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I quickly face timed Jenny, growing worried. Jenny wasn't the person to keep calling in the middle of the night and so many times at that. If there was a problem, she'd usually just leave a text and wait for me to reply and then delve further.
But this; so many missed calls, this wasn't her.
And as the facetime went unanswered, my anxiety increased a level. I watched as Kyst took the bread from my plate, buttered it and held it at my mouth, nudging me to open up.
I opened my mouth, bit down on the bread as my hands flew over my phone, quickly typing Jenny a text.
Me : is everything okay?
"Thank you," I said to Kyst as he helped me take another bite of the bread and I kept my phone to the side.
I took the bread from his hand and turned on my stool so I was facing him besides me and froze, watching his eyes rove over my body. I looked down at my black shorts and white shirt that I had borrowed from Lily's closet, smoothed my hand over the fabric and tilted my head again to assess him.
His eyes darkened, his lips parting as his hand reached out to fist the hem of my shirt. My breathing grew quicker. "Wha-what are you doing?" I asked, eyeing how he tugged the shirt downward.
"That's-" he shook his head deliriously, as if what he was thinking wasn't making sense. Licking his lips, he looked back at me. "That's mine. You're- they're my clothes," he said, again roving his eyes from the shirt clinging to my shoulders to my mid-thigh and the black shorts falling just below my knees.
It clicked then. Why, even though these clothes belonged to Lily- who by the way, was almost the same size as me except the larger breasts that she had- they felt as if they were three sizes bigger on me. Because these weren't Lily's.
"Why were they sitting in Lily's closet then?" I asked, ignoring the swarm of butterflies invading my belly at the thought of Kyst having worn these clothes, maybe even slept in these, gone running, maybe to the gym?
The moment felt intimate; personal. Girl friends didn't wear their guy friend's clothes and revelled in the feel of it being oversized and extremely comfortable; nor did they try to sniff the clothes stealthily, hoping it smelt like the guy.
Something was one hundred percent wrong with me anytime I was in this man's presence and I was just as thrilled as I was afraid to realise that i didn't want to find out why I suddenly lost all my mind around him. I just wanted to live in the moment; cherish the way his eyes widened slightly and his tongue darted out to lick his lips nervously as if the mere thought of me in his clothes was driving him just as crazy as it was me.
Clearing his throat awkwardly, he glanced at the bread in his plate, picked it up and took a bite of it. With a mouthful of it, he refused to look at me and muttered, "She probably stole it."
"Why would she do that?" I didn't have any siblings growing up so I didn't know how it worked between them, except for the fact that siblings loved each other just as much as they hated each other. But stealing clothes? That felt trivial.
"Just to spite me," he shrugged, picking his cup of coffee and taking a sip of it. When I thought he'd look at me and explain further, he just set the cup down and stared at the liquid saying, "I accidentally knocked her favourite nail polish down her bed when she was visiting and it destroyed. I'd been finding that pair-" he waved a hand towards me, indicating he was talking about the clothes I was adorning, "- for a while. She knew I loved that shirt and shorts so she hid it in her closet. Sneaky gremlin," he hissed, shaking his head.
Yesterday, before sleeping, when I was changing, I had wondered why these clothes didn't fit me perfectly, and more so, why Lily had clothes like these? The shirt and the shorts weren't the typical pyjamas that Lily had told me she liked to wear. I had been exhausted and confused with the sudden change in Kyst's behaviour so I didn't think much of it and had put the clothes on.
Kyst was just as bad, with his panic attack being triggered by the rain and not having been in the right state of mind to figure out why I was in his clothes.
But honestly, it didn't matter. What mattered right now was the fact that he wasn't looking at me, and I was pissed. As crazy as it might sound, I wanted his attention on me right now.
When he realised I was wearing his clothes, he had looked shocked and I could swear I'd seen a flash of desire swim through his eyes, but his sudden shutting down now? Yeah that didn't sit right with me.
I shifted on my stool and nudged his bicep with my index finger. "Why won't you look at me?"
He lifted his lashes up and stared at the kitchen wall in front of him. "You don't want to know," he declared.
"Trust me," I pressed, stubborn. "I do."
