by Brook Wilder
But still, Preston couldn’t shake the feeling that plagued him. Like someone was breathing down his neck. Like someone was standing just behind him, just out of sight. But whenever he looked, there was no one there. Just his imagination and the after effects of having too much adrenaline pumped through his system.
“Come on, Preston. It’s fine,” Olivia said for the tenth time.
She was sitting on the couch with a big wooden bowl on her lap, her hair still damp from her shower.
“No one can see in. They are black-out curtains. Now, get over here and eat some of this popcorn with me.”
Preston hesitated for a moment more, part of him wanting to throw the curtains open wide just to make sure no one was skulking on just the other side. Instead, he turned away from the windows. Bemused, he walked over to the couch and sat down on the cushion next to her, obliging taking a handful of popcorn.
But it tasted like Styrofoam in his mouth. He realized he hadn’t eaten since earlier the day before, but he wasn’t hungry in the slightest.
But Olivia looked at him expectantly, and he took another handful just to please her, even though he couldn’t say why. He just knew that her small smile was reason enough for him.
“Are you ready for the movie? It’s one of my absolute favorites,” Olivia said, her voice excited as she leaned forward, grabbed the slim black remote, and pushed the play button.
He could see the glow of the TV screen reflecting off her cheeks and the joy in her eyes at the simple pleasure, and it shifted something deep inside him.
Jesus, this woman could turn him inside out with the tiniest thing. A word. A look. And he felt like the ground had been pulled out from beneath his feet.
“What’s it about?” Preston asked.
His voice came out gruffer than he intended, but he cleared his throat to try and dislodge the emotion that was strangling him. Luckily, Olivia didn’t even seem to notice.
She rolled her emerald green eyes at him.
“Well, just watch it and then you’ll see what it’s about.”
Preston just shook his head, even more bemused, and glanced over at the screen. His brows rose in surprise.
“It’s in black and white?”
“Mmm,” Olivia said distractedly. She popped a piece of popcorn in her mouth, her gaze glued to the TV. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really think of you as a classics kind of girl,” Preston answered with a small smile, wondering if there would ever be a day that she didn’t surprise him or catch him off guard with something he never expected from her. He hoped not. “Come on, at least give me a hint.”
Olivia relented a little, explaining the story line while he grabbed another handful of popcorn from her lap. Preston let the sound of her voice wash over him, soothing something wild and torn inside him.
“Well, it’s actually based on an Agatha Christie novel. Twists and turns, mystery and murder. All that good stuff,” She shot him a wide-eyed grin that was pure joy. “It’s about this British barrister. A barrister is a lawyer, by the way. Anyway, there’s this barrister and he takes on a case, defending a man accused of murder, only it doesn’t turn out the way anyone expects.”
Preston was struck by her words. They surprised a soft chuckle out of him.
“Kind of like us, I guess.”
Olivia’s look was just as surprised as his, and a moment later her grin was back.
“Yeah, I guess so. Without the bad fake British accents, of course. But it’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What’s funny.”
“How similar it all is.”
Preston traced the now achingly familiar curve of her cheek, that look in her green eyes that she got when she was thinking deep.
“You are definitely not what I expected, Red. Not at all what I expected.”
Olivia met his gaze for a long moment, but she didn’t say anything else as the opening credits began to roll as the first scene played on the screen.
Preston tried to keep his mind on the movie, but as the minutes ticked by it grew harder and harder to keep his gaze from sliding back towards Olivia. Something about her, sitting there so close that he could just reach out and touch her, something about her presence, just drew his eyes to her. Finally, he stopped even pretending to watch the movie and just turned his focus to her instead.
Olivia didn’t even seem to notice, she was so engrossed in the story playing out in front of her. But, for Preston, it was much more fascinating to watch her.
She mouthed the lines of some of the characters, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t even aware that she was doing it. His favorite was when she got so carried away that she would giggle out loud at some of the parts, and he even saw her surreptitiously wipe away a tear at one of the more somber moments.
Even though she’d certainly seen the movie more than once, she still gasped as the mysterious murderer was unveiled and shook her head as if in shocked disbelief. All in all, Olivia Prescott was a hell of a lot more entertaining to watch than any old black and white film.
As time passed, Preston was just as surprised to feel himself beginning to relax. Maybe it was just the sheer joy of watching Olivia, or maybe it was feeling a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that Capone and the rest of the gang members thought they were dead, but Preston felt the tension start to leave his body.
The whole thing felt odd to him. Here they were sitting and watching a movie and eating popcorn, as if they were just a normal couple. As if it was just a regular Tuesday night. As if they hadn’t just escaped an attempt on their life, as if his gang hadn’t just tried to burn them alive.
