A Kiss to Tell

by W Winters

It’s a small act of kindness, but it means more to me than it should. I’m smart enough to know that I shouldn’t let it get to me like this. I can’t rely on anyone or trust anyone. Outsiders come and go here. Even Ang said she wasn’t planning on staying at the law firm for long. I should know better than to think of her as a friend.

  But when she sends texts like the one that just came through, I can’t help but feel a little camaraderie. I smile as I reread the text. See you Monday, prepare to be scandalized!

  My heels click on the asphalt, worn rough from years with no repairs. In the distance, I hear a siren, and farther down the block, a few kids are screaming at one another. It’s nearly ten at night, but this is normal.

  Just like the streetlights going out.

  Back when I would have childish fears about the darkness swallowing me up, I also used to dream. I used to dream of leaving here. Of going anywhere but here and never returning. I wish I could forget those memories. But they cling to me like the filth that clings to the gutters on the side of the road.

  I used to dream of running away. Mundane things like bills have a way of robbing you of your fantasies. At least I have my books and my writing. Even if I never escape this place, I can still escape into the worlds I build for myself in my stories.

  Years ago, when I was still in school, I told my uncle that I’d leave here one day. I remember the sound of the porch swing as it swayed, how my fingers felt as they traced the rusted chain that held it in place. He told me this city didn’t let anyone leave. It kept them rooted to this place.

  I didn’t know what he meant until he passed and there was no one here to pick up the pieces. No one but me.

  My feet stumble and I come to a halt as I try desperately not to fall forward. The combination of rubble on the ground and the sight of someone’s shadow laying across the very porch swing I’d just been thinking about are what almost cause me to trip.

  My chest aches with a sudden pounding of anxiety. No one comes to visit me. It’s one of the blessings I’ve been afforded by being the sad girl with her sob story. I keep my head down and I mind my own business. No one likes me, no one but Ang, and no one fucks with me either. Why would they? I have nothing.

  But someone’s there. I can’t see their face, but the shadow is there and unmistakable.

  The paint on the porch swing is weathered, and no one ever sits on it anymore, but I watch the empty seat move back and forth and then a man steps away from the shadows.

  A man I see from time to time, but always in passing. Except for when I think of him late at night. Unfortunately, it happens more than I’ll ever admit.

  He’s a man I used to want because he made me feel something I’d never felt before. A mixture of hope and desire. Like the silly dreams of getting away from this place, I used to want to be his. To be pinned down by his hands while his eyes held me in place.

  I used to dream of him pressing his lips to mine and stealing my breath with a demanding kiss. I knew he could do it; I’d felt it once before.

  His stubble-lined jaw looks sharper in the night with only the neighbor’s porch light and the pale moonlight casting shadows down his face. My heart beats slower, yet faster all at once. Knowing Sebastian is on my porch waiting for me, I can hardly breathe, let alone move.

  His steely blue eyes are next to come into view, and they immediately capture me. Staring straight at me, they pierce through me and see more of me than anyone else can. He must. I can feel it deep in the pit of my gut. He’s always been able to do it. There was never a moment where Sebastian didn’t have that power over me.

  With clammy palms, I try to move my hands, but my fingers are as paralyzed as my body. It’s not from fear, although I know that’s what this man should elicit from me. That’s the reaction he has on everyone else.

  No, it’s not fear. As a gust of wind blows, I sway gently in the breeze and it seems to free me from the spell his sharp blue eyes have placed on me. I refuse to look back into his gaze.

  Instead, I stare at the chips in the old cement stairs that lead to my porch and feel my heart squeeze harder and tighter than it has in a very long time.

  “What do you want?” I ask Sebastian in a hoarse voice, barely louder than a murmur.

  His shadow shifts in my periphery, but I don’t look up at him.

  He’s a man I would let do whatever he wanted to me. I would let him do completely as he pleased. There’s no reasonable explanation for it. No justification. I’m fully aware that he’d chew me up and spit me out.

  Maybe everyone has a person like that. That one person you know can destroy you, and you pine for it despite yourself. I crave what he’s capable of. I want the bad things that come with the promise of being his. That confession alone is enough proof I belong in this shit city.

  I can feel the danger, the dominance, the overwhelming presence that never leaves with Sebastian Black. I can even smell his masculine woodsy scent that sometimes filters into my dreams. With my lungs full of it, I close my eyes, letting it intoxicate me, but doing my best not to show it. I won’t give him that satisfaction. Not when he chooses to give me nothing. Not when he pretends that I’m nothing to him. Although maybe I am. Why would I ever be more than nothing to a man like him?

  “Why are you here?” I ask, hardening my voice, raising it, and daring to finally look at him. His shoulders fill the entrance to my front door. My open front door. It creaks and the sound echoes in the chilly night air as Sebastian looks me up and down, the hint of a smirk on his face until his gaze reaches mine again.

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Chloe,” he says and his deep voice rumbles. It’s rough, and the way he says my name sounds dirty, even though he’s only said it in the same manner as always. With a wanton heat building in my core and my breathing picking up, I stare into his eyes as he adds, “I’m here for a little chat… with you.”

