by L. B. Dunbar
“Do you want those things?” I asked, my voice hushed as I inhaled her scent, breathing over her neck. The slow rise and fall of her chest exhilarated me while she struggled with an answer. I could give her those things. I would willingly lap her up and drink her in, but I couldn’t stand if she hated me afterward.
Her shoulder shrugged in response at the same time she said, “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“I could make it my business.” I lowered my nose to skim her neck, and her head tilted away from me, allowing me access to glide over her smooth skin and inhale her refreshing fragrance. “Has anyone ever given you pleasure like that?”
As if the hitch to her breath didn’t answer the question, the slightest shake of her head gave me what I needed. I could make her feel good. I could give her this kind of teasing, tempting torture, but somehow, I knew Katie would want more than warm whiskey on sensitive skin. She’d want a burn that ran deep, a love that singed, and I couldn’t give her that. I pulled back from skimming her throat and she turned to look at me. She tossed a lazy, seductive stare over her shoulder, and I was ready to take her in the darkened corner of the museum. Honor and emotions be damned. Sweet Katie had no idea the looks she could give, melting a man and making him think of all kinds of sin. My hand came up to cup her cheek.
“I shouldn’t kiss you here.” Her throat rolled and her fingers came to her shoulder.
“How about here?” I chuckled and tipped my head to press a weak kiss over her sweater-covered skin. Pulling back, I met those extra-large eyes. I couldn’t see the color but I knew the dark would almost surpass the blue.
“Or here?” she croaked, letting two fingers slide up her neck, exposing her tender vein. My kiss was soft once again, but the combination of her sweet scent and moist skin turned my tease to temptation. I nipped her. Her shoulder pressed back and her hand fell to the floor. Fists clenched as her body hummed in reaction.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” She shook her head, but her skin vibrated. Her raised knees came together, and her fists opened to lay flat on the floor.
“Tell me,” I demanded. Shaking her head again, her chin quaked under my fingers, tracing her jaw.
“Tell me, or I’ll bite you again.”
“Oh God,” she whimpered low, before she hissed. “Please.”
Fuck me, she was sweet, so I took another taste. This time a little deeper, adding enough pressure to the tense vein, knowing it sent a jolt directly to a hidden target.
“Tell me,” I barked against her skin, blowing to soften the sting.
“I want to straddle you and pin you to the wall,” she hissed. I rolled back from her and stared straight ahead into the dimly lit balcony. I couldn’t take her here, in a darkened museum, but I was so stiff I couldn’t breathe. My Katie had a saucy side. I reached for her hand and tugged her to her feet. The movement was too quick for me and I stumbled a little, my hand coming to my right thigh. I hobbled a second, still cupping her hand with mine.
“Are you all right?”
“Not yet,” I groaned, but I’m gonna be, I thought. I tugged her gently behind me as we crossed the balcony and snuck down a flight of stairs. Tiptoeing at times, as if on a secret mission, I didn’t wish to alert security to our wanderings after the official call to remain in our sections. The lights dimmed throughout shone brighter in the main areas and we slunk around the great foyer for a second staircase.
“Where are we going?” she whisper-hissed, a touch of a giggle mixed in.
“You’ll see.” We entered a smaller exhibit room, the display within still lit.
“It’s a castle,” she whispered, her hands coming up to the glass enclosure housing a gigantic dollhouse. Katie read the caption: “Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle was every girl’s dream home, built to miniature scale, it houses a grand staircase among its amenities within the antique castle.”
She stopped, her forehead pressed to the case.
“I love fairy tales,” she mumbled to the glass.
“Somehow, I figured,” I snorted softly behind her, unable to keep my hands from her. Katie’s eyes roamed the structure while my hands wandered her body, travelling the curve of her hips, dipping under her sweater to make contact with warm skin at her back.
“I had a playhouse when I was a child. Emily’s nana owned it before Emily inherited the house. You had to bring her a handful of flowers to play in it. Weeds were acceptable.”
