The Medium's Possession Page 8

  Hardly anybody knew how much thunder scared her. Trey was one of the few, but he couldn’t connect with her in the house, and she wasn’t about to sleep outside in a storm. But one of the few others was down this hallway. And while he didn’t know about her phobia as intimately as Trey, her fear was enough to push her past the awkwardness of what she was about to do.

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Scott punched his down pillow into submission and crashed his head onto it again. His window was open wide, a new storm was just beginning, and he intended to get some really good fucking sleep.

  Except that every time that thunder rolled, or lightning flashed through his mini blinds, all he could see on the backs of his eyelids was Cecily. All he could hear was her startled gasps as he’d tattooed her through the beginnings of that storm this afternoon.

  She’d really hated the sound of that thunder. And she was alone out there now.

  Maybe he should go check on her.

  He sat up, but stopped before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Was it his place to check up on her? Would that just be more awkward than anything else?

  Another roll of thunder shook the house.

  Fuck it. Awkward or not, he couldn’t just leave her out there knowing she hated this.

  But as he planted his feet on the floor and began searching for a t-shirt and sweats to throw on over his boxers, there was a knock at his bedroom door.

  His heart caught in his chest—a little startled, but mostly idiotically hopeful.

  But no way. He was not that lucky.

  He crossed the room and cracked the door, telling himself it would be Callum on the other side of it.

  Cecily stood, her pillow hugged to her chest, in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. The darkness in the hallway made him remember the way she’d looked at the shop when the power went out—shadows clung to her like water sluicing over skin and made every bend and angle of her more alluring.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice hushed. “I don’t mean to be awkward but... could I sleep in here with you?”

  Jack. Fucking. Pot.

  But half a second later, what caught on Scott’s attention and rang in his chest was the way her eyes looked so scared, even while she tried to make light of it with a crooked smile and quiet laugh.

  “Yeah, of course.” He stepped aside and held the door open.

  “Thanks.” She crossed into his room, her head lowered and her shoulders bowed. “I brought my own pillow,” she added. “So I don’t have to deplete your nest.”

  It took him a second to realize she was referencing a months-old conversation wherein he’d explained that he slept with, like, four pillows on his queen-sized bed—all for him.

  He laughed quietly and watched as she went to the far side of his bed.

  He shouldn’t presume to sleep in the bed with her. Should he? Was that even smart considering what a tenuous hold he had on self-control lately where she was concerned? Probably not.

  He began gathering his many pillows instead of watching her climb up onto his mattress and slip between his sheets. He tossed one of the pillows to the floor—

  “What are you doing?”

  He looked at her. She was sitting on the bed, her legs already under the covers. Loose strands fell from her ponytail and all he could think was that he wished he was the reason her hair was a mess.

  She was in his bed. His bed.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he forced his mouth to say.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she countered. “We’re both adults.”

  Something pulled in his chest, like his heart was trying to climb into bed while his head was all gentlemanly-pillows-on-the-floor.

  “Nah, you’ll be more comfortable this way,” he said, tossing the remainder of his pillows onto the rug beside his bed. Good thing he hadn’t yet packed this rug—it would be the only thing between him and the hardwood.

  “Scott, if you sleep on the floor, I’m leaving.”

  Her no-joking tone made him stop. She was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest and even in the dimness, he could see the challenging expression on her face.

  She wasn’t letting this go—and she really would leave if he pushed the issue.

  He drew a breath, knowing what he was about to do.

  “Okay,” he said. Then he stooped and picked his pillows up again. After tossing them onto the bed, he went to his dresser and took out the pair of sweats he hadn’t yet packed away and pulled them on. When he went to crawl up onto the bed, Cecily was lying down already. She stayed on her back, but closed her eyes and let her face turn away as he slipped beneath the covers, as though she was now satisfied that he wouldn’t push the point of floor-sleeping once he was on the mattress beside her.

  “Is Zander gonna freak when she finds you in my bed in the morning?” he asked with a whisper of a laugh as he settled in.

  “She won’t,” was Cecily’s simple response.

  He couldn’t bring himself to ask if she meant that Zander wouldn’t freak out, or wouldn’t find her here. He wasn’t sure which he wanted more.

  He laid down, but he couldn’t force himself to turn away from Cecily. So he laid there, staring at her while she couldn’t see him, fighting with his hands that itched so bad to touch her—his arms that begged to stretch the short distance between them, and fingers that longed to trace the graceful, beautiful lines of the tendons in her neck. He wanted his pencils. He wanted to draw her laying like that—relaxed, unposed.

  A clap of thunder startled them both.

  Remembering his open window, Scott bound out of bed before the sound faded. He crossed the room, slid the pane back into place, and rounded the bed once again—but not before stealing a glimpse at Cecily.

  Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was turned into her shoulder while the opposite hand was pressed over her ear like she was trying to block out the sound.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him as the rumble quieted. “I’m ruining your storm appreciation, aren’t I?”

  He chuckled as he went back to his side of the bed and slid between the sheets. “Nah. Don’t sweat it.” This is way better.

