by Ramona Wray
On the little white deck in front of the cottage, he halted so I could catch up. A couple of reclining chairs sat between potted shrubs and he got rid of his jacket, carelessly tossing it on one. The basic white T-shirt showed strong, tanned arms and set off his dark hair in arresting contrast. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him wearing white before; it looked really good on him.
“It’s usually rented out,” he said, letting me know that the previous topic was closed.
A wave of warmth swirled in my stomach. He was concerned with toning down my discomfort, with putting me at ease. It worked like a charm, too.
“So why do you live in Rosemound, then?”
“Because you do.”
It was said simply, as if we were only discussing the weather. Carefully, I searched for signs that he was lying or messing with me; there weren’t any.
“Why?”
He laughed and it came out as a clipped, sad sound that tightened around my heart like teeth.
“You probably wouldn’t believe me even if I could tell you.”
Silence fell between us, and across it we studied each other gingerly. Until he smiled. Tentatively, he smiled, and when he did, time stopped. Who cared about the back story, when we had here and now?
“If you’re hungry, I could fix us something to eat. There’s a lady in Gay who comes in to clean and restock the fridge, so there should be plenty of food inside. Or, if you prefer, we could sit out here. I’ll bring us some pillows for the chairs. We don’t have to go in.”
The earlier warmth soared inside me like a tidal wave, soft and wholesome and entirely new to my senses. He was so determined to make me comfortable! How could I suspect him of plotting anything less than sweet? More like wishful thinking. He was a gentleman to the core; I would be lucky if he came within a foot of me at all.
“You can cook?” I asked with exaggerated surprise, ignoring his last comment. Steering away from it was my way of pleading temporary insanity for earlier; hopefully, he got it. “I mean, I know you once offered to fix dinner for me, but I seriously thought you were bragging.”
Those lips, mmm, those sinful lips, pouted briefly, with the sole purpose of driving me crazy, no doubt. He shrugged.
“Nope, no bragging. You hungry?”
“Starving.”Though not exactly for food.
“Alright, then.”
The inside of the cottage was white, immaculate, like virgin snow. Polished white oak floors, elegant and expensive-looking furniture, large paintings on the walls, frothy curtains; it was awesome.
“Er … okay, aren’t you afraid your tenants will ruin it? The place is so amazing!”
“I’m careful about the people I rent it to. Usually, they come recommended by previous ones, and I also charge a security deposit up front. They foot the bill for whatever gets wrecked.”
I trailed after him into the spacious kitchen. There were large windows on three sides and a pair of French doors that opened onto a small patio. Sunlight poured in luxuriantly; in fact, it was so bright and cheerful I loved it at first sight. The white cabinets had tea-green tops, matching the curtains, which were so fine, they seemed almost transparent. A few high stools surrounded the central island and they looked stylish but comfy. I flopped onto one.
“I don’t understand. How can you own all this? You’re just a … kid.” I immediately winced at my poor choice of word.
Turning away from the open double fridge, the contents of which he was inspecting, he glanced at me in amusement. “Emancipated minor. Let’s just say that my financial situation is the least of my worries.”
Too many questions equal bad things, I reminded myself, really bad things. So I took notice, made a nice mental note of it, and then … moved right along to the next question. Ain’t curiosity the worst thing ever?
“So, why do you work at Dave’s Garage? Since you don’t need the money …”
Nose buried inside the fridge, he replied, “I enjoy it. I’m good at it, too.” He paused. “Taking an engine apart and then putting it back together is meticulous work, and when my fingers are busy tinkering away, my grip on the passing of time is different somehow. It makes me feel … I don’t know, like I’m a part of the world. Like time flows through my fingers and through me, too.”
Of course, that didn’t tell me much. But before I could push for an explanation, he’d already piled a carton of eggs, bacon, Cheddar cheese, onions, bell peppers and other uncooked goodies on the shiny surface of the island, and was asking, “Music? Soda?”