“Hmm…” I hummed into her neck, chuckling at the memory. I vaguely recalled the white structure at the back of her parents’ yard. “And what did you play inside the house?” My mind raced with the idea of her pretending she was the mother of a family. Somehow, I didn’t like the thought of a boy making her his pretend wife. Would she pretend with me for a little while? I wondered. Be my fairy tale for just a moment, I thought but would never admit I wanted to make believe as well.
“I played princess to my best friend Gee slaying dragons for me. Often times, I slayed them myself and saved him instead.” She giggled softly as my nose skimmed her neck, and my finger tugged the edge of her sweater to get at her collarbone. My lips covered her succulent skin, and Katie’s hips bucked back.
“Tell me your fantasy. Inside that house, what would you want to do?” My hands dropped to her waist and I held her against me. Grinding forward, I pressed her into the case, balancing her against the ancient display. Her palms flattened and her forehead tapped the glass momentarily.
“I…” Her breath hitched as the heavy length of me laid at the seam of her jeans.
“Would you like to be taken on those stairs?” I whispered as I blew over her neck—her fine hairs bristling as she inhaled sharply. My hips rolled forward.
“Or maybe against the wall?” I could sense her eyes traveling the delicate rooms of the castle, tracing each wall for the perfect place for spontaneity. My fingers roved the supple curves of her body, dragging upward under her sweater.
“Or maybe hidden in a forbidden closet?” I offered as my eyes drifted to a small space on the second floor. My hands climbed her sides, teasingly close to her breasts.
“Although nothing could compare to that canopy bed.” The implication was clear. I’d spread her wide on the four-poster bed, draped in heavy material, and ravage her like her historical heroines.
She spun. Her hands delved over my short hair, cupping the back of my head, and her mouth leapt for mine. Our lips fought one another, searching, seeking control. This was my favorite type of battle, and I relished the struggle while her lips held firmly, forcing my mouth to connect with hers. Her center hit my thigh when I dipped my knee between hers. I pressed upward and Katie’s head fell back.
“Levi, we probably shouldn’t be doing this,” she moaned, meeting me thrust for thrust as the sweet heat between her thighs warmed my leg. Her leg rose, and I hooked a hand under her knee, hitching her thigh higher, shifting myself to align our centers and allowing myself to press deeper. It wasn’t going to be close enough.
“Levi…I…” The catching of her breath was the first signal. Her thigh firmly wrapped around my hip as she rocked against me. Her nails clawed down the back of my neck and her fingers stopped to rest on my shoulders. My mouth returned to her throat where I nipped her again on that vein near her shoulder.
“I thought you said we shouldn’t be doing this,” she whimpered, but her rocking body opposed her words. She should stay away from me. I was the fire-breathing dragon invading her castle, but God help me, I couldn’t stay away from her. I needed her, like the mythical creature needed heat. My solid length thrust heavily, speaking to her with my body. I was no longer listening to what we shouldn’t do. The only words I heard were Yes and Levi. I wanted to take her, fully.
She sang my name into my chest, the sound struggling like a strangled scream. Detonation a success, damn, she was hot. Her body slowly coming down from the high, her mid-section going lax, I released her knee, tightening an arm around her waist, and pulle
d her against me.
“Levi, you…” She didn’t finish as her hand skimmed to the band of my jeans. I knew what she would ask, but we didn’t need to go where this was headed. Taking her against a display case didn’t seem the way to claim Katie. Hearing her struggle to contain my name on her lips was enough for me. When I entered this girl, I’d want to hear her scream, and it wouldn’t be in the basement of a stuffy museum.
“I’m fine,” I whispered before giving her a final peck to the neck, ready to step back, but her arms encircled me.
“You hate those words,” she muttered, suddenly holding me tighter. My throat burned with emotion. There were other words I feared, and I didn’t want to ever hear them coming from Katie. She’d break me if she said them and left me. But the way she pressed against me, replete and trusting, I needed to get in touch with my feelings, or those feelings were going to escape me.
Katie
Another letter came to me a few days after the museum.
K –
You and I hold history. Speak to me.
