the way my body shakes that what’s coming is about to make anything I’ve known in the past seem like a cheap knockoff.

  My breathing grows louder, and Haze buries his face into my neck to feather my collarbone with kisses.

  “You drive me fucking insane, you know that?” he breathes out.

  “I…” I try to speak, like my brain needs to find words to put on such an indescribable feeling, but fail.

  My eyes widen when I begin to lose control. This is so unprecedented for me. I have the reflex of covering my face, feeling so vulnerable and exposed to this guy who seems to know me better than I do. He made me say these things, and Heaven knows I don’t do dirty talk—if you could even call it that—he got me to beg and I… I liked it.

  I usually have control over myself but not with him. Not with this. Right now, my body is entirely his, and it scares me.

  “Don’t.” He grips my hands and gets them away from my face. “Don’t hide. I want to see you. Look at me.”

  I chew on my lower lip, my gaze refusing to find his.

  “Look at me,” he says again, this time in a demanding tone.

  And so I do.

  I look at him. I look at him when my legs start to shake. I look at him when my mouth drops open and I arch my back. I look at him when I reach the peak and can’t repress the moans anymore. I come undone while we’re looking into each other’s eyes and… as stupid as it may sound, that’s how I know that I’m in trouble.

  That there is no going back.

  The memory of his fingers moving recklessly inside me as I shudder throw the truth I spent weeks denying right in my face.

  I’m in love with him.

  I’m in love with Haze Adams.

  I fall in love with the one guy everybody told me to run from. Yes, fall. Not fell. Because I’m still falling… every second, every minute, every single time he looks at me.

  Let me fall. As far, as long, and as hard as it takes.

  Because if this is what falling feels like…

  I’ll fall for the rest of my life.

  I come back down to earth, and the calm after the storm—ironic considering the raging thunder outside—settles around us. I glance down at his boxers that are clearly tighter.

  “You were… That was…” I tumble over my words.

  Haze smiles at my inability to speak and kisses me again, his tongue caressing my lips as his hand traces along the curve of my hip. With my body still trembling, I try and reach for the breath leaping away from me.

  All I want to do is give back. I want to make him feel this way. Thinking that I won’t be able to do to him what he just did to me hurts. It’s a lot to live up to. What if I’m just not that good?

  Brimming with lust, I grip his hair through the kiss as he moans into my mouth and gets on top of me. I fight the urge to remove his boxers. He didn’t even have to take my underwear off to make me beg. I don’t want to imagine what he could do to me if we lost the clothes.

  I know how this is going to end if we keep this up, and I want it. I want him. Of that I’m sure.

  I’ve never wanted something more in my whole life, but I can’t give away something so precious to me without the promise of a tomorrow. I can’t sleep with him unless I know that I won’t be just a friend when I wake up in the morning.

  “Haze, wait…” I exhale, my legs still shaking.

  His face turns into a mix of confusion and worry.

  “I want this. I really do, but… what does this mean? W-what are we?” When they fall out, the words aren’t the only thing that leave me. He does, too.

  He doesn’t move a muscle, but I can feel him mentally pulling away from me, his mind traveling, once again, to a faraway place he’ll never let me explore.

  “Why are you doing this?” His face twists in irritation, and his features harden.

  There are a lot of things I expected him to say after what happened, a lot of ways I expected things to go wrong, but this… this, I did not expect.

  He speaks again. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Winter. Why can’t we just be us?”

  “Are you serious?” is all I can utter. He can’t be doing this right now. Not when I just trusted him in such a personal way. Not when I let him touch me like that.

>   He gets off me. “You know how I feel about you. I want you and you want me. Simple as that. Why do we have to put a label on it? Why can’t we just enjoy this?”

  Heartburn.

  “I… Because it’s important to me. What? Do you think I do this often? That I go around doing things with people for fun? That’s not me, Haze. I don’t do no strings attached.”

  He becomes irritated, the guy who whispered in my ear while I came apart a few minutes ago vanishing with each painful second that goes by. I can’t speak. I just stare at him in shock. So if I hadn’t brought it up, we would’ve slept together. He would’ve taken the privilege without the commitment.

