First Kiss: The Ghost Bird Series: #10 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (27 page)

His mouth lifted until he was nuzzling behind my ear again. “Baby,” he whispered, his voice gruff.

My heart pounded, out of control. He’d stirred something inside of me. My brain whispered that I should be quiet and go back to sleep, but my heart was drawn to him, craving, needing.

North released the strong hold on my body, and I gently pushed for room to turn and face him. He pulled me in, his arm encircling my head to hold me close again, and his palm at the small of my back, urging me close, even as I was snug against his body.

He kissed my nose once, lingering there. I breathed in his musk, and it was all I could smell at that moment.

I listened for any sign of the others, but they were still.

I may have whispered his name, but it was so soft on my lips, I wasn’t sure if he could hear it at all.

His head tilted, and his broad lips met mine.

The kiss was strong, like him. Cautious, careful North, for the moment, kissed recklessly, feeling every corner of my mouth with his lips. His tongue followed, circling, diving in.

I responded, and I only pulled back when I needed to catch my breath.

North ducked his head lower and kissed my cheek close to my ear. His leg covered mine again, locking himself against me. With my shorter legs, my toes curled into the material of the sweatpants he wore to bed.

I lowered my head, wanting to bite him back. The way we were positioned, it was too awkward to reach for his neck. Instead, I pressed my cheek against his chest, my hands smoothing out his T-shirt.

“Baby,” he whispered, his body stiffening against mine. There was a slight edge to his voice. A warning? I couldn’t tell. I stilled for only a second, listening, but only hearing light snores and breathing.

I tilted my head until my lips were pressed against his chest, kissing at the muscles of his chest.

North shivered. His mouth pressed at the top of my head, tense.

My teeth grazed along the shirt but I wanted to touch his skin. I tucked two fingers into the neckline of his shirt, drawing it down.

His hand flew up, catching mine, but he didn’t draw my hand away. I hesitated for a moment, unsure what he wanted from me, what I should do next.

Maybe he was worried about the noise.

I exhaled slow and then took in as much air as possible. I held on to him, determined to remain quiet. I dropped my mouth to his bare skin and kissed it.

He sucked in a breath, and his chest pressed to my mouth and he let out the quietest moan. It was enough to make me kiss the spot again, wondering if his reaction had been from the kiss or if he’d been expecting a bite.

His other hand found the back of my head, rubbing the base of my neck and then finding the spot where he had bitten.

The pressure of his thumb over the bite sent a new wave of bravery through me. I opened my mouth, putting my teeth to his skin, and bit his chest, slowly. My teeth sank into his chest and my tongue darted against him.

North smothered a grunt in his throat, and I felt the rumbling through my bones. He pitched against me. A sharp metallic creak sounded as the cot jerked at his reaction. His hand at the back of my head held me to his chest, afraid to move, afraid to let go.

Suddenly his fingers twined in my hair, pulling my head away from him. He pushed me until I was almost teetering off the edge of the cot, held up only by the sleeping bag.

North quickly found the zipper, ripping open the sleeping bag. He crawled over me, starting to stand up. He lifted me in his arms as he stood, and then stilled when he was fully up.

My eyes fluttered, trying to figure out what he was doing with me.

North released me until I was standing. I think he only meant to put me down so he could get around me, but he was walking away, and caught my ankle and I dropped in a heap on top of someone else. I managed to scramble to sit up, worried I’d hurt whoever was sleeping.

“Ug,” a voice said underneath me and a body shifted in the cot. I scrambled as best as I could while trying to get out of North’s way. Where was he going?

He lumbered toward the tent opening, unzipped it and stumbled out into the night. I heard the zipper again and then his footsteps as he stormed off, the crunch of grass getting fainter under his boots.

The body beside me shifted, the sleeping bag opened and a head appeared. I moved until I was sitting up on the edge of the cot.

“Sang?” Victor whispered.

“Hmmm,” I whispered. My heart thundered in my chest.

North storming out worried me. He’d done it before. I felt like he had liked what he’d been doing, and yet when I tried to bite back, he’d pushed me away. If he didn’t like it, he could have stopped me before that point, so why hadn’t he?