  Sebastian

  Chloe looks so damn tired. It’s obvious that her hair must have been up all day; I can still see the impression of where a band was wrapped around her wavy brunette locks. She swallows thickly, and I swear I can hear the faint sound even from where I am feet away from her. Even with the clamoring from the Higgins kids yelling down the block. With a heavy breath she looks up at me, and I can see she’s biting her tongue in reaction to me telling her I came to chat. She’s done it for years. The questions shine in her doe eyes though. They stare back at me with the well of emotion that runs deep between us.

  The bags under her pale blue eyes only make her look that much more beautiful. I don’t know how that’s possible.

  Every time she comes to mind, I tell myself I’m picturing her differently than she is. That whatever it is that attracts me to her, plays tricks on my memory and makes me think she’s more gorgeous than she really is.

  And every time I’m proven wrong when I see her.

  “You going to let me in?” I ask her with a smirk on my lips. One that makes her eyes narrow.

  “Seeing as how my door’s already open,” she starts off strong but has to take a heavy breath before she finishes, “why don’t you be my guest?” She gestures and the purse on her shoulder slips down her arm. Although she struggles to grab on to it, she doesn’t take her eyes off mine.

  The tension between us is thick, but it’s always been that way. From the second I saw her in tenth grade, until this very moment, there’s something about her that draws me in like a moth to a flame. I know I get to her too, but only one of us can be the fire.

  “After you.” I push open her door a little wider and wait for her to pass me. She takes the stairs slowly and then quickly walks by me as if she’s trying to get away from me as fast as she can. It’s not the first time she’s done that and the reaction it sparks in me is the same.

  The desire to chase her.

  The first time it happened, it didn’t come over me until the school year was almost over, and I knew I wouldn’t get my weekly dose of fantasizing about Chloe Rose from across th
e lunchroom anymore.

  I gave in and went after her, and it only made the sweet, sad girl who stared back at me that much more desirable.

  Kicking her front door shut and locking it, I keep my back to her until the light flicks on. I can hear her drop her purse and then continue walking to the back of the hall. She leaves me at the front door in silence, so I have to turn around and face her.

  Her house is just like the rest in this area. All the townhouses here are original and were built by the same company that ran the steel mill. They were made for the workers employed by the mill.

  Until it shut down, just like the coal mines did, leaving everyone in houses they couldn’t afford, with jobs they didn’t have anymore.

  The slate floors have gouges in the corner; my guess is something heavy hit them, and then I remember what happened two years before. The tension I’m feeling evaporates and anger comes flooding back at the reminder. I take a quick look over my shoulder toward the door, but even through the somewhat recent coat of paint, I can see where the wood broke when it was kicked in. The main lock’s been replaced, and there’s an additional one above it.

  I wonder if she thinks of that night every time she locks the door. I thought about telling her who did it. Marley was an addict who picked houses at random for items to fence to support his habit. Stealing anything and everything he could was his method. He got his last hit the night he stole from Chloe, leaving fear behind that didn’t stray from her eyes for months.

  He got his high and then fell to the bottom of the river where I dumped him.

  Everyone in this city knows I have my limits. They didn’t know Chloe was one of them until that night. I stayed away to keep the target off her back, but people don’t forget in this city.

  I may be young, and I may work for a man who doesn’t venture into this territory, but I run these streets where she lives. No one owns Crescent Hills. If I wanted to take it though, there’s not a single prick here who’d stand in my way.

  But I don’t want this city any more than it wanted me.

  I want Chloe Rose. The thought catches me off guard. I’ve always known it’s true, but I don’t like to admit it. There’s something about her that begs me to be something more for her.

  That’s the part that kills me though; there’s nothing more to me than what she sees, what everyone sees. A ruthless man who’s angry at life and makes his living by beating the piss out of pricks.

  She’s not like me. She’s soft and kind and needs a gentler hand than I can give her. She deserves better.

  “How’d you get in?” Chloe’s voice is soft, although the edge of defiance is still there. Bringing my gaze back to her, I take her in again. From her long legs and skinny waist to those wide hips that beg me to bend her over and give her a punishing fuck, the sight of her makes even the misery of why I’m here vanish for a moment.

  She crosses her arms as if she doesn’t agree with what I’m thinking, but all that does is put a strain on the blouse she’s wearing and push those gorgeous tits of hers together. They may be small, but all I need is a mouthful. My dick stirs, and I have to look away, heading to the living room and glancing around at her place as I go.

  “I picked the lock,” I tell her, although it’s not true. I have a set of keys, got them the day she ordered them from the hardware store. It kept her waiting longer than she should’ve been there, but I had to do what I had to do. And that meant sneaking in later that night to make sure she was sleeping. Which she never did, but Chloe has a habit of missing sleep.

  As do I.

  So, she laid there quietly in bed and stiffened at the sound of me moving about, but she never turned around, she never dared to check. She has a habit of that too. Of thinking if she ignores the monsters she conjures in her head, they’ll go away. The sad fact is sometimes those monsters in the dark aren’t imaginary, but damn does she like to convince herself they are.

