“I’m coming.” I assured her, tears flooding my eyes, blurring everything worse than it already was.
My sister started to cry, and then reality slammed into our entire family in a way it never had before.
Turned out the freedom I’d gotten that day was not at all the kind of freedom I wanted.
“I thought my sister couldn’t move because our mother was pinning her in place.” My voice rasped as I continued to tell my story. All I could do was shake my head and stare at my hands clenched together in my lap. It seemed just like yesterday instead of nearly seven years ago. I felt the pain like it was brand new.
A small, cool hand slid over my clenched ones, somehow fitting between the tension tightening my grip. For long moments, all I could do was stare, marvel at the whiteness of her skin compared to the warm tone of mine.
Seized by sudden panic, my breathing lurched, shuddering inside my lungs. A low wheezing sound was released from between my lips as I grabbed Ivory’s face between my palms. “Why are you so white?” I freaked. “Why is your skin so pale against mine?”
“Neo?” Her eyes flickered with concern, the blue focusing on me as if I were the only thing in the world she saw.
“Why?” I gave her a small shake, demanding an answer.
Flashes of my mother lying dead in that crumpled car assaulted me, memories of her pale, lifeless skin taking over my brain. Then I recalled my father lying on the side of the road where he’d been flung from the car, his body so pale it was almost blue. They’d both been so colorless that day, no life left inside them at all.
“Neo!” Ivory’s voice whipped through my panic like a hot knife through butter. Her image replaced the ones I was reliving, her eyes not nearly as lifeless as the ones I continued to see.
“Why are you so pale and cold?” I whispered. “I can’t lose you too.”
Her face turned into one of my palms. Tears I didn’t even know she’d shed smeared against my skin.
“I’m here.” She verified, her hands sliding across mine. I held her face, and she held me. “I’m alive. I’m not going anywhere.”
I had to work extra hard to swallow, then swallow again. Tears swam in my eyes but remained unshed. “I killed them,” I whispered. “I killed both my parents… And my sister… she might never walk again.”
Ivory tugged at my hand, but at first, I refused to move it away.
“Neo,” she whispered, captivating me with her rhythmical voice and storybook blue gaze. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded slowly, the only thing I was capable of doing.
She tried again, and this time I allowed my hand to be tugged down, completely enraptured by the way she commanded my every move. My heartbeat hitched when she pushed my palm against her chest.
“Feel that?” she asked, her voice like a sweet melody. A melody I tried to grip tight to, a melody I tried to only hear.
But…
My mind raced.
Heart thumped.
Ribcage ached.
Soul… hurt.
Rose-red lips lay upon mine. Everything quieted. Reprieve from the cage of anxiety I was locked in set me free. Eyes opened, I stared at her in wonder. Hers were closed, and though I knew she had to feel my stare, she didn’t look.
She didn’t break the kiss.
Her midnight lashes didn’t even flutter when her mouth grabbed for mine a little more firmly. Those rose-red lips I loved so very much wrapped around my upper and tugged.
Awe kept me quiet as she kissed. I watched, completely stupefied that the ability to quiet my most savage inner demon lay within her. Within a girl who was so small and gentle she probably wouldn’t hurt a fly. Still, she commanded me.
My lips began to move with hers, accepting what she was giving, swallowing it down as though she were the only thing that could fill me up. At some point, my eyes slipped closed. At some point, I stopped thinking completely and allowed myself just to feel.
I didn’t know how long we kissed. Time stopped the moment I realized her power. She pulled back but didn’t go too far. My one hand, still clutching her face, made sure of that.
I took immense pleasure in the unfocused look filling her eyes, dropping my gaze to the lips I’d desperately wanted to taste and finally did.
Rubbing the pad of my thumb over her lower lip, I asked, “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Bring me back to life.”
A hint of a smile tugged her bow-shaped mouth before she ducked her head. “Feel that?” she whispered, catching me off guard once more.
I didn’t have to ask because her hand patted over mine. She was holding my palm against her chest.
Against her heart.
Indeed, I felt it beating, proof of life.
Emotion clogged my throat. “Didn’t you hear everything I just confessed?”
She nodded, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I felt as if I were there.”
It was hard, so incredibly hard to pull away from her. But denying myself was better than hurting her. I paced away, leaving her to sit alone. Leaving a space beside her I desperately wanted to fill.
“Then how could you kiss me like that? Knowing what I did.”
“I’d kiss you again if you’d let me.”
My body stilled. I kept my back turned, afraid if I looked at her, if I saw any trace of sincerity in her eyes, I would succumb.
“I killed my parents. I left my sister disabled and stuck in this place,” I said, gesturing around the room.
“That’s not what I see.”
I scoffed. “No? Then tell me. What do you see?”
“I see a boy who became a man in the blink of an eye. I see a man who asks himself every day why he lived when the people he loved most died.”
Pain. Her words were like a thousand sharp daggers penetrating my heart.
“I see a man who works endless jobs no one else wants so he can take care of a sister he loves.”