̴ L
I sighed at the paper and pressed it to my chest. For someone mocking my romantic tendencies, Levi had his own, although he was still a mystery to me. Shortly after our stolen moment near the gorgeous miniature castle, Levi told Professor Erickson he needed to leave. Something about AJ. He hadn’t said anything to me, other than collecting his sleeping bag next to mine and excusing himself to tend to AJ’s needs. I couldn’t fault him for the care of his child, I only wish he had more words for me. Then again, I didn’t know how to describe what he’d done to me. That nip at my neck destroyed me, unleashing something I didn’t know I held within myself. I became unhinged, ready to tackle him to the museum floor and make him kiss me.
Penelope teased that she’d tap her own vein and let a hot vampire take his pleasure from her if the opportunity ever arose. In the dark of the museum, I felt that same way. Amongst the history of those long dead, I felt more alive than I’d ever felt, until he left. Then my heart ridiculed me for wanting more from him, and admonished me for thinking I could be anything other than a schoolgirl with a crush on an unobtainable man—rock star syndrome or something. I cursed myself for my romantic notions and glittery dreams, for an imagination too ripe for its own good, but then I’d stared at this note and wondered what I was missing.
The night at the museum was like a dance, a masquerade. Not that I had experience with such a fantastical party, but the back and forth was clear. Levi and I gravitated toward one another in the group, and then we’d catch the other staring, and separate. We’d come near one another again until our hands bumped or shoulders tapped, and then one of us would turn in a different direction, avoiding the other. I thought I wouldn’t survive the night, hyperaware of his every movement, yet separated by an unspoken distance. And then he crossed the hall and set his sleeping bag next to mine. When he read the book I was reading, dirty story time abound. Hot and bothered and out of control myself, Levi was apparently at the end of some hypothetical rope because he nearly dragged me down the stairs to the basement where he kissed me madly against the castle exhibit. That night I dreamed of living in such a place, with Levi as my prince, and woke to curse myself. My imagination got the best of me.
* * *
My phone rang during class, startling me.
“Katie?” His voice sounded distant, garbled and weak.
“Levi? Are you drunk?” I whispered as I stepped out of the classroom. I never answered my phone during class. In fact, I normally turned it off, but I must have forgotten.
His silence answered the question.
“Levi, where’s AJ?” Muted crying filled the background as I paced the tiled hallway.
“He’s crying, Katie. Make him stop crying.” His voice faltered. “I can’t help him.” My heart leapt then crashed to my feet. Panic seized me at the urgency in Levi’s voice.
“Just…can you come home?” He choked as if catching the error in his words.
“Levi…” I don’t know why I hesitated.
“Katie, please.” Desperation filled his voice, and I nodded before remembering he couldn’t see me. Then the phone went dead. I called back, but the lack of answer didn’t surprise me, it terrified me. My eyes drifted back to the classroom. I apologized to my professor while I noisily slunk from the room after gathering my bag and computer from the back desk. It felt like I took the longest cab ride in history, every stoplight turning red, every vehicle cutting us off before we finally reached Levi’s street. I was ready to burst from the yellow cab and run the rest of the way. It might have been faster.
Racing up the stairs, I found the door to the second floor already ajar, as if waiting for me. AJ squalled, and I took the steps two at a time to find Levi sitting on the floor, propped up under the bay window. His hands cupped his head, his shoulders slumped forward as his elbows balanced on his knees. A prosthetic leg was on display below his right knee. Shock wasn’t the word to describe my reaction. I had no idea, since I hadn’t seen his leg before. I fell to my knees, my hand hovering over his fiberglass shin.
“What is it?” I exhaled.
Levi’s hands slipped to his ears. He didn’t look up at me.
“Make him stop,” he mumbled, and I pressed upward, running for AJ. His sweet little face bright red. His cries rough from the strain. His eyes closed in emotional pain.