Preston shook his head at it all. He didn’t know what to think of it. He didn’t even understand the convoluted tangle that his emotions had become. All he knew was that she set something right inside him. As he sat there, watching Olivia, tracing the line of her face and then drawing it down, down, across her shoulders, bared by her thin strapped tank top that was nearly the same green of her eyes, and then lower to the cotton shorts that barely skimmed the top of her thighs, he knew that she belonged right there. Next to him. Side by side. And he knew that he belonged there too.
His equilibrium shifted again, that tangled, wild forest inside him growing even more out of control, as he thought about everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. How his whole life had changed. And not just his life, but himself. The way he viewed the world. She’d done that, he knew. Olivia had changed him. For the better, Preston thought.
He was still trying to untangle the hopeless knot inside himself that he didn’t even notice the movie had finished without him.
Olivia turned to him with an expectant look shining in her green eyes.
“So, what did you think?” she asked, still looking at him wide-eyed and waiting.
He said the first thing that came to his mind.
“Beautiful,” he whispered gruffly.
“Really?” Olivia asked, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, it’s good. I love that movie. But beautiful?”
She rose to her feet on graceful legs and carried the empty popcorn bowl through the arched open doorway that led to the kitchen and placed it in the sink. Preston followed after her.
“No. I wasn’t talking about the movie.”
Olivia turned suddenly and gasped to find him standing there, so close to her that her body was pressed firmly against his. He leaned forward, caging her in against the kitchen counter.
“Oh? What – uh – what were you talking about then?”
He could see the sudden jolt of her pulse, racing now as they stood toe to toe, hip to hip. Her eyes looked enormous. Her face was flushed and he could trace the tiny scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose like constellations laid out in a perfect creamy sky.
“I was talking about you,” Preston answered.
The words were pulled from somewhere deep inside him. A well that he never even knew was there, but now that it had been un-stoppered there
was no way to halt the stream of syllables and consonants that spilled out.
“You are beautiful. And brave. So brave it drives me crazy. It terrifies me. It makes me want to tear my own hair out. And you’re smart. And sarcastic. And idiotic. And I… I was so afraid.”
His voice was barely even a whisper. It dropped an octave as he spoke the words against her cheek. They were torn from him, from that unknown place deep inside him.
“When I saw them grab you…” Preston shook his head, cupping her sweet face in his hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my entire life.”
“Hey, you had it easy,” Olivia joked, but her voice was breathy and there was no humor shining in her emerald gaze. “You were unconscious the whole time. I was the one who got hauled into that trailer knowing full well that I was about to… that they were going to…”
Preston felt the shudder run through her entire body as the words trailed away, too painful for her to say out loud. He hated that she had ever known that kind of pain. He wished he could go back and take it all away. Wished he could change things, but he knew he couldn’t. They couldn’t go back. They could only move forward. Together.
Olivia looked up at him then, and it was like a punch to his gut.
“They laughed, Preston,” she said so softly he could barely hear her words.
But he felt each one land like another blow.
“As they were lighting the fire. They were killing us, and they laughed… How can…”
“Hush,” Preston whispered, in part because he was trying to soothe her, but mostly because it hurt too much to hear the agony in her voice. He’d known his whole life that the world could be unbearably cruel, but it was a lesson he’d never wish on anyone, especially not her.
“Hey, it’s okay now. You got us out, remember? You saved us. You were so brave.”
Preston swiped his thumb across her skin, brushing away a tear that tried to slide down her cheek. But Olivia was still shaking her head.
“You don’t understand, Preston.” Her voice shook too, as she spoke. “How can you be a part of that? A part them? They…they’re monsters, Preston. They were happy they were burning that trailer. When they were beating you. They were happy!”
She trailed off, her eyes filled with confusion. And accusation.
“They’re not all like that,” Preston said in a rush.
He hardly even noticed that he said ‘they’ instead of ‘we’.
“Most of the members in the gang have a… a code that they live by. Most of them wouldn’t hurt a woman like that. Those men… those are Capone’s inner crew.” Preston tried to explain, feeling like he needed her to understand even if he didn’t know why. “He’s found the members that are just as bloodthirsty and just as insane as he is and he exploits them, gets them to do his dirty work for him.”
Olivia still looked doubtful and he put as much honesty in his voice as he could.
“That’s not me, Red.” He gave a shrug of his shoulders, still feeling the sting of the words. “Besides, I’m not a part of them anymore. Didn’t you hear? I’m banished. Out of the Devil’s for good.”
