Dark Secrets

by A. M. Hudson

  The patters of rain stopped completely then and the beads of water glistening in David’s hair and over his lashes looked almost out of place. His golden skin showed through his white t-shirt, made almost see-through by the rain, hugging the curvy bulk of his chest and arms. He spread the collar and slipped it past his head, peeling it away, all sticky and soggy, from his skin, then dropped it to the grass beside my clothes. I smiled at the pile; he smiled, too.

  The sun wandered in for a peek at this innocent step toward danger, making the water on David’s skin sparkle. He looked as though he was starring in the wrong storybook.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “I like the sun on your skin.”

  He angled his arm outward and studied it, running a hand down the droplets, his eyes flashing to another thought for a second.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “What were you just thinking?”

  “Oh. Uh—just that…” He laughed. “I hope the rain didn’t soak through my jeans.”

  “Why?” I asked, watching him unbutton them.

  “Because,” he said, slipping them down his hips. “My briefs are white.”

  “So?” I said, but as soon as I heard my own words, the white of his shirt, all see-through with the water, registered in my mind. “Oh.”

  He winked and tossed his jeans aside, allowing me a moment to scrutinise. My waterfall gaze drifted over his broad shoulders and the tight skin across his chest, down the cagey ripples of his ribs, stopping at the thick band of his underwear. Above those, there wasn’t the obvious six-pack I kind of expected, just that nicely contoured ‘V’ leading up smoothly to his ribs.

  A girly giggle twitched at my lips. “I always wondered if you were a boxers or briefs guy.”

  David looked down, then shrugged. “These are kind of in between.”

  “They’re sexy and—” I pouted. “They didn’t get wet.”

  He threw his head back, laughing. “Quite frankly, I’m relieved.”

  “Well—” The heavens forced my gaze away from him, “They won’t be dry for long.”

  “No.” He curled his palm and caught a few raindrops. “I should be taking you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home.”

  “I know.”

  My toes angled inward, my lip hiding behind my teeth as his suggestive smile brought my blood up to my heart in a heat wave. “I want you to come closer.”

  “I know.” His words landed all hot and moist on my face, his chest suddenly inches from mine. “And it’s taking everything in me not to want you right now.”

  I shook my head. “You can want me.”

  David folded over a little, his brow coming to rest on mine; I looked up into the anguish his closed eyes tried to hide. “Lay down,” he whispered, stepping back.

  The grassy bed beneath my feet felt sticky, the summer’s dying heat making the rain rise off it in a warm cloud. David stayed standing, stiff and tall as a tower, while I pressed my palms to the grass, my elbows shaking, and edged jaggedly onto my back, trying to look relaxed.

  “Close your eyes,” he demanded sweetly, still not opening his.

  “Okay,” I said, but after six long breaths and two fistfuls of grass pulled from the soil, only an empty breeze had caressed my half-naked body. I opened my eyes. David?”

  I watched him expectantly, waiting for him to look at me. He didn’t. He was fighting that battle within—the war between the vampire and the human—and as he dropped to one knee, then the other, his fists tight, my main concern was not the possibility of my own death, but that he might deny himself the pleasure of my blood.

  “You remember not to scream, right?”

  I nodded, biting my lower lip.

  Without a second thought, both his hands cupped my face, then slid down my jaw and over the curve of my neck, slipping my bra strap off my shoulder. “Just stay still, Ara.”

  The air coming into my lungs felt empty. “Are you…are you going to take my bra off?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  My eyes opened to his breath on my chin, his lips within reach, his body immensely close but not touching; wanting but not taking, practically floating down the length of mine like he was just a layer of heat in the atmosphere. Every nerve in my brain called out to him; every part of my body, tingling hot, begged him to press himself against me.

  But he didn’t move. He just smiled to himself, leaning on his elbow beside me. “Well, do you want me to take it off you or not?”

  I could feel my pulse, racing like a twitch in my neck; felt my body succumb to the lust—scream out its own instinct-driven desire to die at his hands. But I wasn’t ready to undress completely. “Not yet.”

  His eyes stayed on the bare patch of skin, his lips softly landing there as he smoothed the strap back in place. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, then quickly reached down to scratch my sticky leg. “The grass is just really itchy.”

  “Shall I run to the rock and get the picnic rug?”

  “No,” I said, eyes wide. That would just give him too much time to think about what he didn’t want to do to me.

  He smiled to himself—his secret smile—and cupped my neck, his thumb sliding down over my chin easily with the rain’s assistance, coming to rest just under my jaw, tipping it up to expose my throat. “Your life is in my hands right now,” he whispered against my pulse. “And the most beautiful thing about that, Ara, is that all I can read in your mind is desire.”

  “That's because you don’t scare me, Mr Knight.”

  “I wish I did.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “You’re right,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine as he reached down and took my hand, folding it open to press a firm kiss on the softer, more delicate side. “I like you this way.”

  I looked at his nail sitting ready at my wrist, one firm indent away from releasing my blood. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “Someone to stop me.”

  I gave him a reassuring smile. “I trust you, David.”