  “I’m going to go sleep in the guest room,” he lets out and rolls across the bed to get up.

  “Haze!” I call out to him, but he ignores me and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  My mouth flies open as I sit up on the bed and stare at the emptiness in disbelief.

  That did not just happen.

  It feels like every drop of hope in my body is torturously being drained out of me. I squeeze my thighs where his hand used to be and clumsily wrap my arms around my body as if to shield myself from the pain threatening to reach my heart.

  I shed a tear at the movie scene unraveling in front of my eyes: A guy walking away without an explanation. A girl sitting there, in her underwear, with her heart in her hands and one question burdening her: What did I do wrong?

  Haze might’ve taken me to cloud nine, but I fell back down to earth and hit the ground. I remember what my aunt always used to tell me. She was right.

  Love is both a blessing and a curse. It is both the best thing and the worst. When loving someone with all your heart.

  The higher you fly…

  The harder you fall.

  11

  Before It’s Too Late

  I’m woken up by the sound of the front door slamming. Immediately, I sit up and rub my heavy eyelids. A short moment of oblivion is the best I can do because, apparently, the memories are just as eager to come back as Haze was eager to leave me last night.

  It was almost perfect.

  It could’ve been a fairy-tale scene.

  If, of course, Prince Charming hadn’t told the princess that he wanted to sleep with other princesses all the while still having access to her castle.

  I reach for the lamp next to the bed and flick the switch on.

  Nothing.

  Still no power.

  But what truly bothers me is the roar of a car coming from outside the house and the way it keeps on getting farther and farther away. I run to the window and barely manage to see Haze’s black car disappearing down the driveway.

  What the hell? Where is he going?

  I take in the front yard of the house. A small tree fell over, but it’s nothing too bad. The fact that we don’t have power yet tells me that the damage must’ve been worse elsewhere in town. I walk back to the nightstand and reach for my phone. I have one text message. It’s from Haze.

  Haze: Had stuff to do. Be back tonight.

  Short and cold.

  I ignore the sharp pain in my chest as well as his message. Is this the part where I look for cameras? He can’t be serious right now. You take me away from my family, bring me to a town I don’t know, tell me you love me, and then hook up with me, only to freak out when I mention commitment and leave me alone in a house with no power the next day?

  Nuh-huh, I don’t think so.

  I throw on the first clothes I can find and search the internet for a cab company in Colton Gate. I frown when I read the first name that came up on Google. Adams Taxi Co.

  Adams? As in Haze Adams? Could the Adamses own the taxi company? Before I let myself fall deeper into a toxic question cycle, I push all Haze-related thoughts out of my head and dial the number. The only places with power will probably be stores and restaurants, and I am not spending the entire day here alone while Mr. Afraid of Commitment is out there doing God knows what.

  “Welcome to Beck’s. How many people?” The waitress from the last time I was here forces a smile at the sight of me. I get it. I wouldn’t like me either. It sucks having Haze Adams slip through your fingers. I would know.

  “Just one, please.”

  “You didn’t bring your friend this time?” she says, the arrogance in her tone covered up by fake politeness.

  I can’t deal with this right now.

  “No, he’s out with his boyfriend today.”

  Her jaw drops.

  I do everything in my power not to laugh.

  I just had to. She gave me no choice.

  To my great surprise, she looks relieved. I bet she thinks that this is why he was ignoring her pickup lines. Whatever helps her sleep at night.

  She leads me to my table and brings me a menu. I don’t know why I came back to the restaurant Haze and I went to. When the taxi driver asked me, “Where to?” I went for the only place in Colton Gate that felt somewhat familiar.

  A short while after the waitress brought me the menu, she comes back to take my order.

  “What can I get you?” She holds her notepad in her hands.

  “I’ll have the breakfast combo.”

  She nods. “Would you like a drink with that?”

  “She’ll have a cappuccino. It’s on me.”