“Um … sure.”
A lively pop song fi lled the room and a glass of chilled Coke landed in front of me soon after. I sipped my soda and focused on holding back the tons of questions burning my throat.
For a while, it actually worked.
Chapter: Eight
Cooking-Ryder was the cutest darned thing in the world. The most natural, too, which was kind of strange. I’d had a year to get used to reading-Ryder, teasing-Ryder, glaring- or gaping-Ryder; I wasn’t fazed by those anymore. Sweet-Ryder, even sad-Ryder, it was all good. But him in the kitchen? Cooking? It should have been at least a little unusual. It wasn’t. My eyes followed him closely, taking in the easy way he moved, the dexterity of his delicate fingers, the relaxed style with which he juggled food and utensils alike. And somewhere in the middle of that shameless display of active gorgeousness it dawned on me that this was so familiar, it almost felt like a memory. He’d cooked for me before, I could have sworn he had.
“I’m having the weirdest déjà vu feeling,” I admitted in a small voice, fi ngers grasping the half-empty glass in front of me too hard.
Back turned to me, Ryder froze. His shoulders seemed to grow even wider with the tension stiffening them. Even the lucky sunlight that got to happily play in the softness of his hair stopped gleaming. Not the tiniest part of him moved.
“What sort of feeling?”This, without turning around. No point in backing out now. I had the chance to keep quiet and enjoy the moment and I blew it. “Like maybe we’ve done this before. Except I think I’d remember if you cooked for me already.”
“Does it scare you?” His voice was so soft I barely made out the question, but packing so much feeling, it took my breath away. It revealed exactly how much my answer mattered to him. How could he care so much?
That wasn’t important, though. What mattered boiled down to my words being able to hurt him, something I had to make sure didn’t happen because a wounded Ryder, especially wounded by me, wasn’t someone I ever wanted to meet.
“No,” I denied firmly. Choosing my words with care, I added shyly, “It feels, I don’t know … like I’m home or something.”
A long, held-in gasp rushed past his lips, so grating they must’ve heard it back home in Rosemound. He was breathing again, though he still wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t push. The sunlight resumed its frolicking in his thick hair. My fingers uncurled from around the glass. The world fell back into place and I exhaled in relief.
“Good,” he finally said, low-pitched, quietly. “That’s good.”
But I didn’t relax until after he’d gone back to preparing the food. And even then a part of me just wouldn’t quiet down. This was crazy, with a capital C. Strange. Wonderful. Kind of unsettling. Unreal. Breathtaking. And I was completely eaten up with the need to make sense of it. Of him. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate some mystery and I imagine that sometimes it can be a real turn-on, not knowing every last detail about a guy. Except “some mystery” hardly applied to him anymore. He’d confessed to living in Rosemound to be close to me. And how did that tie in with his spending a whole year apparently without noticing me? Not to mention the déjà vu thing and his reaction to it. My head was abuzz.
“So, is this the kind of music you usually listen to?” I finally asked, afraid that unless I started talking I’d go kablooey.
He flipped the golden omelet in one skillful move.
Then the world went away and all that remained were his
soulful eyes. I was drowning in silver and lavender pools of soft velvet. It was enough to … wait, what was my name again?
“You want to play twenty questions.”
He wasn’t asking. It was a statement, one that he uttered with a sigh. At least he hadn’t stopped breathing this time. I thought that was a really good sign.
“Okay, then. Go ahead.”
Oh boy! My throat was suddenly narrower than a straw; where should I begin? Was it safe to ask anything at all? How did I avoid stammering?
“What’s your favorite color?” I started, wary of stepping on any one of his toes.
He shook his head, grinning.
“Red. The red of your hair, actually. What’s yours? Wait, I got this. Could it be green?”
I forced my mouth to speak over my thundering pulse. He was teasing me, he had to be. I could be cool about it, couldn’t I? “Lucky guess. Favorite book?”
He set the omelet on a plate, a soft smile on his lips.