  Cecily rolled onto her side as he rearranged his pillows. He could feel her eyes on him, and he wondered if she’d been able to feel his, before.

  “What is it about thunder you hate most?” he asked, a desperate plea to distract himself from the fact that Cecily was laying in his bed.

  In. His. Bed.

  He saw her shrug from his peripheral vision as he leaned himself back against the pillows, reclining but not fully horizontal.

  “I don’t know. I’ve just always hated thunderstorms,” she said, propping herself up onto her elbow. “They’ve freaked me out as long as I can remember.”

  With the last word, thunder rolled over the house, so close the sound resembled a jetliner taking off more than anything in nature.

  Cecily tensed, her eyes squeezing shut and brows furrowing.

  “That’s a pretty brutal one,” Scott admitted, the sound still fresh, his ears still ringing as he looked at the window like he expected to see something more than rain hitting the glass in the spaces between the blinds.

  Cecily’s sigh was sharp and bitter. “I’m so over this.”

  “It’ll be over soon,” he replied. He looked at her in time to catch her swipe her fingers under her eyes at lightning speed.

  Concern warmed in his chest. He reached across the short distance between them without any plan of what he was reaching for and his hand dropped to the mattress without making contact.

  “I’m fine.” She turned like she was about to get up. “Maybe I should go back to the sofa.”

  “Don’t go,” he said. “If you go out there, then so will I.”

  She stopped and looked at him. Slowly, a smile spread across her parted lips. Then she slid back down between the covers until they were lying together.

  Face to face.

  And Scott was fighti
ng to keep his hands to himself once again. “How’s your side?” She way lying on her right side when she faced him—the tattoo was on her left.

  She shrugged. “Good. I mean, sore, but fine.” She smirked. “I’m glad I packed my loosest, lowest slung pair of boxers for pajamas.”

  Oh wow. He had to keep talking or he’d start thinking about that way too hard. “So what do you normally do to ride out a storm?”

  He knew what he wanted her to say—especially after that last comment—and had no expectation that it was about to come out of her mouth.

  “Talk,” she said, confirming his expectation—that’s definitely not what had been running through his mind. “To be honest, though, nobody knows how much I hate thunder except Alyssa. And Trey.”

  “And now me,” he added, hoping to lessen the weight he could hear in her voice.

  She paused in a funny way, but ultimately nodded. “Anyway, we should try to get some sleep.”

  Then she rolled onto her back again and turned her face away, leaving Scott feeling exposed—and certain he’d missed something. “Yeah. Okay.”

  He rolled over, punching his pillows back into shape out of habit more than need. Then he pushed his head into the soft mountain of down and cloth, closing his eyes and trying hard not to let his thoughts spin on the look that had flashed across Cecily’s eyes.

  Trying like hell not to focus on the feeling of her body on the mattress, on the sound of her breathing behind him. The faint smell of her shampoo.

  You should talk to her, he thought to himself. If that’s how she likes to distract herself during a storm, talk. You know what you should talk about.

  Yeah, okay. He drew a breath, steeling himself to start a conversation he really wished he didn’t have to have—

  “My dad locked me outside during a thunderstorm.”

  Scott’s mind was wiped clean, and his head was up off that pillow, his body turning toward Cecily’s before he’d consciously thought through the reaction.

  She was staring at the ceiling.

  Had he heard her wrong? “What did you just say?”

  “I was ten. It was a tough love, face-your-fears kind of thing.”

  “It was a child abuse kind of thing,” he replied simply.

  Her lips parted like she was getting ready to argue, but instead she shrugged and shook her head. Then she rolled so she was looking at him. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Scott reached across the space between them until his fingers found hers beneath the blankets.

  Her eyes flared when he took her hand in his, but she didn’t pull away.

  She held on.

  “Cecily, I...” don’t know what to say. Because what was there to say, really?

  God, the feeling of her hand in his was like some sort of magic.

  He wasn’t sure if she did it, or he did, but next thing he knew, they were bringing their clasped hands up between them.

  “Now you’re one of the few who know why I hate thunderstorms,” she said, her voice low.

  He just stared at her for a long, inhale of a moment.

  You should ask her about her dad. That’s what Callum had told him.

  She was sharing one of those hard facts about herself. Something about her only those closest to her knew.

  “Can I kiss you?” The words were out of his mouth before he’d thought them through.

  She moved to close the distance between them as she breathed the words that lit fire under his skin, “God, yes.”

  And then her mouth was on his, her chest against his chest. Her lips tasted like cherries, her breath like spearmint. He wasn’t sure when they’d let go of one another’s hands, but her hair between his fingers was smooth and soft, the sound of her heavy breath was like auditory art.

  Kissing her quenched a desperate thirst he hadn’t realized had been killing him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Damn, Scott was a good kisser.

  If only she hadn’t ruined the whole thing, she might know how well he did other things with his mouth too, Cecily thought bitterly to herself as she sat on the back steps with a steaming cup of coffee beside her and a tennis ball in her hand.

  She chucked the tennis ball out into the yard, Rhia ran after it.

