Faster We Burn (Fall and Rise #2)(20)
Author: Chelsea M. Cameron

“Don’t worry about that. Here.” She handed me a serrated knife. “You get to carve the turkey.”

I did my best and started putting pieces on her plate.

“I’ll be totally honest,” I said as she spooned some mashed potatoes onto her plate, “I didn’t think you were going to pull this off.”

“Well, that just goes to show you don’t know me and what I’m capable of.” Our hands brushed as we both went for the rolls. I moved my hand back and let her go first.

“That was a dick move, though. You should apologize to Ric. I’m not her biggest fan but it still wasn’t nice,” she said.

“I know.” She poured gravy over her potatoes and turkey and went to sit on the couch. “Oh, crap, I forgot the wine.”

“I’ve got something better.” I searched the bottom of my liquor cabinet and found a bottle of spiced rum Allan had forgotten about that I’d been saving.

“You trying to get me drunk, Stryker?” she said when I held up the bottle.

“I was already drunk. I’m on my way to sober, but if you want to venture into drunk territory with me, I wouldn’t say no.”

“Well, seeing as how I can’t go back to the dorm since it’s closed up for the holiday, and I have nowhere else to go, I might as well.” I grabbed my plate and the rum and joined her on the couch.

She held out her glass and I poured a little in and then poured myself some.

“To the perfect Thanksgiving,” she said, clinking her glass with mine. We both drank and she chose another movie. Planes, Trains and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy.

She smiled at me and we dug in to Thanksgiving 2.0, The Middle of the Night Edition.

“How is it?” she said after only my first bite.

“Fantastic,” I said, my mouth full. It was even better than her mom’s and that was saying something.

“Thanks.” We both ate and watched the movie, laughing at the same parts. I hadn’t seen this movie for years. Trish was a John Hughes fan. She only loved Nicholas Sparks more.

Everything was fabulous, and I was thrilled I didn’t have to lie and pretend I liked it. I would have, but I was glad I didn’t have to.

The rum made me warm and relaxed, and hearing Katie’s laughter made everything even better.

She made everything better. Food, music, kissing. Hell, she made breathing better because every time I breathed, I got a little bit of her scent.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and found she was doing the same thing. We both looked away and put our attention back on our plates.

No girl had ever done something like this for me. Not even close. I still didn’t know how I should react. Did this mean she had feelings feelings for me? Yes, she’d said it was about more than the sex, but how much more?

I’d never been this f**king neurotic about a girl and it was freaking me out. She shifted and her leg brushed against mine.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine.”

She was still wearing the apron and I had to stop myself from picturing her wearing that and nothing else.

I cleared my throat and took a sip of rum, but I choked on it.

“You okay there?” she said, raising her hand to bang me on the back.

I waved her off. “Yeah, fine.”

She must have thought I was being a moron because I was drunk.

Katie

What the hell was wrong with me? Just sitting next to him on the couch was proving to be more difficult than I thought. I’d always taken it for granted that when I wanted to have sex with him, we’d just do it.

Holding off was hard. I couldn’t help but notice how the tattoos on his arm flexed when he moved his fork, or how his hair was different, swept to the sides of his face. His leg brushed mine, sending chills up and down my spine.

I tried to watch the movie, but I kept catching myself looking at him instead. It was shocking to think that I hadn’t thought he was attractive when I’d first met him, even after he took off the stupid fangs.

Now I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to stare at him all night. This realization made me blush with embarrassment, as if I’d said it out loud.

“You did a good job with the turkeys,” I said, pointing my fork at one he’d taped to the door. He’d drawn it with an eye patch, and the one taped to the window behind the television was winking.

“What’s that one supposed to be?” It had hollow dead-looking eyes and a gaping beak.

“Zombie turkey,” he said, as if it was obvious.

“Got it.” Now that I thought about it, zombie was the most obvious conclusion. “Oh my God!”

“What?” He put down his fork as if I’d seen a robber and he was getting ready to protect me.

“We forgot to say what we’re thankful for. Shit, I can’t believe I left that out.” I blamed the rum. And him. It was totally his fault for being so…him.

“It’s not too late. We haven’t had the pie yet.” I’d been a slacker and bought a frozen pie, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Do you want me to go first?”

“If you want me to.”

He poured some more rum into his glass and took a sip.

“I’m thankful for music and art and friends who stand by me even when I screw things up and Trish and broken cars that I get to fix and tricky equations I get to solve and that everyone I care about is healthy and for a girl who wears too much pink, doesn’t take no for an answer and tells me that it isn’t just about the sex.”

