Chapter 15: Awake

Callie's POV

"You're late," I said.

Drake stood in the hall with his hand still raised to knock and his mouth open.

"I was in the truck," he said.

"I know. I watched you from the window for twenty minutes."

"My dad got in."

"I watched that too."

I took his wrist, pulled him into the room, and shut the door.

Then I turned the lock myself.

He looked at the lock, and then at me.

"Last time you did that," I said, "you took my pulse."

"I did."

"What was it?"

"Fast," he said. "Faster than mine."

I walked across the room and crouched in front of the heating vent in the floor.

I turned the brass dial until it clicked shut.

When I stood up, he was watching me with his whole face open.

I had never seen it like that.

"Say it," I said. "What you said to me on the roof. The part about the texts."

"You wrote back 'thx.'"

"I wrote that because anything longer would have told you."

My voice was shaking, and I let it.

"I left because I wanted my stepbrother, and I thought I'd ruin everything."

"The house, my mom, you. So I got in the car."

"Callie."

"I'm not done."

He closed his mouth.

"I'm not asleep," I said. "I'm not going to be asleep. I'm standing here with my eyes open and I'm picking you."

His breath went out of him in a rush.

"Say it again," he said, his voice rough.

"Drake. Kiss me."

He crossed the room in two steps and took my face in both hands.

His mouth came down on mine, and it was nothing like the roof.

It was slow and deep and almost shy, his thumb sliding along my cheekbone, his crooked tooth catching my lip.

I made a small sound, and I felt him smile against me.

"Do that again," he said.

I did, and he groaned.

We didn't hurry.

He walked me back to the bed with his hands moving down my spine.

He took the hem of my T-shirt and lifted it up and off.

I had nothing on under it.

His eyes dropped, and his hands stopped.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Faked Sleep for My Stepbrother's Friends, but Nobody Was Fooled from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.