by Jane West
After a tense moment of silence, I snapped. “Fine!” I snatched up the drink and threw my head back, and downed a huge gulp. When I came back up for air, I began coughing and sputtering as if I'd swallowed fire. The cold liquid slipped down my throat. It burned as it hit my gut and painted my face scarlet red. “Geez!” I croaked. “How do you drink this nasty stuff?”
Without a sound, Bane watched having no reflection on his angelic face.
We were so close our shoulders flushed. I suddenly became aware of that familiar woodsy scent.
Bane disrupted my thoughts. “Feeling better?”
I scoffed. “Are you asking if I'm drunk?”
“Keep sipping, Love.” He tipped the can to my lips as he held a dictator’s glint. “You drink all your juice like a good little girl, and I shall tell you a tantalizing tale.” He didn't bother to hide the sarcasm in his voice.
I glared at him. His attitude grated on me. “I don’t understand why I’m here, and you're force-feeding me this shit?”
“You had a panic attack.”
“Panic attack?” my eyes orbed. Why didn’t I remember?
Impatience crept into his voice. “Drink!” He ordered.
I shot him a sharp glare as I unwillingly complied.
A tense silence enveloped the car as tall-dark-and-dictator continued to watch me. His fixation chafed me, like a bad rash, but I continued to drink the liquor. I took another swig, staring out my side window.
After a while, the burn subsided, and the bourbon started to warm my toes. I reckoned folks tolerated the awful taste for the effects.
I glanced up under my lashes at the iceberg. My eyes dropped to Bane's plump lips. I wondered if the upshot of alcohol improved the intensity of a kiss. Whata stupid thing to think, I scolded myself.
Finally, I polished off the last drop. The best way to describe my condition was nice! “Okay, all gone. Happy?” I smirked, turning the can upside down.
“Very,” An expression of satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. He took the can and tossed it in the white bag.
“I have questions.” My words sounded slurred.
“Yes, that’s what you keep saying.”
“Why haven’t you answered my questions then?” My forehead wrinkled, irritated.
“I am waiting for your query.”
I nearly came out of my seat. “Stop playing with me!”
Bane answered with staid calmness. “I never play with pressing matters.”
“Why do you talk weird?
He drew in a long breath while studying me with his icy blues. “Because I do not speak the offensive slang of a teenager, and I choose my words wisely, in your eyes, I am condemned?”
I rolled my eyes. “I just think if you used words in this century, you might be more likable.” I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
Bane stared at me and then burst out laughing. His laugh was low, throaty. “Winning a popularity contest is the last thing on my mind.” He tilted his head and whispered. “If you weren’t besotted, I’d kiss you until you fainted.”
“Besotted? What does that mean?”
“Forgive me.” He smiled to himself. “I meant drunk.” His brow flickered a little.
“Who uses the word, besotted?" I laughed. "Are you even from this century?”
“Does it matter when all I can think about is your cherry lips?" His voice felt naughty.
There was a tingling in the pit of my stomach. Still, I was terrified of how far he’d go. Even worse, I was terrified of how far I’d let him. “It’s your fault that I’m drunk.”
“I suppose it is.” Bane ignored my accusation as he gently kissed my flushed cheek. I shut my eyes tight, not able to stop myself from shivering. “What questions placate your beautiful mind?” He whispered as his lips seared a path down my neck, my shoulders.
Jesus! Despite my conflicted heart, I wanted him.
When he raised his mouth from me, he gazed into my eyes. He possessed an air of self-confidence as if he’d popped my cherry, which rubbed me the wrong way.
I decided to stomp the brakes on my erotic fantasy. “Stop touching me! I can’t think.” Apart from being tipsy, doing the deed for the first time in a car didn't appeal to me.
His heavy-lidded eyes gleamed like a tomcat finishing his dinner of cream. “If that is your wish.”