He took another sip of rum and I blushed at the end of his speech. I hadn’t blushed at something in a long, long time.

“How can I follow that?”

“I’m sure you’ll do okay,” he said, patting my knee. His hand lingered for just a second before he moved it.

“Okay, I’m also thankful for friends who stand by me even when I screw things up and also pink and roommates and my sister and my parents and Grampa Jack and for everyone being healthy and…and for a boy who took pity on a girl with a broken heart and showed her that all guys aren’t douchebags and who makes her feel happy again.”

I took a swallow of rum and waited for him to say something.

“Seems like we have a lot to be thankful for,” he said, swirling the liquid in his glass. All the things unsaid between us hung in the air like smoke.

“Oh, I’m also thankful that I’m alive. I don’t know how I forgot that,” I said. “Being alive is important. Unless you’re a vampire.”

“Haha.”

He put his glass down on the table and sighed.

“I’m sorry about the Ric thing. I feel even shittier about it now that you’ve done all this.” He waved his arm around.

“It’s okay. I forgive you, and I’m pretty sure she’s scared of me now, so that’s not a bad thing.”

“Was your mom pissed that you came back?” I wished he hadn’t changed the subject. I’d rather talk about Ric.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to her before I left. We had our usual yelling match and then I went to my room with Kayla and then I left. I just couldn’t be in that house anymore with her. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“You think she’ll ever see me as anything other than a troublemaker?”

Probably never. “She might. We’ll see,” I lied.

“So are you telling me that I have to take out my eyebrow ring, and my lip ring and cover my tattoos and dye my hair a respectable color?”

“No!” I couldn’t even imagine him that way.

“Oh, so you’re saying that you like all of this,” he gestured up and down. “Interesting.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I can’t imagine you being like that. Being like everyone else. You’re not like everyone else.” I leaned closer and put my hand on his arm.

“You’re not like everyone else either, sweetheart,” he said, leaning in as well.

We both paused with our faces about a foot apart.

“So,” I said.

“So,” he said coming an inch closer. “There’s one more thing I want to be thankful for.”

“And what’s that?” I came closer so that when he exhaled, it moved my hair.

“This.” He put his hand under my chin and brought my face to his and gave me a sweet, soft kiss. Like the one we’d shared this afternoon, before we’d gotten interrupted.

Funny, that kiss had led directly to this one.

I leaned into him and kissed him slowly. No biting, no tongue. Just two sets of lips trying each other out. Testing. Teasing. I took my hands and put them on his upper arms, pulling him a fraction closer.

He tasted like the spiced rum and faintly of cigarettes. He must have smoked one with Ric. I really wished he’d quit, but I wasn’t going to quibble about something like that right now.

Stryker leaned back on the couch, taking me with him. I braced my hands on his chest as he moved his hands from my chin to my hair, wrapping it around his fingers and tugging it just a bit. The kiss got a little bit more intense, and he took the invitation to slip his tongue into my mouth. I touched his with mine and we began an exquisite slow dance, giving and taking, back and forth, him and me, me and him.

I pressed my body against his and felt him getting hard. He pulled his tongue back and broke the kiss. Both of us took a moment to breathe, and he put his hands under my chin again.

“I’m thankful for that.”

“Just the kissing?”

“For everything. For the way that you feel against me, and for the way you get this little pucker between your eyes when you kiss me hard. For the way you taste and you smell and for…you.”

“I’m thankful for you, too.”

He took his hands and squeezed my boobs.

“These are pretty great, too.”

I tried to be shocked, but he didn’t move his hands away, and started stroking my n**ples. Despite having a shirt and a bra between his fingers and my skin, his touch was still setting me on fire.

“This wasn’t some elaborate plan to seduce me, was it?” he said, moving his hands down to my stomach and moving his thumbs in circular motions. It was very hard to think.

“No. I honestly wanted to apologize and Trish said you hated apologies, so I figured food was in order to help you swallow it. Besides, I don’t have to do much to seduce you, do I?” I squeezed his dick once and gave him a satisfied smirk.

He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.

“We should get to bed,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s nearly six in the morning. Do you really want to start this now?”

“I wasn’t the one who started it. You did.”

“Sweetheart, you started it that first day when you ran after me and kissed me. I’ve only been following your lead since then.”

I turned my head to the side and put it on his chest so the temptation to kiss him again wasn’t so strong.

“So this is all my fault?”

“Pretty much.” He stroked my hair and I listened to the syncopated rhythm of his heart. I could still feel his desire against me, but I wasn’t going to do anything about it until he asked me to. I’d been in charge, and now it was his turn.