Page 10 of Overcast

“You’re fucking beautiful.” He sounds shocked as he takes the time to thoroughly study me underneath him.

The density of his stare initiates a wave of goosebumps up my arms. The stir in my stomach is a mixture of nerves and anticipation as his touch moves back up the column of my neck like a predator seeking the best spot to strike.

“I think it’d be a shame to fuck this part of you up.”

My chest begins to spaz in seizure-like influxes. I can’t suck in a breath to calm myself, and his skin burns against mine, leaving a trail of threatening warmth behind.

“You were getting finger fucked by Hollis Evans.” My next tremble is a mixture between a flinch of remembrance and loathing.

He says it like I wanted it.

I would rather have an aneurysm over being stroked and felt up by Hollis.

If he only knew that he walked in on something entirely different from what he saw.

“The man who was waiting by the truck for you to be done.” I catch the smell of his cologne or deodorant—a citrus musk that I think I’ve smelt before at school. “So you’re either his girl…or you guys just like to fuck. Regardless—” I suddenly thrash my head from side to side.

“No, no, I’m not. He—”

“Are you saying that I was seeing shit?” The sudden adjustment in his octave makes me shrink back against the hard ground.

I’m waiting for him to hit me.

Actually, I’m betting on it.

“He’s...not my boyfriend.”

“Ah…” His fingers route to my cheek. “So, you’re just his little slut.”

My gaze slams into his, and I want to punch that idea right from his skull.

“I’m not—”

“It doesn’t hide the simple fact that I saw you.” He applies more of his weight, but this time on my chest to drive home his point. “I observed everything. So let’s cut the shit and start answering some questions. Who do you both work for?”

My brows furrow. “I...I don’t—” He grips the already stretched out collar of my shirt and pulls me off the cement and into his face.

It’s then that I notice he’s not that old. Early thirties, maybe. His twisted face doesn’t hide the perfect shape of his jawline. The sharp edges that are hidden by dark stubble and the penetrating eyes that seem to want to drill into my skull.

“You don’t speak quickly enough, and I’m already tired of chasing you around. We’ll do this my way now.”

“I don’t like your way.” He surprises me when I hear a rich chuckle resonate off his chest, the only thing that has warmed my skin since being dragged from my house.

“People normally don’t, sweetheart.” His weight lifts from me before I’m hoisted from the ground right along with him. “But they don’t live to tell about it.”

My body collides into his, and for a split second, we stand there in silence.

It’s enough time for my brain to conjure up that he might have a change of heart.

That I’m not who he believes I am.

His analysis is stifling and heavy. It no longer matches his eyes that I believed were black like my situation.

They’re green with hues of dark specks—maybe hazel. They sprint along my face, searching for something, but his scrutiny quickly fleets as his palm tightens around my bicep, guiding me back to the spot where I ran from.

People don’t live to talk about it.

My somewhat calm moment is interrupted by his words replaying in my head. I dig my heels into the ground, but it does nothing to deter him.

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