She peered up with him, her eyes narrowing in question.
“Are you okay with that?”
“Are you kidding me?” Preston scoffed, “That’s what I wanted.”
“Then why do you look so sad.”
Her question cut right to the quick. But he knew he had to give her an answer. She deserved that much at least, and so much more.
“Because… Because it was my life for so long. The only life I’ve known. I don’t… I don’t know who else to be.”
Olivia was silent for a long time, her gaze quiet as she pondered his words. Finally, she reached out, taking one of his hands in her own much smaller one.
“I’ll help you figure it out, Preston,” Olivia said, staring up at him with eyes the color of clear emerald.
“I would like that.”
It was hard for him to get the words out through the lump of emotion that was caught in his throat, but he was sure that Olivia heard them.
He did the only thing he could do, then. He leaned down and kissed her. As soon as their lips met, it was as if a switch had gone off in his body. An explosion of all the adrenaline and fear and panic that had filled him at the thought of losing her filled him up and detonated.
Preston pulled her close against his body because he needed to feel her. But he still couldn’t breathe, just thinking about it. Thinking about how close it had been.
“I almost lost you,” he breathed roughly against her lips.
“I almost lost you too, remember?”
No more words needed to be spoken between them. They met, crashing together like two waves, breaking one against the other.
They tore at each other’s clothes and Preston was shocked to find that he was shaking just as much as she was.
He didn’t hesitate, though, pulling the thin tank top off over her head and throwing it carelessly to the floor. Her bra followed next.
Preston lifted her body, weightless, in his arms to rest on the edge of the kitchen counter and he kissed her with everything inside himself. Every wild, tangled emotion, he fed into that kiss. And he took just as much as he gave from Olivia.
His hands moved over every inch of her that he could touch as he took her mouth with his, angling his head so that he could take it even deeper. Up and down, every bit of skin he could find, he touched, caressed, and explored.
He was pushed on by some deep inner urge to take her, to claim her as his own, to prove to himself that she was still alive and just as smart and brave and fiery as always. It was more than an urge, it was a need. He needed to know that she was real and solid in his arms.
Preston drew back just enough to lift her in his arms. His breath was coming in small, sharp huffs of air as he looked down at her.
“No, not here. I want to take my time with you,” he whispered the words against the sensitive curve of her neck and he relished the way she shuddered in his arms. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Olivia pointed one trembling hand to a room down the hall, and he followed without another word.
Chapter 10
I want to take my time with you.
Preston’s words echoed in her ear and Olivia shuddered all over again. Those words, uttered in that sexy, sultry deep voice of his was almost too much to take. Almost.
He carried her to the bedroom, and she let him. This time Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself lean against him. Let him make the decision. Let him take her worry and fear away, at least for the moment.
Preston walked with sure, steady footing towards the room that she had pointed to, her bedroom, and he didn’t stop until he hit her queen-sized bed. He laid her down on the dark blue comforter and suddenly she caught the scent of smoke again.
She had scrubbed herself raw in the shower as soon as they had gotten back to her house, but the smell seemed to have invaded her nose. It was sunk deep into her pores. A part of her she would never be able to scrub away.
Olivia nuzzled her face into the curve of Preston’s shoulder and inhaled deep, drawing in his spicy, masculine scent to drown out the other smell, the acrid remnant of the fire.
He breathed deep of her, too, and they sat there like that for a long time, just wrapped in each other’s arms, one the inhale, the other the exhale as if they were of one body, one set of lungs that could only work in tandem.
Olivia grabbed his face with both of her hands and tugged his lips back to meet hers. She needed to taste him too. She needed to touch him. To feel all of him. He was like a salve, soothing away all the dark, damaged, bruised parts inside of her.
They kissed, their tongues tangling together in the dark, but it still wasn’t enough to keep the memories at bay. They flashed in her mind’s eye like a strobe-light. Kiss-flicker-fire-flicker-blood-flicker-bikers-flicker-laughter.
After a moment, Preston pulled back and he peered
down at her, his eyes widening suddenly.
“You’re crying, Olivia.”
“I’m just…”
Olivia was so overwhelmed with emotion that it was nearly impossible for her to get the words out. They stuck in her throat, but she forced them out anyway.
“I was so scared. I knew we were going to die. I can’t get the smell of smoke out of my head. I can’t stop seeing the fire.”
“Let me give you a different fire,” Preston said softly, tenderly, as he stroked his hands up and down her bare back, tracing the line of her spine. “Let me give you new memories. Better memories.”