  I look ahead to see a familiar set of eyes staring back at me. I recognize the guy who bought me the black dress a week ago. He just sat down in front of me. I’m tempted to ask him who he thinks he is to choose a drink for me but bite back my words.

  “Make that two, actually,” he says to the waitress.

  She raises her eyebrows at him the same way she did at Haze the first time she saw him and gives him a warm smile.

  Uh-uh. Looks like she’s found her next victim.

  I do have to agree with her: this Ryder guy is cute. I’d have to be blind to say that his dimples and messy black hair don’t give him a head start on the good-looking scale, but he’s not Haze. That’s all I see when I look at any guy now: Not Haze.

  “Hey. Winter, right?” He smiles.

  “Yes,” I say with uncertainty in my voice. “And you’re Ryder if I recall?”

  “That I am. Sorry to interrupt. I just saw you sitting there alone, and I thought you could use some company. Hope you don’t mind.”

  I’m tempted to tell him to leave me alone but decide against it. We’re in a public place, and he seems pretty harmless. Plus, I might as well talk to some people instead of just roaming around town alone for the rest of the day.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “So, how was the storm last night?” he asks.

  “It was windy,” I joke but can’t even muster a smile. “Weren’t you there?”

  “No, I was out of town. Just came back this morning.”

  “Well, you didn’t miss much.”

  A bunch of small talk comes next, and I’m not that bothered by it. He knows how to hold a conversation, and he’s pretty nice.

  “So, did your boyfriend like the dress?”

  That’s right. He saw Haze back at the store.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” I take a long sip of water, hoping that the wait will make him change the topic. It hurts to say the words. No, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s not my boyfriend because he wants the sex but not the title.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. My bad. It’s just…” He pauses, obviously uncomfortable. “Your neck.”

  Shit.

  It comes back to me. Haze gave me the biggest hickey of all time yesterday. It slipped my mind the second his fingers slid under my underwear. He got away with it. I can’t believe it.

  I bring my hand to my neck, my eyes widening. I’m going to kill him when he comes back from wherever he went tonight. Then, I guess I’ll call Kendrick and leave the lake house. What else is left for me to do? Stick around to let him break my heart even more? I can’t be just another Bianca to him. I won’t.

  “It’s complicated,” I say q
uietly.

  “Well, if that makes you feel any better, I’m sure he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  Oh, he kind of does, actually.

  Because my stupid ass let him into my pants.

  I’m so thankful that I didn’t go all the way. I would’ve felt awful if he’d told me he didn’t want a relationship after we’d slept together.

  When he sees that I don’t intend to answer, Ryder takes the hint that I don’t want to talk about it.

  “What are you doing here alone anyway?”

  “Power’s still out where I’m staying, so I thought I’d spend the day in town.”

  The waitress brings us our meals and bats her eyelashes at Ryder, who also doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe it’s just a female thing, and I’m the only one who sees what she does. Maybe Haze really didn’t have a clue last time.

  “Well, there’s a fair in a nearby town, and I have two free passes, if you’re interested.” He gets two tickets out of his pocket.

  “They have power?”

  “The storm went right by them. Lucky bastards.”

  “What’s to say you’re not a dangerous killer who wants to kidnap me?”

  “I’m not, I swear.” He puts his hands up. “But I get that this is what every serial killer says, so we can get a cab there if that makes you feel better. It’s on me.” He grins.

  “Don’t you want to use the passes on friends and family?”

  “My friends are back home. I’ve been here visiting my grandparents for a while now, but I’m not sure Grandma would enjoy the monster roller coasters.”

  I let out a small laugh and glance at my phone. I have no new messages from Haze. He obviously doesn’t care that I didn’t answer his previous one. The pain burdens my heart, and the words come out before I can think about it.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Haze

  The rumble of my car is all I can hear when I pull into Vic’s parking lot. I glance up at the large apartment complex building ahead of me and stop in the visitor spot. I don’t know why I’m here. And by here, I don’t mean at Vic’s place.

  I mean, in this fucking town.