“Impossible to settle on just one forever. That only works with girls for me.” He punctuated that with a meaningful glance in my direction and my heart drummed my reaction out loud. “I really like What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson now.”
“Never heard of it. What’s it about?”
For a few moments he seemed thoughtful, as if struggling to come up with a good enough answer. Then, going back to dividing the omelet in half, he said simply, “Love.”
“Oh!”
“Yours is Tristan and Iseult, yes? Probably Bédier’s version since it’s a good read and stays true to the legend. Best star-crossed lovers story ever told, huh?”
Had I mentioned it in class?
“It was the first, of course,” I said. “Before Guinevere and Lancelot, before Romeo and Juliet.”
“What about Paris and Helen?”
“Well, technically the Trojan War did come first, but I was never one for Greek mythology. Conflicting stuff. I mean, Paris and Helen are together just long enough to cause the war, but then, when he dies, because of that strange Levirate custom, she marries his brother, Deïphobus. Then there’s the whole reconciliation with Menelaus, who was actually her rightful husband all along. I don’t know … it kind of puts a negative spin on the love story between her and Paris. Like it taints it, you know?”
He smiled. “Whereas Tristan dies with her name on his lips and Iseult soon follows because she’s just that grieved by his death. Hmm, kind of morbid when you think about it, don’t you agree?” he teased me, one brow arching.
“Maybe, but also unambiguous. Clean. Not to mention, made so interesting by the love potion that starts it all. I always wondered what exactly went in it,” I mumbled, more to myself.
But in response, he studied me with such a serious face, my reflective mood morphed instantly into full alertness.
“But you wouldn’t,” he said quietly. “Bringing people together through magic goes against your expectations of unambiguous and clean. You want pure, meant to be. Nothing less will do.”
The air solidified and clustered in the back of my throat like chunks of rock. On the one hand, it made me deliriously happy that he could see so deep into me; on the other, it scared me witless because I knew he shouldn’t be able to.
There was silence, and then a plate filled with food was gently pushed in front of me. Followed by a question, which he asked in the most casual tone.
“Can I feed you?”
Ever had one of those moments when the world around you slows down to an almost full stop? When time feels pliable and inconsequential, and there is nothing, nothing but the person in front of you, that seems real and self-explanatory anymore?
Holy smokes, how did he do that?
A nod was all I could manage by way of reply. In the middle of my chest, booming like a thousand African drums, my pulse raced, rushing to the back of my throat and tasting of candied bitter fruit, of fear and need. His sitting next to me brought our knees so close they almost touched. No way could I remember how to chew and swallow now.
But once he pushed the first bite in my mouth, tangy omelet with slices of fresh tomato and cucumbers, something changed and I was suddenly ravenous. The way his eyes clung to my lips, intent on memorizing every last curve, made me want to eat until the whole planet ran out of food. Just so I could watch him watching me do it. Because there had never been anything more sensual. Intimate. Without laying a finger on me, without saying a word, he made things inside me tighten, flex, and break into soft humming. My body sang for him.
“So this is how love feels,” I marveled, and for all my effort I couldn’t be flippant about it. Too much magic was at work between us. For the first time in my life, I sensed it rising and remained watching in awe, on the sidelines for once and not at the root of it. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t the one casting the spell; I was being be-spelled.
I didn’t want to talk, to change anything, for fear of breaking whatever was happening.
“Please, ask me something else!” he almost begged, in a rush, as if afraid of running out of time somehow.
But I stalled, still afraid of crossing that line. Nibbling at my food slowly, I let my eyes drag over the angles and planes of his face, careful to steer clear of his mouth, the tempting fullness of which continued to drive me mad with visions of kissing him. Still, somewhere in the middle of that, the big question came.
“Who are you?”
The swirls in his eyes conjured up images of storm clouds again. He seemed hurt and I bit my lip, hating that I didn’t understand and wanting to so badly, it burned.
