I Walk the Line ♤ (gxg)

chapter 19: lust

The woman, her face glowering as she tried do discern and disable all the fervent emotions running through her like a rapid river, slammed the hotel door shut.

August's shoulders jumped when Willow had practically thrown her into the room and then slammed the door as if she were in a great deal of trouble and soon to be punished.

"What's wrong with you?" August asked, her voice no longer timid or small. She wanted to know what was going through Willow's head. She had acted so happy to be around her earlier that day, then suddenly changed to acting aloof and painfully cold towards the girl, then she had suddenly freaked out on the man who was being inappropriate, coming in and saving the day like some savior. The woman's constantly changing mood was exhausting her.

Willow paced back and forth across the room but stopped dead in her tracks after she heard the girl's barbed tone. "What's wrong with me?" she deadpanned, her eyebrows lifting in disbelief.

"Yes, you! You are acting like a bipolar, crazy psycho!" August threw her hands up in the air, releasing the emotions she had been feeling towards the woman the entire night.

She ran a hand through her black, shiny hair, closing her eyes momentarily as she fought back the curse words threatening to spill over her lips. "You know, you really love using that word to describe me, don't you?"

"You really love acting like what that word means, don't you?" August sassed, placing her hands on her hips and looking at the woman with an austere gaze.

Willow had to simply laugh. She was so sickeningly fed up with the entire night. She was fed up with the girl, with the man whom she still had thoughts about killing, and she was fed up with the torture in her heart and mind. She wanted to hate the girl; she wanted to hate her so badly. But she couldn't.

So she just sat down in a chair at the table, resting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, taking deep, slow breaths and trying to shake all the many thoughts racing through her mind. But she couldn't shake away the look in Hank's eyes when he had trailed his repugnant hand down a part of August's body that she had stared at only several minutes before and ached to touch so badly. The fact that he had touched her without asking, as if he deserved the right to do so, made the rage inside Willow swell.

"Willow..." August's voice was softly concerned as she looked down at the woman who covered her face with her hands and was breathing rapidly. "Are you okay?"

Willow shot up from her seat, looking at August with nearly teary eyes. Her entire face was tinctured a light red color from the hot anger that was balling her fists and pursing her lips. "No." Her voice was threatening, but something in August trusted that the anger wasn't towards her.

There was also something else in August that knew why the woman was upset. She knew, but she was terrified of hearing it out loud. But the time she had spent being confused by Willow's back and forth behavior prompted her to crave hearing it loud. She wanted to know. "Why not?"

Green eyes disappeared under their lashes. "Because..." she shakily whispered at first, her voice growing louder with each word, "the way he looked at you, August. I knew what was thinking. I know exactly what he was thinking." The vision of the man's libidinous eyes, staring at August like she was flesh and he was carnage, whipped through the woman's mind, making her feel trapped by her own rage. She needed to release it. She wanted to run back downstairs, grab the man by his neck, and....

"What...was he thinking?" she hesitantly asked, licking her lips. She knew very well what the man had been thinking—she had felt it in his lustful touch. But she wanted to hear Willow say it. She saw something in those green irises, something that was slowly but surely boiling over. She knew that at any moment, it would spill.