“Whatever!” I rolled my eyes. Geez, did he think his charm and dimples could make my panties drop? I huffed, exasperated. “Okay, since you asked. Let’s start with how you managed to keep from running me down that day I was on my bike. And let’s not forget the explosion in the girls’ restroom. How did that happen?” I held my chin up, though my head swam with alcohol murk and sexual tension.
Bane hesitated, measuring me for a moment. His carnal eyes made me squirm.
“Why are you so hell bent on an answer?” His voice appeared carefully colored in neutral shades.
“Why are you avoiding the answer?”
His distrust chilled his eyes with reserve.
“Well?” I pushed, holding my gaze to his.
“Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone.” He said with detached inevitability.
“So, you’re not going to tell me?”
“Trust me when I say you are better off not knowing.” His face closed as if guarding a secret.
“Can’t I be the judge of that?”
“Let’s just say you were very lucky that I have quick reflexes.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
I laughed. “Yeah, right! If you’re a vampire or a stupid werewolf, maybe,” I shook my head, disbelieving him.
“I assure you there are creatures far worse than your vivid imagination. I am neither one of those imaginary creatures, but I am not your typical man either.”
An oddly primitive warning sounded in my brain. “So you’re dangerous?” I saw with my own eyes what he was capable of doing, coupled with other unexplained events that left me thirsty for answers and frightened me even more.
“When it is necessary, yes,” Annoyance rose from his tone. “Shall we move to the next question?”
That single comment set alarm bells ringing. “You’re not going to hurt me are you?” I blurted out.
His dark brows shot up, surprised. “No. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“You are always on my tail whenever I get myself into a fix. How is that possible?” I knew I was poking him. I saw it in his tense shoulders. He was uncomfortable with my questions, yet I couldn’t stop myself.
“You should leave it alone.” His expression darkened with an unreadable emotion.
“You mean I should leave you alone?" Strange and disquieting thoughts began to race through my mind.
“Some things may interest you, but it is not worth its hand of fate.”
“Fate?”
He sighed, irritated. “Meaning, death.”
“Oh!” My breath seemed to have solidified in my throat.
Bane reclined back in his seat, studying me with his piercing blues. His hands clasped over his chest. “You ask a fair amount of questions.”
“It’s a bad habit of mine.”
Then my temper got the best of me, and the words rolled off my tongue like acid. “You know, this conversation is tiring. Bye Felicia!” I tossed him a razor-sharp glare, unsnapped my seatbelt and fled from the car.
At that point, I didn't care if I knew my way back to town. I had to leave before I lost my mind to this lunatic.
I darted off with fright in my back pocket, but before I’d cleared the car, Bane had beaten me to the punch. With his arms folded across his chest in a dark stance, he stood, blocking me.
I screamed out, startled. “Shit!”
“Don’t make me chase you.” A sudden thin chill hung on the edge of his words.
Pivoting on my heels, I darted off in the opposite direction, but before my feet took flight, I collided into his chest. Bane was fast. Inhumanly fast.
“I want to leave!” I at
tempted to pass him, but he sidestepped my move. I tried the opposite side and then once more, he blocked me as if he knew my thoughts before I did. I blinked, stunned. “What do you want from me?”
He gathered a loose curl in his fingers that had fallen on my face and brushed it behind my ear. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to frighten you.” The earnest in his blues confused me.
“You must want something or else you’d leave me alone?”
“I want nothing,” he whispered.
“Then why are you holding me against my will?” I spat.
Bane reached to caress my check, but I flinched from his touch. He inhaled a deep sigh and dropped his hand to his side. “I don’t mean to mislead you.” His face was bleak with sorrow. “In my world, life doesn’t afford choices. I do what I do because I am expected to. It is like breathing. I have no other option other than death.”
“I don’t understand. Can you just say what's on your mind?”
His flat, unspeaking eyes prolonged the moment and then he revealed his truth. “I don’t care for your company.”
Suddenly, I got the urge to punch the dude in the nose. “Why? Because I’m not good enough to run in your circle?”
