Heathens & Hand Grenades (Book 1 of the Heathens Duet)

Chapter 45- Callie

As Dario prattles around the room, angling his computer monitors for the movie and turning off the lights after a quick visual check in with me, I release the breath I realize had been trapped in the vise grip my anxiety had on my heart.

"Blanket?"

I could just as easily tuck myself into his bed, but I appreciate Dario for trying to keep the atmosphere light. "Yeah, but don't worry. I'll grab one from the living room."

Although I'm an unwilling guest, I don't want to make them wait on me like some princess. Unwilling guest. Really, who's the delusional one now? Everything about these men sends my head in circles. Rave is the only one making things easy. I know exactly where the lines are with him, but even those are blurring with our truce.

Could I leave now? Would I even want to? I don't know that I could lead the authorities to them or even if I'd want to. Dario has tangled himself in my heartstrings and Jaxson has definitely tangled himself somewhere else. God remains a mystery that I'm not sure I'm capable of ever unraveling, but the more time I spend here, the more I find myself desperate to try. He cares so much for everyone here, but seems so lonely.

Easing out of the room, I head to the living room to quickly grab the blanket I've claimed as my own over the past few days. Time is hard to define here with no natural light. I've been going off the guys' sleep schedules but it's still such an abrupt change. Even with the sunlight mimicking lamps, it's still obvious we're underground. Fresh air is being pumped in through somewhere, but the air still feels different.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Less appear, and more I pull my head out of my behind and notice his hulking form on the couch. Head bent low over his guitar, Rave fiddles with it, tuning it as he strums a couple of chords before going back to tuning it just right.

The moment we're in feels fragile, just like our truce. One wrong move and this house of cards comes crumbling down. So, I don't move to grab the blanket laying on the arm of the couch beside him. Instead I hold the breath in my lungs, lock my body tight and ignore the tingling in my limbs as the begin to fall asleep because Rave's guitar is this hauntingly beautiful thing in the hands of such a terrifyingly intense man. The tender way he looks at his guitar is so human and so unlike the man I've gotten to know that I could watch him for hours.

With a decisive nod and gentle strum of his fingers, he begins to play a melody that reaches inside of me, demanding I listen. The steady drumming of his foot against the concrete floor is hypnotizing as he plays and I feel my body lured by the beat to sway along despite the pins pricking at my feet as they wake. His deep voice begins to hum along to the gentle chords and I have to resist the urge to hum along, even as my soul feels compelled to join him.

Grabbing the blanket would break this spell he doesn't even know he's got me under. I can grab it and be snuggled underneath it in seconds with snacks galore. All it would take is a single solitary step.

He starts to sing and I know I'll never take that step. Not when his voice sounds like heaven and hell all wrapped into one. The tortured past that I can only glimpse in God's eyes and scarred body is given life in the way that Rave sings. No wonder I've never heard it before. I want to leave him to his pain, because I know now that I am not meant to witness him like this. He would hate it, hate me.

Every word that spills from his lips sounds ripped from a page of his journal, though I know it's not true. It's not the song, despite the way Hozier sung it. It's Rave. It's his pain and passion that turns the words into feelings that he's pouring out with every tap of his foot and brush of his hand.

He may be playing Arsonist's Lullaby, but he's setting fire to my head and heart. There is no possible way he's as cold as he pretends to be when every pore of him is overflowing like this.

My foot chooses a fine moment to stab me as it wakes and I'm too focused on Rave to notice as I hiss at the pain. It's so stupid. It's not even really pain, I remind myself. Just my body's nerve endings coming back online. The body doesn't listen to reason though or read the room.

I'm stuck looking like a child with her hand in the cookie jar and waiting for the eventual punishment. Rave and I stare at each other across the room, seemingly waiting for the other to react. I brace myself for the blowup that I now is coming because it's how all of our interactions have been up until recently. I'm the one who intruded on his private moment. It's no less than I deserve.

He sets down his guitar without taking his eyes off me and I inhale deeply, closing my eyes, and rolling back my shoulders as I wait for the verbal blow.

It never comes.

Instead he stands on quiet feet despite his overwhelming size and walks, guitar in hand towards his room.

Somehow that feels worse.

Grabbing the blanket, I make my way back to Dario's room, heart still galloping in my chest as my adrenaline comes down and mind a mess. I gained a glimpse into Rave's soul, I know it, and it is so different to the man he presents himself as. At least to me. I've glimpsed facets of it around the others, but it's always quick to disappear when I'm in the room.

"Ready to start?" Dario asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. One look and it's clear he knows my mind is elsewhere. If there is one thing I love about Dario, it's that he doesn't push.

"Ready," I reply, plastering a smile that's fuller than I feel to my face as I nestle under the blanket, scooting close enough to him that our thighs press against each other. It's not his fault I feel out of sorts.

I don't know when we shifted, but when I look up we're midway through the movie with my head leaning on his chest, his arm thrown casually over my shoulder, and a hand tracing abstract squiggles and circles on my thigh. Easy, just like everything about Dario. He truly could charm the pants off a nun and would have no clue how he did it.

Awareness of his fingers dancing along my thigh has me wondering how he doesn't feel my pulse beneath my skin pounding like an edm song right before the bass drop. One look at his face is all it would take.

He pauses his ministrations and I hold my breath, waiting for him to resume. A peek from the corner of my eyes has me nibbling my bottom lip between my teeth. His eyes dart over me like a computer screen, taking in all the information he can before he makes a keystroke. The way those hands control and ferret out information, I can only imagine what he could do with me. My skin is flushed just thinking about it and my breath comes out in heavy pants that I hope aren't as obvious as they feel. Otherwise I'd be looking like the tomato version of Violet Beauregarde. Just call me Scarlett Gardens. Thank goodness he can't hear the way my thoughts are colliding together like a circus train wreck.

"Callie," he whispers.

No cat, baby, or girl follows and I feel the nervousness in the way his voice doesn't tip up in the playful way I'm so used to. I turn my head to face him, raising it up as he dips his own down. His lips are centimeters away and I feel his breath, full of the cinnamon and cloves I've come to associate with him mixed with the sugary smell of the gummies we've been munching on, fill my senses with him. It's intoxifying and my skin buzzes with his closeness. I stare into his deep brown eyes, falling into them like curious Alice following the White Rabbit.

"I'm going to kiss you."

Huh. Why warn me for something-

The second his lips capture mine I get it. His lips may have touched mine in all the ways a textbook kiss is supposed to go, but never like this. Before he's let me explore him, taking the lead almost in all of our interactions. But I'm starting to get the feel that my little computer geek golden retriever may have more in common with his brothers than I would have thought possible.