Good Girls & Gangsters. (Book 2)

Chapter 5

Calm deserts me, overthrown by fear.

Torin lets me down cautiously as if any sudden movements might provoke the beast.

Orian looks different, like a man who emerged from a warzone. His hair has grown long enough to be tied into a low bun. Midnight strands dangle idly beside his temples, reaching his mountain peak cheekbones, his mouth peppered with a gritty stubble. Dressed in black fatigues matched with combat boots. Madly aroused by this rugged, military man version of him.

"I was just taking her up." Torin points back at me absently. "She was feeling faint. And you, brother? For a dead man, you look good."

Orian doesn't answer. He fixes me with an unblinking stare; piercing and haunting.

All I want to do is run.

Torin glances back at me awkwardly. "Well. I'll let you two get reacquainted." He flings his gaze back at him. "When you're... done, come find me. You and I have shit storm to deal with."

He turns his back on him. Walking out, he sends me a rueful smile, which I respond with a pleading look but he gives me a subtle shrug before he tries to leave the room. His hand on the door handle when Orian calls him back. His voice rougher and more resonant than before.

"What?"

Torin inspects him for a moment, then Orian glances at me as if to hint to something. He gets it instantly. Torin shakes his head vigorously, sliding both hands in his pockets.

"Not like that, okay, you've been gone for a long while—"

"Exactly," he retorts. One word poisoned by envy.

Torin gives an exaggerated shrug. "Believe what you want."

Orian blisters him with a cursory glance, dismissing him with a brusque nod.

"Don't do that, don't dismiss me like I'm your fucking lapdog."

I inhale deeply, struggling to breathe, smothered by the mounting toxic testosterone congesting the room. Orian's boots devour the space between them, looming over him threateningly, mere inches taller than him.

Torin frees a humoured breath. "Is that supposed to scare me?"

Orian grabs a fistful of his suit blazer, pulling him to his face menacingly. Torin fights back, relinquishing his hold and shoving him back with brute force. Orian's eyes set ablaze with anger, rushing back at him. But I sprout right in front of Torin, my hands on Orian's muscle-bound chest, trying to keep him from passing me. His breathing audible and heavy.

Torin chuckles provocatively before he whirls around, strutting out of the room and closing the door behind him with a bang. I look back at Orian, my hand flashes back to my side, my ribcage suddenly feeling too small.

He set his eyes back on me, his breathing regulated. My gaze sinks to the floor, disarmed by the sight of him. He takes me by my waist, reeling me to him, our bodies compressed together. He runs his fingers up my spine, slowly and sensuously, coercing shivers from me. In a way that sparks sinful fantasies to torment and strobe my mind like my fast and perishable breaths.

"You look..." he dawdles off, distracted.

"What—" unutterable visions invade my thoughts, "—why, long." Words dissolving into incoherent mumbling. I shake the fog out of my head.

"Our exfil was compromised. We avoided Gaza's reinforcements only to get entrapped by local insurgents... there were maximum casualties... on their side."

I nod dazedly, intoxicated by his overwhelming smell, pungent, earthy and musky.

"Well... you survived."