  She huffs out a laugh that’s flat and then brushes her hair back as she leans against the side table in the hall. “You making yourself at home?” she asks, daring me to keep walking and make my way to the living room. I don’t answer her, still taking everything in and noting that it’s all the same.

  She hasn’t changed a thing. Not one thing in this place for two years. For some fucked up reason, it sends a ripple of pain through my chest, more than the broken door did. The walls of the hallway still have the same framed photos her uncle had put up after she moved in with him.

  Her uncle was more of a parent to her than her own mother was. Him taking her in after her mother’s death was the best thing for her, but he was supposed to help her get out of this shit life, not have a heart attack and leave her here all alone.

  “Come on over here and have a seat with me,” I tell her as I sink into the large sofa that takes up half the room. The edges of the armrest are worn, but it smells like her. Exactly how I remember Chlo. A soft peach scent and some kind of flower. Nothing but sweet.

  My fingers dig into the cushion as she stalks slowly to the opposite side of the sofa and seems to consider sitting down as she stands in place. She smooths out the back of her skirt as she stares at the seat and then kicks off her heels, letting the silence pass.

  All I can do is stare at her, even as she refuses to look back at me. It makes me think about different possibilities. If we lived in a different city. If our lives were different. If any of that were the case, I never would have let her think she was anything but mine. There’s something in my soul that recognizes her as belonging to me. She’s mine to protect, to take in my bed, to give the world.

  Brushing the rough pad of my thumb along my lip, I have to remind myself that’s not the world we live in and she’s not mine. Life is better for both of us that way.

  I’m a threat to those who have control of the neighboring territories. And that little fact never leaves me. Especially after what happened last week.

  I’m no good for Chloe.

  She needs someone to take her away from here, and away from me.

  Finally, she sinks back into the sofa, sighing and taking a peek at me. “Just tell me what you want, Sebastian.”

  Those eyes transfix me. It’s like she sees through the bullshit, but she always has.

  What I want. That word sends a wave of warmth and desire through my body. I want her. But that’s not what I’m here for and she’s something I’ll never have.

  “Have you been watching the news?” I lean forward as I ask her the question, resting my elbows on my knees. Her small body stiffens as she shakes her head. As if watching the news is a sin.

  She’s a horrible liar. The worst liar I’ve ever fucking met. Maybe that’s why I feel so drawn to her. She can’t hide from me. But I can’t hide from her either. There’s something so freeing about that simple fact. Something that makes being in her presence addictive.

  Even if it’s for a shit reason.

  “Barry turned up yesterday, did you hear about that?” I ask her and immediately feel the waves of anxiety rolling off of her. Anything that triggers memories of her past causes her pain which is easily seen by anyone who would bother to look.

  “I don’t give two shits about Barry.” Her voice turns harder as she pulls her knees into her chest. She stares straight ahead, and I follow her gaze to the peeling wallpaper.

  “Do you know who did it?” At the question, her head whips in my direction with a bolt of anger flashing in her eyes.

  “I don’t know shit,” she bites out and her defensiveness is exactly what the police will latch on to. “I’m going through a lot right now,” she adds, but her voice wavers. Her gaze falls as she visibly swallows and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear before peeking back up to the wallpaper. “I don’t want to think about any of it.” Her voice lowers to a murmur as she says, “Sure as shit, not Barry.”

  As time slowly passes, her anger diminishes, and I watch as she returns to her typical quiet state. She’s nestled in the sofa with the sad smile she
always carries gracing her lips. Picking at the hem of her skirt, she glances at me thoughtfully. “Is that really what you wanted to know?”

  “How are the nightmares?” I ask her, feeling my chest get tight as the smile vanishes and her eyes shift to a hollow expression I hate and know all too well. She’s good at hiding. Hiding her pain behind a smile. Hiding her reality behind the thought that one day she’ll get out of here. Well, she used to, anyway. She used to be good at all of that.

  Time changes a lot of things.

  She starts to answer me, but she can’t hide the emotion in her voice. Before she can lie and tell me she’s fine, her voice hitches and she turns her gaze toward the empty hallway.

  “Why do you care?” Her words cut deep. Chloe’s pain is clear, but does she really think I don’t care about her?

  She’s smarter than this. It’s the second time tonight I’ve had that thought. “You know I care,” is all I give her. But for the first time since I stepped foot on her porch, I feel the mask slip from me, letting her see what’s inside without putting up a wall for her to break through.

  She can see it all anyway. If I stop trying to hide, maybe she will too.

  She still hasn’t answered my question though.

  “So how are you handling them? The nightmares?”

  “They’re back. I’ve had them every night since Saturday,” she tells me. Saturday. The day they caught her mother’s killer. She’s back to fidgeting with the hem of her skirt as her gaze flickers between me and the floor.

  “How did you know?” she asks, peeking up at me and I almost allow myself to get lost in the pain reflected in her baby blues. I’d rather be lost in hers than mine.

  “You look tired,” I answer her honestly. She drops her gaze though, sighing deeply and pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes.

  “Well if you wanted to know if I knew who killed Barry, I don’t. So, you can go now, and I can get some sleep.” She stands up and hugs her chest, although her posture is more aggressive than defensive.