Should I crawl back into his cot?

Would either of us sleep if he returned?

You can only push a guy so far
. It’s what he’d told me before. Why didn’t he tell me before I got too far? If it hurt or he didn’t like it, then I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Victor unzipped his sleeping bag. “Hurry up and get in. It’s cold.”

How was I supposed to explain to Victor what had just happened? I couldn’t even explain it to myself

But he didn’t ask. Victor simply urged me into the sleeping bag until I was lying next to him. He reached around me to zip it back up.

“Princess,” he cooed, as his arms remained around me, drawing me close until I was facing him. His hand moved against my shirt around to my back. He stilled at first, but then his fingers shifted, finding the spaces between my ribs and following them. He started at my spine and traced around, following the bone. It was a short, smooth movement like I’d witnessed him do to piano keys when he was thinking or considering a song to play. “What’s wrong with your sleeping bag?”

“It was cold,” I whispered, still thinking of North, worried that he’d gone off by himself in the middle of the night. “I was freezing.”

“Aw, was it not working?” he asked. His lips met with my forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Working?”

He kissed my brow. It was just a sweet kiss, like one would do to a child who broke a toy. “What? You didn’t turn it on?”

Even though it was pitch dark, I blinked, trying to figure out what he was talking about. I pushed back a little, looking at him, his face having a bluish glow from moonlight shining through the thin tent wall. “What do you mean it turns on?”

There were a couple of snickering giggles from Luke and Gabriel’s direction.

Victor reached up and touched my arm. “Our sleeping bags heat up. There’s a little button and then a dial where you can direct how much heat...”

I groaned. “No one told me about the button. I didn’t see one.”

“Luke didn’t tell you?”

I blinked. Luke was supposed to tell? “Luke!” I said in a harsh whisper.

More snickering, louder this time. “I swear, I thought I said something,” Luke said. “I thought you knew.”

Maybe he thought he had, but no one else had bothered to mention it to me. I suddenly felt silly for not looking at the sleeping bag closer. I didn’t know they could do that. No wonder North’s was so warm. Were they battery powered? I fell back into the cot. Did none of them hear me saying I was cold? Or did they just assume mine wasn’t working right?

“I hate you all,” I said, grumbling.

I thought I heard Silas and Nathan giggling with the others.

“Sorry,” Victor said, sounding sincerely apologetic. “I thought you knew. Seriously, I would have said something before.”

“I hate everyone except Victor,” I declared. I snuggled into him. He wouldn’t kiss me and dump me on someone else. He wouldn’t destroy my tent. He wouldn’t refuse to tell me my sleeping bag heated up, and then giggle about it.

I hated to admit it, but a lot of it was at least partially my fault. I could have checked out the sleeping bag and noticed something was different. I should have known I couldn’t bite North like that without things getting too loud and he felt he had to leave. If I’d at least let Gabriel into the tent and heard him out, I would have agreed with him about it being too cold and too dangerous to sleep there alone. My pride was more hurt than anything.

“Oh my god, Trouble,” Gabriel said, shuffling as he turned over. “I love you, but please shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”

My heart wanted to flip out at him saying he loved me, but I knew from his tone he was just trying to butter me up so I wouldn’t yell at him. He didn’t really mean it. “Gabriel…” I was too tired to fight him.

“Everyone go to sleep,” Kota said in a groggy voice. He flipped over in his cot, facing the wall. “You’re all ridiculous.”

I bit back my retort to Gabriel, not wanting to anger Kota. Victor moved a hand around the back of my head, coiling a lock of my hair around his finger and drawing me into his chest. His lips brushed against the top of my forehead.

“Shh, Princess,” he whispered into my ear. “Stay with me. I won’t let them pick on you anymore.”

I snuggled into his chest, my lips pressing against his collarbone. I would stay with him. I’d be his camping buddy. I was still mad at Gabriel knocking down my tent, and I wanted to get back at him later for doing that. And maybe for Luke as well for not telling me about my sleeping bag.

In fun, of course.

Minutes passed and Victor soothed me with his fingers tracing against my ribs, and his head ducked down slowly against my brow.