Shuddering a deep breath, he worked up his courage to look at me, his eyes straight onto mine, making me blush under his intense glare. He gulped, his adam's apple bobbing up and down with the motion and I clenched my thighs shut. "Because seeing you in my clothes makes me want to do terrible, terrible, things to you and trust me, that, you don't want to know," he breathed before grabbing his plate, putting it in the dishwasher and walking out, leaving me breathless.
Now I knew I was betrayed in my past. I knew I didn't have a lot of experience with sex; neither had I met a lot of men with whom I had wanted to get intimate. But I had a brain. And while most of the time I was stupid and not using my brain, I knew what dirty-talking was. And that, that Kyst did just now, was definitely talk dirty.
And friends didn't do that.
Shut up, Vienna. You want to be more than friends with him. Admit it.
I shushed my brain with a groan, drowned my coffee in one sip and followed suit; put the dishes in the dishwasher.
Kyst Archer had left me speechless, breathless and turned on, simply by uttering some ten words, which I was sure he hadn't even intended would have that kind of effect on me which it did and now I was on the path to insanity.
If a man could make me dizzy by his words, what would his hands make me feel? His tongue? His coc- Nope. Definitely not. Not now.
Grabbing my phone from the kitchen counter, I walked out into the living room, fixating my mind on the fact that I was here to tell Kyst to take care of himself and that I was leaving.
But any and every word dissipated into thin air when I rounded the kitchen counter and found Kyst tending to the gauze around his forehead, sitting on the couch. Shirtless.
My breath stalled. Kyst Archer was the embodiment of exquisite. My eyes strayed the wide length of his shoulder, his arm in the air as he carefully untied the knot of the band from the back of his head and wincing, as he unwrapped it.
Definitely having lost my mind, my eyes strolled downward, on his strong, inked chest. In the valley between his chest, a bouquet of beautiful lilies was carved, coloured in black and white, looking beautiful, as if it held some kind of meaning- which I was sure it did.
On the left side of his chest, right above his pec, in roman numerals, the number XVI-XII-MMXVII was intricately tatooed. I observed it carefully, randomly drawing up my mathematics information and translating the Roman numbers; 16-12-2017. The sixteenth of December seemed to be of great importance to him, seeing as he carved it out on his muscular chest, making me just more curious.
What did the date entail? I could've guessed it to be some ex-girlfriend's birthday but it was impossible because if he had dated someone that had been born in 2017, I myself would be handing him to the police. I didn't know him all that much but I could say with conviction that that was definitely not the case.
It could be his first relationship? First girlfriend? As if a knife was thrown straight at my chest, I felt a visceral pain gutted in my heart as an intense, burning sensation spread through my stomach. Why did the fact that he might have tattooed his probable first ever serious relationship's anniversary date on his strong chest, make me want to claw it right off his chest with my nails?
Why do you care? Aren't you guys just friends?
I shut my brain down for the second time in the last five minutes and imagined it giving me a sly smile, laughing at me, being all smug about something that it knew and I didn't. I hissed silently, attempting to quit my banter with my brain and went back to appreciating the God of a man in front of me.
My eyes took in the tattoo for the last time before straying my gaze downward. My mouth watered as his abs came into view, causing my jaw to fall open as I counted the eight packed abs in his muscles, not a single ounce of fat on his skin. The urge to run my arms across his stomach and sit on my knees in front of him to lick and bite the delicious abs on his body singularly overrode my brain for the entirety of two minutes before I found something even more ravishing.
The V of his hips, slightly peppered with dark hair, leaning downwards and into his sweatpants had me realising that the porno was over and I shamelessly picked my jaw from the floor and hinged it back, snapping it shut.
With the way his three piece suits fit him perfectly, his svelte waist and the thick of his thighs apparent to the world, somehow had me underestimating how he would look beneath all the layers. I had always known he was extremely good looking and packed some good muscles with how his button-ups were never able to pack his muscled biceps, but looking at them now? Holy shit, he was hot.
So, Kyst Archer was fucking handsome. He even dirty-talked. He was a gentleman, had the most delicious body I had ever seen and a flower tattoo on his chest. I realised I was a goner in that moment.
He was beautiful not only on the outside but on the inside as well. Seeing how he mingled with Jenny and Savannah, agreed to be Sully's best man despite knowing him for a full twenty minutes, how he loved his parents and the way he conversed with them, his sister- it told me what kind of a person he was.