“You know who I am,” he finally replied, letting out a heavy breath. “You know William Kingscott.”
“William?”
“Yeah, Ryder is a sort of nickname.”
“Oh!”
He kept insisting that I knew him, when the fact was I hadn’t even known his real name.
“What am I to you?”
Instead of responding, he munched on his food, staring absently out the window, somewhere into the far distance. He did that for a long while, while I watched and waited. The urge to chew my fingernails until they bled was getting scary-hard to control. At long last he stood up slowly, reaching for our empty plates, careful to avoid my eyes.
Clearly, he had no intention of answering me.
“What am I to you?” I repeated, and the irritation changed my voice into a growl. Great, I was growling now.
But it worked. He stopped in his tracks, piercing me with eyes like two black holes of despair. My heart broke. Had I done that?
“Everything.”
The word was only a whisper, as though simply voicing it was too much to bear. Shoulders slumped, stride stiff, he plodded over to the sink to deal with the small pile of dirty dishes. My eyes stayed with him, but nothing much registered for a while. Was this really happening? Did Ryder Kingscott just tell me that I was everything to him? What the heck was in that omelet?
When my head quieted down and some basic feeling returned to my frozen-in-place muscles, dazed, I crept to where he was. His eyes locked on mine, which of course made it even harder to produce anything resembling human speech.
“You can’t say something like that to me and then not say anything more.”
Arms hanging limp along his body, he eyed me wearily.
“More? There isn’t anything more, Lily. You’re … you. My torment, my relief, my curse, my blessing. My warden and my freedom. My … all.”
You’d think no one could say something like that flatly, like a freaking alien from planet Vulcan, but Ryder did. The detachment bummed me; his words said one thing, the attitude, another, and none of it made sense.
He was busy operating a trendy cappuccino machine that had so many little buttons, mini-handles, and switches it would’ve taken me hours to figure out. I stalked over, intentionally trespassing on his personal space. My chest almost touched his back.
“Not good enough!” I said, with enough feeling tha
t my chest stung.
Tentatively, with unsteady fingertips, I touched his back and almost shrieked in shock right after, when, faster than a wild thing, he turned around and trapped me in his arms. He was crushing me against him so hard, my poor heart was in for a coronary. His face burrowed into the hollow of my neck and he breathed in deeply, desperately, like a drowning man fighting for air. But it wasn’t air he wanted, it was ... me.
That realization knocked out whatever breath I had left.
His fingers raked through my hair, pulling it back and baring my neck, and his lips followed the curve of it, just shy of touching it. Slowly exhaling against it. Laying a hot trail that went up to my ear.
“Baby, I don’t want to talk,” he crooned.
His teeth wrapped around my earlobe and he bit into it, quick and delicate. My knees buckled and I was thankful for his arms gripping me so tightly. And that sound ... was it really me who let out that moan? His mouth moved down my neck, not quite touching it, but close enough that I could tell he was smiling.
“And given a choice, I’d want to breathe you. And feel you,” his cheek brushed mine slowly, “and taste you.”
His tongue traced an arc following the corner of my mouth. It was gentle but searing, and while I didn’t faint from it, the whirlwind of delicious sensations and of things melting inside me was so … well, delicious, that by the time I recovered, his mouth was nowhere near my own.
He was backing away and I panicked, clutching his arms desperately.
“Please,” I whimpered, sounding like a wet puppy begging for shelter in the middle of a rainstorm.
Totally undignified, I’ll admit, but then again, all the dignity in the world couldn’t give me what I wanted, which was for him to kiss me. Unless he did, my body was going into shock for sure. Kaput. Done for.
His eyes blazed; it was like watching silver melting, becoming liquid, incandescent. His expression reminded me of the Mona Lisa and her cryptic smile. But under it, under what I didn’t get yet, there was fire. Burning as fiercely as I was.
“Please!” I repeated, more urgently, gripping the T-shirt where it stretched over his broad chest, with hands clenched into fists.