  “You shouldn’t.” He traced a shallow, horizontal line, drawing slivers of red out over my milk-white skin, like pinhead rivers running quickly for the sea. But I didn’t feel the cut—just the pressure of his fingers gripping my bone.

  Only a beat passed after that before the black in his eyes washed the human away—the vampire taking control, pressing his teeth down on the outer edges of the wound to open it further. Thousands of tiny bubbles raced up my veins, making my fingers want so badly to flex out and either shove him away or run along his jaw.

  My blood could finally reach him—was deep inside him right now, touching his heart, coursing through his veins, warming everything I could never physically touch. I wanted it to stay there forever. I wanted the sun to go down around us, and rise again tomorrow, leaving us here like this, always.

  I rolled my face to the leaves above, watching them swirl around, while my lungs filled with humid air, the rain moistening the back of my throat with each shallow breath. And the feel of David's thumb in the cup of my palm, holding my hand in place against the stubble on his chin, made me feel so close to him—to the human that loved me; the human that was buried deep beneath desire right now.

  But the trust was magic—almost euphoric, as if the world around me was just a soft echo—like being lost in the perfectly tuned note of a song I’d never heard. I could float away, were it not for David grounding me, keeping me here. I finally knew what it felt like to be his victim; a human that could nourish him, but loved enough to be left alive. I felt the lick of death, felt the peace others must feel when they finally give over to it—how nothing in the world really mattered anymore. In a funny way, it all just seemed kind of silly to worry about the things we did.

  Slowly, David drew away, leaving a moist, cool patch on my wrist, and smiled down at me. A stain of crimson love bled from his lips in rivulets, seeping out over his pe
rfect smile.

  My chest and shoulders lifted with each deep breath, guiding my soul back to the present.

  “Are you okay, my love?”

  I nodded. “I might actually have found Heaven on Earth.”

  David studied my face for a second, then cupped the back of my head and rolled me up, slipping behind me, slowly looping his arms around my shoulders, like the wings of a mother swan. “I think you’re delusional.”

  I giggled quietly, resting my feet beside his, our knees bent, committing the feel of his bare chest on my slippery, rain-soaked spine to memory. If I ignored the breeze making my wet bra cold, I could actually pretend we really were naked together. “Thank you, David.”

  “For what?”

  For letting me have my own way, for wanting it, too, for not denying that he wanted it, for being more than just an ordinary boy—for… “For being real.” I tucked my brow against his ear and slowly tickled the back of his wrist, imagining his blood in my mouth.

  “You don’t have to imagine it, Ara,” he said, kissing the bone above my eye. “If you want it, you can have it.”

  “Really?” I turned slightly at the shoulders to look back at him.

  He lifted his wrist and shut his eyes tight for a second, and when I snuggled my spine against his chest again, saw red gush out over his skin. He tipped his arm, balancing the liquid there as he slowly offered it to my lips.

  Without hesitation, I opened my mouth and scooped up the runaway drops with my tongue, wrapping my lips around his arm, the warmth of sweet orange-chocolate flooding my mouth like liquid made of satin ribbons.

  “Describe it to me,” he whispered into my hair. “In your thoughts.”

  I swirled the warm blood around on my tongue and let it slide down my throat, into my stomach—like the first hot cocoa of winter; smooth and rich, warm—like his voice. You taste like...like...

  “Okay.” He slid his index finger against my lip then down my chin, gently pulling my face away from his wrist. “That’s enough, my love. I’m not sure what it’ll do to you.”

  Through the whir of the world spinning around me, I turned my head and looked up into David’s eyes, filling with that amazing, almost transparent shade of green, but brighter than ever before—Dorothy’s Emerald City illustrated in the gaze of a vampire. “David, I think I can see your soul.”

  He closed his eyes around a smile. “You are so damn sweet.”

  I licked my teeth, tasting his blood again. “Mm, no, you are.”

  “I am, huh?” He looked at my lips, moving slowly onto his knees in front of me. “Let me taste it.”

  I opened my mouth to touch David’s, his tongue skimming across mine, pushing it away from the sharp edges of his fangs. Warm sweet butter and salty copper mixed in our kiss, and it almost felt like David and I were thinking the same thing—thinking how amazing it was to taste the essence of him and me; everything that made us exist broken down to flavour between our lips—tangible, real.

  My body sung with ideas and desires too long refused.

  “I know,” David whispered into my breath.

  “You know what?” I angled my face to the sky, laying back on my elbows as his lips travelled down my neck, over each and every one of the tiny scars there.

  “I know how you feel.”

  I moaned, my breath expelling in a half gasp as his lips circled my navel suddenly. “Mm. I don’t think you do.”

  He laughed, my wet skin making the path of his breath obvious.

  “David.” I parted my knees and let him kiss my inner thigh, feeling his wet hair drip against my undies. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to know every inch of your body by only the memory of my lips.”

  My eyes flung open as he kissed fabric, folding it down over my hips a little.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t go there—today.”