Anger lit me up inside. Anger because she tried to paint me as some kind of angel. As a victim. I wasn’t any of those things. In fact, I was the very opposite.
I didn’t bother covering the anger in my voice. Instead, I let it make my words harsher. “I steal. I lie. I take from people when my shitty honest jobs aren’t enough. And FYI, my honest jobs? They never make enough.”
“You paint with sadness, despair, and hope. Your art breaks me, then puts me back together with just a single look.”
I felt rather than heard her move. She was so small and graceful she was like a cloud drifting across the summer sky. Because I refused to turn, she stepped into my line of vision.
I stared at my feet.
“You painted her an entire valley so she doesn’t feel locked up. You came and got me out of jail and carried me to your home when you didn’t even know my name. Your friends are loud, irresponsible, and need a serious class in hygiene, but they’re loyal to you, as you are to them.”
She was breaking me. Weakening my resolve. It pissed me off. I tried so hard not to let her in, this princess who’d wandered out of a storybook and stepped into the Grimms.
Gripping that anger tight, I held it like a shield. She didn’t flinch when I looked up. She stood there against the backdrop of the painting I’d done for my sister, looking exactly as I thought of her seconds before.
As if she belongs in a storybook.
“I’m a criminal.”
“Yes. A very good one.”
What an odd thing to say. My hackles rose even more. “How would you know?”
“Because you stole my heart… something no one else has ever been able to do.”
I made a sound. I was pretty sure it was the shattering of all the control I had left.
“There you go again,” I growled, stalking forward.
Her blue eyes widened, and she took one step back, bringing her body up against the painted wall. “What?”
“Offering me life when I’m trying to cling to death.”
Her words caused me more pain.
Pain only she could take away.
My hands slapped the wall on either side of her head. Bending so I was closer to her level, I felt the soft breath from her lips brush across mine.
“I’m gonna kiss you now, princess,” I whispered. “But I don’t kiss like a prince.”
She closed her eyes and pouted her scarlet lips in a dare.
Challenge accepted.
41
Ivory
* * *
There was a difference between kissing Neo and being kissed by Neo. There was a difference between reaching out in comfort and being devoured by flames.
It was even more incredible when both of those things, comfort and desire, could be discovered in a single pair of lips.
He didn’t kiss like a prince. Instead, he kissed like the thief he claimed to be. Shoving me into the wall until I could literally feel every brushstroke his paintbrush had made, he robbed me completely.
Robbed of sight because all I could do was feel. Robbed of every breath inside my lungs, every single beat of my heart.
It felt as though he’d stepped off the edge of a tower and we were both free-falling, our limbs intertwined as we tumbled through the meadow he’d created. No longer did we exist in the physical world but instead in a world of our own making, and it didn’t matter where or when we landed because I would be with him.
His tongue stroked over mine so earnestly I could do nothing but answer his call. Heat spread through my body, and I stretched against him like a cat in the sun. My hands that had been clutching his biceps slid up so my arms could loop around his neck.
Shifting, Neo changed the direction of the kiss, barely lifting his mouth before devouring me once again in a completely new assault.
A small moan built in my throat, but he took that too, swallowing it down greedily, deepening the kiss so I would make another. Against my hips, his fingers flexed, and then he lifted, picking me up as if I weighed nothing at all.
Locking my thighs around his waist, I delved my fingers deep into the black strands of his hair. When his tongue retreated, my fingers tightened, and I felt him smile against my lips.
“Oh, I’m not done yet, princess. Not nearly.” His words were like rumbling thunder in a stormy sky. The only storm I’d never felt frightened by.
Sucking my lower lip between his, he tugged and licked until it began to swell. In retaliation, I nipped at his mouth, piercing his delicate skin with the blunt edge of my teeth. He jolted back, surprise glittering in his onyx eyes. The tip of his skilled tongue slid over the bite, and one of his thick brows arched.
“Feisty,” he murmured, the word catching between us because his lips came back to mine.
The metallic taste of blood bloomed across my tongue, and honestly, the flavor enhanced his kiss all the more. In the distance, there was a sound, nothing my brain fully registered until my captor lifted his head.
“Oh, uh…” a voice stuttered. “I’ll come back.”
Suddenly, my lips were alone, and I stared at the way his hair stuck out all over the back of his head. Proof my hands were just there. Seeing that coupled with the sound of his raspy voice, I realized we were no longer alone.
The bravery of the girl willing to bite her lover suddenly disappeared, leaving behind someone shy who ducked into the one who held her.
The sound of the door closing made him turn back. Peeking up from where I basically hid, I watched him smile.
“Your sister saw us?” I whispered.
He nodded.
Groaning, I dropped my forehead onto his shoulder. The husky note in his chuckle made my thighs clench around his waist.
“She’s gone.” He promised, dipping low.
Pressing my fingers against his forehead, I stopped him from getting any closer. “You should put me down now.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to.”
“We’re in public.”
“There’s no one else in this room but us.”
“This is your sister’s room.” I spoke, emphasizing the word sister.