Silence fell around us.

His lips quietly puckered against my skin. I closed my eyes. I tried to settle my excited heart, wanting to sleep and yet now awake.

I was gripping slightly at his chest as I was relaxing, and then uncurled my hands so my palms were against his chest.

Victor’s head ducked. He slid his lips over until they were by my cheek. “Sang,” he whispered.

“Victor,” I breathed, surprised. Were my movements keeping him awake? I blinked repeatedly, my eyelashes traced against his collarbone.

His palm brushed back my hair that had fallen against my face. He shifted and tilted his head until his lips met my cheek, close to my jaw. “When we get home, I’ll take you to the spa again. Want to do that?”

In his arms, I would have agreed to anything. He understood me.

I remembered the time we’d gone to the spa. “If we go, let’s do something we can do together. Last time we went, Adam did my hair and everything. It was nice but I hardly ever saw you.”

“Sang,” he whispered, breathing against my face. His lips moved again, but he didn’t say anything I could understand. His fingers traced my face, sliding until they caught the edge of my mouth. His thumb slid over my lower lip.

Out of instinct, I kissed the tip of it.

I could barely see anything other than the outline of his face in the dimness, but watched as he brought his thumb to his own lips, kissing where I had just a second before. I stared at him, confused though I sensed it meant something to him.

He reached down inside the sleeping bag for my hand, finding a forefinger. He brought it to his mouth. I was tempted to draw it back, thinking of Nathan and how he wouldn’t like anyone to bite my fingers like he did.

Instead, Victor simply kissed the tip of it. He kissed it again before pulling it away, guiding it and pressing it to my own lips.

He leaned in and then whispered. “I won’t be able to kiss you this week with other people around, not directly, but maybe we could get away with this.”

My heart raced thinking of this week and the Academy and wondering if us kissing fingers would be sneaky enough to get away with. Maybe, if we were careful.

He’d been thinking about how to kiss me. The thought of it thrilled me through to my heart.

I feared we were already being too loud and I wanted a quick kiss before settling in to sleep. I wanted to thank him for being good to me when the others had teased. I drifted a hand up to the back of his neck, catching the gentle waves of his hair in my fingers as I held him and drew him closer.

He leaned closer at my bidding, lowering his face. His lips missed my mouth, kissing my cheek, his mouth warm on my skin. He cupped a hand under my chin, drawing my face up.

The cot creaked.

“Victor,” Kota called.

Victor remained dead silent, his face an inch from mine. His breath fell against my face.

“Victor,” Kota said. “Go find North.”

“He’s not lost,” Victor said. His lips were so close. I held my breath, waiting, wanting the kiss a moment ago and now frozen.

My heart thundered. Had he just told Kota no? What was worse was that if Kota was looking at us, he might be able to tell Victor was hovering so close over me.

Did he know? Could he see?

“Please go get North,” Kota said. Even though he’d said please, there was the tone of command behind it.

Victor lifted his head, looking over mine. I was sure he was looking at Kota. As if in protest, Victor landed a kiss on my forehead, letting his lips linger.

My heart exploded, sure Kota would have seen if he was looking this way at all. We were supposed to be getting Kota on our side. Why was Victor acting so defiantly?

“Victor,” Kota said.

Victor grunted, released me, and sighed. I had to shuffle to the side so he could yank the zipper open. I pulled myself out of the way, but still got a waft of cold against my skin.

Victor started to zip me in, but I touched his hand, urging him on and not worry. He stumbled over me, stuffed his feet into shoes, and walked out into the night after North.

“Sang,” Kota said after Victor’s footsteps faded away. “Come here.”

I blushed in the darkness, so hotly I was sure my cheeks would glow. He’d told Victor to go away. If Kota was really worried about North, he would have gone himself, or he could have sent anyone else. He had sent Victor for a reason. I could only assume he knew what Victor had been doing, and had seen that last kiss.

Guilt sent a gentle shudder through my body. Could Kota understand? Maybe I was too late.

I took forever to go to him.

The silence in the tent was thick and too quiet. I had a feeling they were all awake and knew. They were all waiting to hear what Kota would say.