  Droplets of rain tickled my flesh, skimming silkily over my belly, staying on my skin until they reached my back, soaking away into the ground then. It was cold, I could tell, and I hoped the goosebumps over my skin, probably making my legs prickly, didn’t turn David off touching me.

  “You’re not prickly, Ara,” David said, caressing the underside of my knee delicately, bringing my ankle up over his hip as he drank the rain from the curve of my waist.

  I drove my fingers into his wet hair, following the movements of his head against my skin. “David?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I want to feel you against me.”

  “I know you do,” he said, and when I hooked my fingers just under his elbows and tugged him upward, his bare chest and arms slipped across my body, stealing a quick gasp as I felt him on top of me for the first time. It was like a hunger finally fed; a wave finally meeting a rock, dissolving into spray. For everything else in the world that made me cry, in this moment I finally found life. I wanted to tear away the wet remains of fabric between us and feel him inside me.

  He laughed breathily into the flesh just below my ear. “Ara, I can't think straight when you think that way.”

  “Don’t then. When you think straight, you deny me what I want.”

  He stopped and pushed up slowly on his elbows, elevating his chest from mine.

  I stared him down, beads of water blinding me, the rain pouring into our quiet little world as if it had no care for the fact that our forever was limited. “I know what you’re doing,” I said. “I know you’re about to tell me we have to stop.”

  “I have good reason for that.” He rose onto his knees, keeping his hands beside my shoulders, his body forming a shelter over mine.

  “What reason?”

  David nodded to the now dark sky. “That rain’s gonna get heavier any minute.”

  “No. This sucks! You never give me my own way.”

  “That, my love, is because your own way involves me taking something from you I'm not willing to take.”

  “My virginity?”

  A cheeky grin spread across his face, golden under the grey sky. “Yes.”

  “Oh, my holy, freakin’ God. You have got to be kidding me!”

  “Sorry. I'm not.”

  With the cold conclusiveness of reason, the small split in my wrist started stinging. “Why? Is my virginity like kryptonite or something?”

  “No. Even better.” He dropped a quick kiss on my mouth. “It’s sacred.”

  “Sacred?” My arched brow thickened the sarcasm.

  He breathed out through his nose, closing his lips into a thin smile. “Yes, my love. You will always remember your first. If you choose not to come with me, one day you will fall in love with someone else, and you’ll want to be pure—untainted—for him. If I take you now, you can never go back. I would hate for you to regret any of our interactions one day.”

  “David. This is the new world. It doesn’t work like that now.”

  “That may be so, but it still works that way for me.” His wide, sincere eyes looked right into mine, his voice intense with conviction. “In my society, virginity is a virtue to be praised and cherished, not something girls give away without reflection or care.”

  “But—”

  “Ara, please? It’s what I want for you.” His harsh tone forced me into silence. “Sometimes you can think too much with your heart and not enough with your head. I have to be the adult here. I have to protect you from yourself—from your human nature.”

  “But, David, I can take care of myself. I’m a big—”

  “It’s my job to protect you,” he scolded then softened. “Even if it means I’m falling apart.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m sorry, Ara.”

  “I said it’s fine.” I looked to the side, tears coating my eyes.

  “Come on then—” He pulled away a little, helping me to my feet, standing closer while I closed my eyes, waiting for the world to stop dancing. “You okay?”

  I nodded, rolling my undies back to the correct position.

  “Okay, let�
��s get you home before you catch a cold.”

  “No.” I threw my arms around his ribs and cupped my wrist, forming a chain of unyielding force. “We’re staying a little longer today.”

  “Is that so? And…” He tried to lift my chin; I held fast, refusing to even look at him. He gave in. “What exactly are you going to do if I decide to force you?”

  “You won’t.”

  “Hm, you’re so sure of yourself,” he said, but I heard the smile in his tone, and the fact that he did nothing else except tangle his fingertips in the hair at the nape of my neck and hold me, proved I was right.

  My bones turned to rubber inside my flesh, loving the closeness of skin on skin, with my vampire. And though the summer rain continued, I felt only warmth. His blood had awakened me, like a powerful drug, and mine had filled his veins—giving him life, fuelling his movements. There was no fear—no weight to the truth right now that, one day, he'd be gone, and my arms would fall empty to my sides—the feel of his embrace gone, his body gone, his smile just a memory fading, and his lips, never more a kiss that belonged to me.

  But I owned it now.

  I smiled into his skin.

  Despite everything that waited, despite everything I knew would happen, it felt like I could exist eternally, living forever in this one breath of closeness with my everlasting knight. For today, there was no tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Ara-Rose?” Vicki called from downstairs.

  “Yeah?” I answered quickly so she wouldn't come up and spot my vampire pillow.

  “Emily’s on the phone,” she said.

  “Ergh! Why’d she call the home line?” I said to myself. “I have a mobile.”

  “She was probably hoping your dad would answer,” David said, his voice a gentle hum against my ear through his bare chest.

  “If that’s the case, she needs therapy.”

  “Good, then you could go together.”

  I slapped his arm; he pretended to be hurt, rolling up a little.