And I'd be more than happy to break the rules that I had set for myself and him if it meant that this gorgeous man could be mine.
||
After I picked the remaining of my sanity and knocked some sense into my brain about how bad it was, ogling at a beautiful, naked man that wasn't ours, as sneakily as possible, I rushed upstairs, hoping he wouldn't catch me.
All red and blushing from his words and having seen him naked, I didn't think I would have been able to stop myself from jumping his bones had he stopped me or even noticed me looking his way.
When I climbed down the stairs an hour later, freshly bathed and in the hoodie and leggings from last night, ready to go home, my phone rang.
I caught Kyst on his sofa again, my heart beating erratically just at the sight of him, and he summoned me over, a grin on his face.
Nodding, I walked towards the couch while also picking up the phone. Only once I had deposited myself on the sofa and a familiar voice boomed from the speaker of my phone, did I realise that Jenny had called again.
My shoulders dropped in relief at Jenny's face but my guards hit the sky as I took in the towing trucks and the number of men hauling stuff from her house outside into the trucks.
Kyst probably saw the same thing from over my shoulder and muttered, "Is everything okay?" He remained out of the screen and as I looked at him and saw the pinch in his brows out of worry, I warmed. He cared about Jenny.
"Where are you, Vienna?" Jenny called out from the phone.
I looked from Kyst and back onto the screen, thinking of a lie to tell her because if I told her I spent a night at Kyst's house, I'd hear no end of it. Gulping, I said, "I spent yesterday at a colleague's house. Is everything okay?"
Hot breath hit the back of my neck, goosebumps starting from my forearm and ending at the tips of my fingers. From my peripheral vision, I saw Kyst holding his chuckle as he caught my eye. He mouthed, colleague, with a raised brow and pressed his lips together at my obvious attempt at lying.
"So. . . something happened," Jenny's voice brought me out of my reverie of admiring my boss and onto the situation at hand. Jenny turned her head around and muted her phone before yelling something to one of the guys that had called her before looking back again. Her brows furrowed and she unmuted her phone but refused to explain further, just looking around, her cheeks red and eyes lowered.
Realising she was stalling and I was curious and worried, I pushed. "What happened?"
I heard the loud intake of her breath, clear and vivid, before her voice followed through. "Because of the thunderstorm yesterday, the entire neighborhood flooded. All the houses in the three buildings have been thrashed and the foundation of the buildings is way too weak to be constructed back. To have it renovated, I'd have to break down all the buildings and start from the beginning but I don't have funds for that. Even if I did, to build these up, it'd take minimum three to four years...." I tuned Jenny out.
No. No. No. I was hearing what she was saying, telling me I needed to vacate the place, that the raining yesterday was so bad that our houses drowned; everything within the walls where I laughed and ate and played with Jenny and my friends, every single memory named to my apartment, my belongings, my lies, the truths, scoldings from Jenny, girl's night with Savannah, late-night movie marathons with Sully during highschool; everything was destroyed. Drowned by the fucking rains.
I couldn't breathe. I needed air. I could hear Jenny apologizing, telling me how sorry she was, how she loved me and that I'd be okay, that she'd help me find a place but I was shaking my head hysterically, hyperventilating. That place was my home. I grew up in that place. I was what I was today because of that home, because of the people, the memories- gone. It was all gone.
My phone was snatched out of my hand and I heard Kyst telling Jenny not to worry and to take care of herself before he cut the call and focused on me.
"Hey, it's okay," his soft whisper barely touched my ears before it fleeted in the air. He slid his hand into my hair and caressed me gently, holding the back of my head. "Don't cry, please," his voice broke as he wiped a stray tear that had left my eyes.
I felt emotionless in the moment but in reality I was anything but. So much laughter and bitching about bosses, the workload, the movies, memories about our teenage, talking about childhood, everything slammed into me at once, and a wail emerged past my lips.
I was hurt. I had lost the only home I had ever had.
I felt Kyst wrapping his hands around me and I burrowed my face in his neck, my hands tightly fisting his black hoodie. He moved his hand up and down my spine, gently scratching through my hair and my scalp, trying to shush me down, calm me down. He let me sob in his neck for about twenty minutes before he rested me on my back on the couch and sprinted to the kitchen, walking back with some water.
He held me up in his arms and handed me the water, my body seeming to relax in his arms. I drinked the entire glass of water in three big gulps, regaining my hold on my emotions, my weeping coming under control.