A distasteful glint came into his stare, his lips twisting into a disgruntled snarl. “You started it.”
“And I’m the one who’s ending it.”
My legs untangled from around his frame, but Neo took his sweet time sliding me down his body, making me ache even more than I already was.
The second my feet hit the floor, my knees gave out. When I clutched him for support, he lifted, pushing me back into the wall as my legs wrapped around his waist again.
“One thing about me,” he murmured, grazing my earlobe with his teeth. My entire body hummed with desire as I tried to hear the rest of what he spoke. “I don’t like to be told what to do.”
His lips devoured me once more, coaxing mine open, delving his tongue deep to explore all the places he’d yet to feel. Giving up all my weight to him and the wall, I surrendered to the onslaught of the passion curling between us.
One hand palmed my butt, kneading the flesh and making my quivering thighs tighten around his waist.
Pain shot through my injured finger when my hands clawed at his back, but I ignored it and tightened my grip even more.
When his hips rolled into my core, I whimpered, head falling to the side. Neo kept kissing, his lips moving across my jaw, face burying in the side of my neck where he sucked a sweet spot I didn’t even know existed.
A persistent knock broke us apart, my chest heaving when Neo turned to glance at the closed door. “What?”
“People are here looking for Ivory,” Virginia whisper-yelled.
His head whipped back around, and our eyes collided. The gentle way he cupped my cheek was far different from the way we’d just kissed.
“Guess our time’s up, princess.”
42
Neo
* * *
The door opened, and everything changed. Two worlds crashed, and it seemed I was the only one who felt the collision.
“Oh my God,” a man said, swift, confident footsteps carrying him into the room. “It is you.”
The very air around him felt oddly pristine, almost like it should sparkle. I bet if he smiled, one of his teeth would do that light reflecting thing you only saw in cheesy movies.
“Ethan!” Ivory gasped, moving out from behind me.
It took all my self-control to not snatch her back.
“Do you have any idea how worried everyone has been?” he scolded, but then he was hugging her, his broad frame making her disappear from sight.
My back teeth came together as I glared at the top of his neatly styled blond head. When he pulled back, he still held her, one hand on each arm. His blue eyes roamed over her, and he announced, “You look awful.”
Stiffening, I almost told him where he could go, but before I could, Ivory replied.
“I know!” she wailed. “I’ve never felt so dirty in all my life!”
“What happened to your hair?” he asked, releasing one arm to touch one of the limp, uneven strands.
“You don’t even want to know,” she said, mock shuddering.
“I’ll call Marco from the car. I’ll have him ready your team.” He decided, adjusting the pale-pink silk tie knotted at his neck.
The navy-blue suit jacket he wore looked like it cost more than an entire month’s rent and somehow hugged his body like it was made just for him.
Oh. Right. It probably was.
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.
Me? Bitter?
Ha-ha-ha-ha. Can you hear me laughing?
So what if he looked like he also stepped out of a storybook? So what if they stood there in the middle of the room, carrying on an easy conversation as though she were completely comfortable in his company?
He wasn’t the one Ivory’s legs had wrapped around just moments ag
o.
He’s her betrothed. The reminder yelled through my head so loud I actually looked around, wondering who the hell yelled it.
It was you, wasn’t it?
Fine. Maybe I was bitter… but just a smidge.
“What happened?” Ethan asked, his gaze finally lifting from Ivory and snapping right to me. “Are you being held hostage? I’ve brought the police.” Still looking at me, he called, “In here!”
Two uniformed men who were definitely not from around here and who definitely made Fig look even more like a putz than he already did rushed into the room.
My God. How many more people would squish themselves in here?
The thought made me think of Virginia. This was her room. Her space. It didn’t need to be treated this way.
“V!” I called, ignoring the cops and the accusatory looks Ethan was drilling into me.
Dude was wearing a pink tie. I wasn’t scared.
But he’s her fiancé.
Stop yelling that at me! What kind of readers are you? You’re gonna have to pick a team here. Team Misfit or Team Prince.
Go ahead. Choose.
I’ll wait.
…
Oh my God. I’m the one acting like I’m in some sort of storybook now.
Forget it.
But wait, you were totally gonna pick me, right?
“Virginia!” I yelled again, still not seeing my sister.
“I’m right here,” she said, her wheelchair smoothly rolling into the room. The officers stepped aside, allowing her room to enter.
“Hey,” I said, dropping down beside her chair, putting a hand on her knee. It was a touch she couldn’t feel, a touch that really couldn’t comfort her, and just knowing that made me need to pause for a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry for bringing all this here. This is a lot. I’ll clear everyone out and give you some space.”
Virginia’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding? This is the most excitement I’ve had in years! This is better than Netflix!”
“Ooh! Have you watched that new show called Stranded?” Ivory asked, her voice filled with animation.
“The one with the teenagers stranded on an island together after some freak hurricane?” Virginia exclaimed. “I watched the entire season in two days!”
Ivory White : A House of Misfits Standalone Page 22