  She’d been so relieved to be kissing him—like gulping down fresh air after swimming from a great depth. And just like a gasp of air to a flame, his lips had triggered an explosion under her skin.

  And his as well, she’d thought.

  His fingers had wound into her hair and her arms snaked around him. They’d pulled each other close until she’d felt his heart pounding against her ribs.

  They’d turned together until she was above him and he was hiking her shirt up over her back, carefully pulling it away from her healing side. Even in the frenzy, he’d been thinking of her wellbeing—caring for her. She’d stopped kissing him long enough to pull her shirt over her head and throw it into the darkness without any care where it landed. Then she’d kissed him again, and his hands were on her skin, on her breasts, squeezing her hips, pressing her down against him.

  She could still feel the way the stiffness at his hips ground against her.

  The next thing she’d known, he was turning. She’d squeaked with delight as he’d flipped her onto her back. He’d dragged his mouth down her neck, her shoulder, between her breasts while he held them in his hands, his breath hard and fast, like hers. Then he’d gone lower, down her belly.

  It had been then, as he’d hooked his fingers into the waistband of her shorts, that a thought shot across her mind:

  Trevor.

  Her eyes had filled with tears.

  And Scott must have sensed it.

  He’d looked up her body. “Cecily?”

  She’d shaken her head, shaking the traitorous feeling away. She hadn’t been sad—she didn’t regret what they were doing. She’d wanted this for months—longer! “Keep going.”

  He’d begun crawling back up her body. “Have you been with anybody since...?”

  She’d shaken her head again. “No, but it doesn’t matter. It’s okay—”

  She hadn’t even been able to get the words out before she slapped her hands over her face and a sob choked up her throat.

  It wasn’t that she missed him. It wasn’t that she’d wished Trevor had been there.

  In fact, it had been the opposite.

  She’d been so happy to be kissing Scott. So happy for the physical connection.

  And for one split second, that happiness and physicality had sent her back in time. Last-night-Cecily hadn’t been the one crying—it had been year-ago-Cecily, still raw from Trevor’s death who had been sobbing on Scott’s bed.

  And he’d known it.

  “Oh, Ceelee,” he’d breathed as he’d crawled up the mattress, pulling the covers behind him. He’d covered them, laid beside her and gathered her into his arms. She’d stopped crying within minutes.

  “God, I’m so sor—”

  But he’d cut her off. “If you’re about to say you’re sorry, stop.”

  He’d brought his hand to the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. “I think I’ve wanted to kiss you since last Christmas.”

  She’d felt herself smile. “At least that long.”

  He’d kissed her, short and soft and lingering.

  “I need to talk to him,” she’d said, knowing Scott would know the “him” she was referring to.

  Speaking of which, Cecily thought as she pushed herself up from the step, she might as well get it over with. She crossed the patio and met Rhia in the grass where she held her hand out for the ball currently between Rhia’s teeth.

  “Good morning.”

  Right on cue, Trey appeared beside her.

  “Isn’t it crazy early?” he asked. “Not that I have a good sense of time anymore, but it looks really early.”

  “It’s pretty early, yeah,” Cecily confirmed. Rhia placed the ball into her hand; she chucked it out into the yard and turned t
o him.

  “Uh oh,” Trey said. “I know that face. What’s up?”

  Cecily tried for a laugh, but it fell short. She watched Rhia scoop the tennis ball into her mouth. She dropped it on the ground again, put her paw on it and spun it away from herself, only to catch it again.

  It was almost like she knew Cecily needed to have this conversation without multitasking. She watched her instead of looking at Trevor so she didn’t have to see his reaction. “I almost hooked up with Scott last night.”

  No response. Fearing the worst, she turned and looked to Trey again.

  Much to her surprise, he was smiling. His brows were raised high above his brown eyes, his mouth hanging open a little even while he grinned in what appeared to be disbelief.

  “Rock on,” he finally said. “How was it?”

  Cecily felt her brows furrow and her lips turn into a sneer. “How was it?” she repeated. “I just told you I almost slept with somebody for the first time since... us—and you ask me how it was?”

  Trey’s shrug was sharp. “What else am I supposed to say? You’re crazy about the guy, whether you’ll admit it to yourself or not. So, yeah, I’m glad you hooked up with him—or almost did. Whatever that means.”

  Cecily just stared at him: her first love.

  Hell, she still loved him.

  “You’re not upset?”

  Trey sighed, his demeanor softening. “No. Of course not. I love you—I’ll always love you. I’ll be here as long as you want me—”

  “I’ll always want you.”

  He smiled. “Then I’ll always be here. But I won’t ever stand in the way of you loving someone new.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt you?” she countered. “Won’t it hurt watching me with someone when you’re stuck, never moving forward?” It wasn’t that she wanted to hurt him, but, she was ashamed to admit, part of her was stung that it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

  She hadn’t expected him to be mad. She just... hadn’t expected this either.

  He shook his head. “I’m not stuck—it doesn’t feel that way. And, it’s probably impossible to explain, but there is nothing in me that feels jealousy, or envy on this side. I can admire things, but I don’t want for them, if that makes sense.”