The turmoil in my heart commenced to settle, the fog before my eyes clearing when I decided that I had cried enough.
I am strong. I can look after myself. It'll be fine.
"What am I going to do?" I asked weakly, looking up at Kyst with hopeful eyes. Right now, he was my pillar; my support system. Without his hand strongly braced around my torso, I'd be a pile of goo on the ground, unmovable and immobile.
"It's fine," he said, holding my face in his palms. He brushed a stray strand of hair from my face and behind my ear and leaned forward, faith brimming in his eyes. "We'll get through this, I promise. I'm here for you, Vi darling," he promised. To drive his point home, he pressed the softest kiss to my forehead and smiled against it.
I nodded just as my phone vibrated in the space between us. I picked the phone up, unlocked it to see three messages from Jenny.
Jenny : I'm so sorry for everything Vienna.
Jenny : And please thank Kyst on my behalf. Tell him I appreciate him for what he did for the neighborhood.
Jenny : Take care, sweetheart. I'll see you as soon as I can.
Confused, I turned the phone in Kyst's direction, reading out the second text from my phone and said, "What does she mean by that?"
Looking sheepish, Kyst broke eye-contact but I pressed my palm to his cheek, forcing his eyes on mine. "I, uh, may have asked to sanitize your neighborhood and fix the streetlights," he shrugged, as if it was a no big deal. "It wasn't safe for you or anyone to live with the filth and incessant blinking, so I just had the Government do it's job. It's fine, tell Jenny not to bother. And that I did it because I felt like it."
See? That was what I meant when I said that Kyst Archer cared about Jenny, about me and that he was never afraid to show his emotions. My hands itched to wrap myself around him and mould to his body and feel the warmth of his against me but I held back. "Did you tell Jenny you had arranged for these repairs?"
He shook his head as if I had just asked something incredulous. "Of course not. If I had, she'd have given me the money and I didn't want that. I have money and I was running out of ideas to put it to use. So I thought, I might as well just make my girl live a little better," he winked.
And as sour as my mood was, my lips lifted into a grin. My girl. Oh my god, my heart was beating faster than it ever had and I was on cloud nine. "Then, how did Jenny know it was you?" I knew I was ruining the mood and I should've just wrapped my arms around him by now, but a girl was curious.
"Probably saw my name on the paper where the workers must've asked her to sign it after finishing the work, I dunno. It doesn't matter, though. That's all probably ruined too," he sighed.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. I didn't know what I was apologizing for but it felt apt in that moment. He had asked to repair my surrounding and make it hygienic for me but safe to say that it had all just gone into vain. Like he had said, he didn't care about how much money went into it, I was about ninety nine percent sure that his disappointment was because he had done everything in his power to make that place livable but now it was gone.
And I was on square zero. No place to live and no friends that'd let me crash their place. There was no way I'd ask Sully and Sav to let me live in their place some couple months before their wedding; I wasn't that shameless. I could ask Lily but there was still no guarantee she'd be comfortable with me intruding her space.
"It isn't your fault," Kyst muttered, bundling me up in his arms and pressing me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his waist and snuggled closer. "Stupid rains," he murmured like a little child.
A chuckle escaped my lips and I shook my head, still somehow content even after losing one of my most priced possessions, even though I didn't possess it; my home, as little and empty as it was, was my priced possession.
But the more I rested in Kyst's embrace, my head against his chest, hearing his heart beat just as fast as mine, I realised something.
Even though I had lost a home, I hadn't lost the feel of it.
Kyst Archer was my home; my peace and my happiness.
And this home? Yeah, I was never letting him go.
||
mmm what do we think about this chapter?
okay so I started haunting adeline like two days ago, completed it yesterday and started hunting adeline yesterday night. I was upset that haunting adeline didn't live up to my expectations; there was nothing dark or gruesome about it.
but then, I reached hunting adeline and I gladly ate my words back. I'm not okay; constantly wanting to puke with the knowledge that trafficking is actually a serious issue as written in the book and stuff like these would be happening in real life we are completely unaware of.
I'm taking a break from that book so please suggest some cute, HEA books to me before I get back to Hunting adeline. Thank you so much for reading this rant and sorry for the TMI, I just needed to let it out.
See you guys next week!!
Thanks for reading<3
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