He tipped his head upward to the sky, releasing a frustrated sigh. Then he focused back to me. “My aversion toward you has nothing to do with you. Yet it has everything.” He stated, no trace of any human emotion.
“If I bother you so much then why do you keep coming around?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I scoffed. “It matters to me!”
“Regardless of how hard I try.” He paused as if he was struggling internally. “We are connected.”
“That’s your hormones talking, asshat!” I screamed. “Take me home! I never want to see you again.” I crossed my arms.
“This between us isn’t that simple.” He spoke defensively. “I’ve been fighting its lure, and I am failing. And,” he gritted his teeth. “I never fail at anything!”
“I’m sorry, am I supposed to feel pity for you?”
His lips tightened. “Perhaps if I show you, you will understand.” In the next blink, he tossed his shirt off to the ground and jerked my hand roughly to his bare chest, pressing my palm against a warm patch of hair and then he placed my other hand just under my shirt over my heart. “Listen!” he growled.
Instantly, I flinched, trying to free my hand, but his ironclad grip overpowered me.
I glared at him, forced to comply.
Time had ticked several seconds before he interjected. “Do you feel it?”
I gasped. His heart was beating as erratically as mine but simultaneously as in singular. Startled, I pulled away. “This is crazy!” I cradled my hand as if injured.
Bane's voice softened to a mere whisper. “Have you ever felt this alive before?”
“No,” I replied, shocked. Then a little weirded out, I recanted. “I don’t know!” I weaved my fingers through my hair. “How could this be real?” I snapped. “And this is your reason why you can’t stay away?”
“Yes.” His vexation was evident.
“You don’t like me because of this?” I glared at him. “But, you’d sleep with me?”
“At times you do have your redeeming qualities.” The glint of humor flickered but quickly extinguished in his blues. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not the kind of man that settles down with one woman. I never have and I never will regardless of how much I want you in my bed. I will never make you happy. I don’t foresee a future for us together.”
“Oh, I don’t know; the day is still young!” I popped off. “You’re really a douche!”
“Name calling isn’t polite, Love.”
“Go fuck yourself!” I turned my back to him. Deep sobs racked my insides.
“Look! I don't like it any more than you do.”
“I’m sorry!” I tossed over my shoulder. “I don’t recall the ball and chain tethered to your ankles.”
“Look at me, please.” Did I hear Bane plead? “Look at me!” His voice appeared gentle, yet demanding.
When I wouldn’t comply, he grabbed my chin and forced me to face him. “You’re better off not knowing me.” Unexpectedly, his blues softened. “I’d rather hurt your feelings than ruin your life. You should have a normal life, marry a nice boy.”
“I don’t understand! You’ve been pursuing me! Only a hot minute ago you were coming on to me.”
“I’m a guy. What can I say?” He threw up his hands, half-shrugging.
“I’m done with this conversation.” I flashed him a dark smothering look and spun on my heels. "I'm walking back."
I didn’t get far before his iron fingers dug into my arm.
“Let go of me. You’re hurting me!”
Ignoring my request, he reclaimed my lips, crushing me to him. His kisses were like the soldering heat that joined metals.
At first, I resisted, still pissed and hurt. But he was a master at getting what he wanted, and I was too weak to fight. I welded to his will.
When he stopped, he released me with a jolt. I stepped back, wiping away his kiss with the back of my hand.
“I can’t deny that I want you. You’re in my head, my blood, even my soul.” He slightly panted. “But we both know this will end badly.” His eyes saddened. “For you, mostly.”
“That is the lamest excuse I've ever heard.” I threw the words at him like stones. "You don't care about my welfare. The real reason is that I'm an embarrassment to you."
Bane's lips tightened. "That's not what I said!"
“Isn't it? That's what you mean, Bane. Come on be a man and tell me the real reason why?"
He stood there blank faced. He couldn't even give me the courtesy to admit the truth.
