I settled him into my bed and he fell asleep again, immediately, in boxers and a tee shirt on top of the comforter. The sunlight made the golden down that covered his arms and legs glitter, and I settled into an armchair across the room to work, glancing up every ten or fifteen minutes to make sure he was still breathing. Each time I peeked up at him, my eyes were stuck on him. He was so…pretty. Almost laughably so, compared to Dom and Vince. His hair was curly, would have probably been ringlets if it were longer, and those eyes…And Mia…What was up with that? She had been just hanging over him, sobbing. I'd never seen more than a hint of a smile or a trace of a frown on her face, so this open display of affectionate distress was baffling to me.
I got about halfway through my summer thesis for English Lit III before the sun turned the ocean into a shimmering blanket of crimson and gold. Brian hadn't so much as moved, and I was beginning to worry he might be comatose. I crossed the room to the bed and my heart was pounding as I looked at him, yet no sparks flew as I put my hands on him and shook gently.
"Brian," I said. "Hey." At first he did nothing, and I felt an instantaneous cold sweat, a mild panic. He was breathing. I shook him again. "Wake up, Brian." He grunted and buried his face in the pillow, then looked up at me, blinking and disoriented. "I'm Izzie," I said. "You remember me from a few hours ago?" He narrowed his eyes against the harsh orange light blaring through the window. Shook his head. "Me and Mia and Letty brought you here, to my house, so I can keep an eye on you. You got smacked in the head. You remember that?" He blinked a few times, thinking hard, brow furrowed, then nodded, dropping his head back into the pillow.
"Dom," he managed, one eye in the pillow, the other staring up at me, beautiful blue surrounded by bloodshot red. "Am I all right?" he asked.
"Yeah, man," I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my thighs.
"Can I sleep more?"
"Sure," I said. And the eye closed. And he was completely out before I got back to my chair.
I don't know why…I was so tired. I couldn't think straight and the words fast became meaningless squiggles across my paper, and I fought off sleep until my eyelids overrode my command and drooped shut on their own.
I woke to find a pounding headache, my notebook on the floor beside the chair, almost blinding moonlight streaming through the window. The entire room was bathed in pale, cool blue. And somewhere there was a steady knocking.
The cobwebs and curtains of recent sleep cleared gradually and I knew it was the door long before I acknowledged the realization and headed down the hall toward the staircase. I ran my fingers through my hair and gathered it at the nape of my neck, stretching a scrunchie over it to hold it there, felt it streaming down over my shoulder blades, hot, sticky, curly from the humidity. There was a cool breeze. I could feel it as I stepped into the open air of the kitchen, where the simple white curtains danced against the window frames. It was the dead of night, but the moonlight was so bright I didn't think to turn on a light, and, too tired to be cautious, swung the door open drowsily. And gasped.
Filling the doorway, large and somber, was Dominic Toretto. Wearing a white ribbed tanktop that ended just at his waist and pale, baggy jeans that hung low on his hips. He was soaking wet, but he smelled of ocean and wind, not sweat. His feet were bare and he wore no underwear beneath the jeans, his iguinal canal so deep and obvious, two beautiful creases running from his hips to meet somewhere in a 'V' inside his pants. I wished my eyes could trace the lines down, down to their disappearance into what I imagined to be coarse black curls. The clean scent with a hint of his musk filled my head and dizzied me instantly, and I gripped the doorknob, white-knuckled, terrified by and thrilled with him at once. I was afraid he would tear through my house, find Brian, kill him.
"Spilner here?" he asked, and those two words set my flesh on fire. I felt light-headed and hot, my heart pounding, frozen, speechless. My mouth was working but no words were coming out, and I couldn't stop staring at him, the way he completely filled the doorframe, one elbow propped up above his head. He was so animal, his entire body a cool, wet mirage in the heat of the night, and my mouth was burning to kiss him, my palms itching to touch him, run up under the torturously thin white of the wifebeater, over the slick, brinewet ridges of his abs, cup the firm mounds of his pecs and run my thumbs over the hard little nubs of his nipples.
He saw my fear and acknowledged it right away.
"I won't hurt him, Izzie."
If he noticed my lust, he said nothing. I sensed a calm in him and nodded, my heart clenching up like a fist and as I realized I'd have to stop show him to my bedroom, where Brian slept.
"He's sleeping, I said. "He's got a concussion."
"Is he all right?" That low rumbling thunder voice behind me in the pulsating black of the stairway made me shudder, as if it were a live entity of its own and would reach out and grab me.
"I think so. He's real confused and lethargic right now, but every time he wakes up he's a little better." I turned my doorknob and the old hinges complained softly as I gave it a gentle push to swing it open.
"Shit," Dom said, hefting his hands up with one hand, running one back, tired, over the short stubble on his head, staring at the broken guy in my bed. He stepped cautiously to the bed, and as he did, his pants inched down and I could see in the dim lunar glow the bare brown beginning curves of his ass and the innocent, shadowy cleft and I clenched fistfuls of my dress as an irrepressible urge to tear his pants down and sink my teeth into his skin ripped through me. I was shaking. I had no idea who I was or where this was coming from, and I wasn't sure if I was afraid or in awe of myself.
He must have felt a draft or heard me gasping for breath, because he hitched them up and held them there with one hand while he leaned across the hideously huge bed and punched Brian lightly in the shoulder.
"Spilner," he said. "Hey." Brian stirred a little.
"Brian," I said, moving to Dom's side and shaking him lightly. He coughed shortly and lifted his head, that blank stare, gazed at my face. "Dom's here to see you," I said, and Brian looked at him.
"Great." He lifted his head, squinting and blinking at Dominic, no fear there.
"I'm sorry, man," Dom said. "Last I heard you ratted every fuckin' thing you knew." Brian nodded, as if with complete comprehension. "I didn't know about the charges, and your badge. Made a few phone calls about an hour ago and now…" He shrugged, as if to say Take it or leave it. I looked at Dom. His brows were furrowed, his black eyes unreadable. When Brian was silent, he continued. "When I'm wrong I say it," Dom said. Brian nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open. "I overreacted. But I got more than just me to look out for here." Dom was a little drunk, but his words were clear and his intent was good.
"It's all right," Brian said. "Just here for…for…" The name wouldn't come, and he looked frustrated.
"Mia," Dom finished. "I know. Don't sweat it, man. I'm too plastered to get you home right now. Sleep here and I'll come get you in the morning." As if hypnotized, the second the word 'sleep' left Dom's lips, Brian's eyes thunked shut and he was out.
"Come on," I said, not able to keep the extra husk out of my already-low-for-a-girl voice. "Let's leave him be." Dom nodded and followed me out, down the stairs. I walked slowly, half hoping that he would stumble and pitch forward into my back, all that cool, moist bronze skin against me, that hard chest against my hair, and maybe, maybe I would turn around, smile at him, show him I was glad he'd fallen, and we would sit down on the stairs and he would see I had no underwear on and he could use those long, sturdy fingers on me the way he'd…
I cleared my throat loudly to stop my own typhooning thoughts and was grateful when we came into the open air of the kitchen. I took a deep breath, could feel his eyes on me, and he stopped, folding his arms over his chest and fixing me with this dark glare and half of a cocky, lopsided smile. When I noticed he wasn't following, I turned and looked at him and my heart skipped. Shit. Busted.