“Shh, baby boy.” Cradling this innocent babe, I was caught between sympathy for AJ and fury at Levi. AJ tried to fight me, arms flailing and feet kicking. He needed a clean diaper. First mission accomplished, I swaddled him snugly in a blanket as if he were a newborn. Lifting him again, I pressed his little head against my shoulder and paced the room a few times, working a path over the worn hardwood floors before his cries settled to hiccups. I rubbed his blanket-covered back and cooed soothing words. Finally, I sat in the glider chair in his room. Pushing off the floor, we slid back and forth until his sounds subsided and he relaxed against me. He shuddered in his sleep, which startled me, but his lip puckered as he drifted off to haunted dreams, probably of his father letting him scream.
Finally, laying AJ in his crib, I felt slightly guilty at releasing him, but I needed to give Levi a piece of my mind before I kicked his ass. When I walked into the living room, the first thing I saw was the bottle next to him. A green glass container, nearly half empty, of Irish whiskey. His prosthetic leg lay flat on the wood floor. His other leg raised, holding up his elbow. With his forehead pressed in his hand, he was asleep sitting upright…or passed out. Slowly, I slipped my body next to his, hoping he might take comfort in my nearness. I nudged Levi, intent on waking him and then decided to let him sleep as I listened to his restless breathing. He shifted his weight and his head eventually fell to my lap. My hand hesitated over his skull. My anger slowly cooled. I struggled again with thoughts to wake him, but as he nuzzled against my leg, my heart pinched with a desire to comfort him instead. What horrors filled his head? I risked stroking over his hair, combing my nails down his scalp. I can’t say how much time passed, but I drifted into a foggy daze with dull memories of things I didn’t wish to recall when his voice startled me.
“I’m a terrible father.” My nails stopped scratching through his short hair, but his hand rose and pressed over my fingers, encouraging me to continue. I should have answered him. I didn’t disagree, but honestly, was he a terrible father? He was drunk in the middle of the afternoon, with his infant child in the other room. Yes. My first response was unequivocally, yes. But then I thought of Levi’s situation. Alone, without the mother of his child. I didn’t know if he had friends. I considered the thought twice before I realized he’d called me of all people. As for family, I remembered briefly he didn’t have any. An older brother, maybe. Once he left for the military, I don’t recall any mention of Levi Walker again, until I saw him on that fateful night of his father’s funeral.
“I don’t think that’s true.” I tried to sound confident in my answer. No, he wasn’t
a bad father, just alone, frustrated maybe, definitely making huge mistakes, but he was human and he was trying to do the right thing.
“I can fight a squad of militants, but I can’t take care of one freaking baby.” He shifted his face and scratched his nose against my thigh, over my jeans, before righting himself again to rest his cheek on my leg. If I thought it possible, I would guess he was crying, but Levi had an edge to him that didn’t include tears.
“Maybe I should give AJ to someone. Someone more responsible, more capable. Someone who will know what to do.” His voice faltered, his words disconcerting. The tears entered my eyes instead.
“I don’t think you mean that.” My scratching increased, a cold fear filling my blood.
“I’m no good at being a father,” he whispered, the sound lazy. My hand froze on his head. I didn’t want to believe him, but his words chilled me. My stomach rumbled with a wave of bile, threatening to erupt at the thought of him ditching his child.
“My mother left me.” My voice shook as I spoke. I never shared the intimate details of a past nearly twenty years old, and yet, still raw. Especially each time I saw toddlers with loving mothers. Levi’s head shifted and he rolled to his back, looking up at me, but I ignored his glare. His eyes drilled a hole in my chin, willing me to peer down at him, but I couldn’t.
“I was only two…”
An alarm had been beeping for what seemed like an endless amount of time. I sat on the comfy bed of my parents with my ears covered. I’d been watching television next to my sleeping mother for two shows of my favorite purple dinosaur. The noise incessantly buzzing.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” I said gently. She didn’t like to be woken, but the noise was too much for me. She might yell at me. It frightened me when she yelled. I’d cry, which would make her angrier, but I was hungry. The cereal was in the lower cabinet since my dad caught me on the counter one morning. My parents had gotten into a big screaming match. I didn’t like that. I could get the cereal myself, but not the milk. The refrigerator was too difficult to open for my tiny arms. It made my dad laugh when I struggled to pull the large handle. Little feet would slide against the floor despite my tugging.