“I want to go home!” Fury almost choked me.
“Very well, I think you’re composed enough now for us to return.” He glowered at me and turned away.
Bane pulled up in the school’s parking lot and stopped beside my car. I got the impression by the stone line in his jaw; he was more than ready to dispose of me.
I dithered a short minute, not daring to gaze into his blues. I held my eyes straight ahead, as I spoke. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Get some rest.” His voice was strangely tender. “And stay out of trouble.” The tip of his upper lip promised a smile, but the glint in his blues proposed antipathy.
“I can’t make any promises. After all, I am a wayward teenager.” I added with a slight smile of defiance.
There was a pale blue lightning of amusement between his sooty lashes. “My Princess, you are many things. However, wayward is not one.”
Our eyes locked for an instant. There was a spark of indefinable pain in his eyes. It puzzled me.
Then the magic vanished as he withdrew a sharp breath and looked away.
I had feelings for Bane, a longing that I could no longer deny. I opened the door and slid out, shutting the door behind me.
I got into my car and cranked it up and sped away. I glanced in my rearview mirror. Bane hadn't left. He sat idled in his car. It was not until I left the parking lot that he'd sped off in the opposite direction. I wanted to forget him. The problem was --- my heart had a will of its own.
Shortly after, I pulled up into my driveway. Once I entered the house, not bothering a light switch, I crumbled to my knees, sobbing in darkness. “Damn him and my life!” I wept. “Why does life have to be so difficult? And why do I have to like a boy who hates me?” I pounded the floor with my fist. His words rushed through my mind, and the intensity of pain clung to my chest. All lies. Including his stupid theory, our hearts in sync, my ass! And where’s the ocean front property in Arizona? Yeah, rite!
After several moments of having a full-blown meltdown, my breathing eased as I let the quiet of the house soak into my weary bones and frayed mind. I stretched out on the cool floor. Usually, I embraced the silence. This evening felt different. I thought about calling Jen and decided against it. I didn'
t feel up to the challenge, and my head pounded from a headache far too severe to harp on Bane.
I had other worries that were more important. Something strange was going on with me that had me rattled. For example, Bane claimed that I had a panic attack. Strangely, I didn’t remember it. In fact, the last thing I recalled before waking up in his car was talking to Sam at my locker. Weird! Everything else after that I drew a blank. Maybe this all stemmed from my head injury. Crap! That was a scary thought amnesia.
One thing I agreed with Bane, that I needed to steer clear of him. He needn’t worry. I got that memo. Aight?
Man in Black
Bright and early my alarm went off at 5 a.m. I realized I’d forgotten that I no longer delivered papers. I huffed and slammed the snooze button. I rolled on my back, staring at the ceiling. The room was dark as the house was quiet.
I always tried to look at the silver lining, as dim as things seemed, I had my car back, up and running. Good as that may be, I didn’t want to face the day. I didn’t want to face school, Sara, and especially Bane.
I was chomping at the bit whether or not I should go to school today. Then again, I’d missed so much lately. My grades were going to reflect my neglect too. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d worked too hard to throw in the towel now. I blew out a puff of ireful breath.
I rolled out of bed and proceeded to get ready for school.
By the time I reached Tangi High, there were only a couple of cars in the parking lot. I was early. “Oh, yeah!” I mumbled sarcastically. I reached from the back seat and snatched up my book bag. It was a pleasant morning, rather on the warm side. Louisiana's weather was crazy like that. I decided to sit underneath the oak tree and catch up on schoolwork that I’d been postponing.
I shrugged my coat off, spreading it out flat on the damp grass and popped a squat. I eased a breath, lifting my eyes up through the branches of the tree. Fall had set, and the leaves had changed to a gold and bright orange. I loved this time of the year. I closed my eyes for a minute, letting the sun's warmth caress my face.
Then with regret, I cracked open my math book and proceeded to do my assigned lesson, calculus.
