I was happy. Happier than I ever have been.
“Grace, can I ask you something?”
“Right after you close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
He looked alarmed.
“No harm. No foul. Just do it.”
I shuffled the box aside and pulled out the mp3 player. I left the cords in the box, but attached the earphones and placed it in the palm of his hand.
I concentrated. Open!
Ian smiled and looked down at what he had, “You are giving me a human gift.”
“No!”
He raised the eyebrow. Yum!
He raised the other one and then switched again. Stop, you!
He leaned into me placing his forehead against mine. “Thank you.”
“You don’t even know what’s on it.”
He flipped it over and started to survey. I watched him flip through his favorites. All the songs he loved. He left his phone behind too.
“Check your playlist.”
He used the left hand thumb to move through the list as I watched over his shoulder. I saw his eyes light up when he saw the song and the list it was under. He pressed some buttons. We heard the sounds and he pulled the earphone up to hold between our two heads. We leaned in and stayed staring at each other for a second too long before pressing our heads closer to listen.
...I keep this facade
to keep you on your toes
I’ll take a glance while you sleep at night
While I come under your nose
So don’t leave me
Don’t leave, don’t leave me here
I can’t breathe without you
Don’t leave, don’t leave me here
I don’t wanna be without you
I don’t wanna live without you
I don’t wanna breathe without you
You’re my oxygen...
“You kept the New Found Glory song. What else have you been doing Miss Sneak?” He dropped the player away from of us. I giggled way too loudly as he tickled me.
This man, he is the air I breathe. I can define it, I think. It’s like my lungs hold their breath each time we’re apart and deflate when I first see him again. I believe the term is described as he is my breath of fresh air. I can’t breathe without him.
After a super loud, let all stressful thoughts escape session of tickling, we straightened up and lay down together in the middle. Out of breath again!
He went back to the before I surprised him with my love gift question. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always. Ask me anything.” I used his usual response.
“If we could go back and be able to be closer back then, in the human high school years….” I waited, curious. He seemed to have stopped like he was searching for the right words. “And I could have courted you properly, would you gone out with me?” My red rose suddenly appeared. I could never predict his moves.
“Ian, isn’t that a crazy question to ask?” I didn’t want to say stupid. That wouldn’t be nice. But isn’t it a given?
“Think about it. Would you not have hesitated just a little worrying that it would hurt our friendship and risk losing each other?”
I really didn’t want to think about this, but he was a little right. But still. “Ian, I think that is a logical thing that everyone may ask themselves for fear of being hurt. But you never intended for me to be just your friend,” I paused. “I would have taken the chance for two reasons. One, I was a loner anyway and could survive either way to have that one chance of being closer to you. I craved it. I felt like we were connected internally sometimes. I could look up and you would be there. Of course, I know now that you were just probably reading my thoughts, but I still believe there is something more with you and me. I can give you any analogy you want to describe it. Like a puzzle that isn’t complete, you find a way to complete me. You know when to save me, hear me, love me, hold me, at all the right moments. I feel so desperate when you ignore me. I don’t like it at all. I feel like you’re forcing me to stop breathing.”
“Grace, you are my oxygen. I can’t breathe when you’re away from me,” he closed his eyes. “The night you were taken. I stopped breathing. I downplayed your Romeo character, but he has it correct. What you are...what you do to me when I can’t have you. As a man, it’s alarming. I’ve never let anything get to me like this. There are times I can’t have you close because you break down my defenses and make me weak because my instincts are to protect you and forget what I came for. I can’t lose you Grace. Ever!”
I couldn’t give a comeback. His analogy was much more, I don’t know. Well, it stopped my heart. Best day ever list! He really is the most amazing man. “We will make a great team.”
He pondered this. “Team? I’ve never seen you and me as a team. But the we part is the important part to me. WE…will be great no matter what,” he watched me, “and what was number two?”
Oh, forgot. “I would have said yes to you no matter what because I already knew I loved you. It was worth it to find out. I would have made you ride up on your bike, throw me on the back, with a helmet of course, and ride me off into the sunset, stop somewhere, turn around slowly and kiss me.”
He chuckled, “I would have let you.”
And those thoughts lingered in the air as we moved back to each other and fell asleep right there tangled up together. At least I did. I knew he’d stay still and hold me if I fell asleep. I didn’t want to go to my room alone. And I didn’t want to be put in a position that would make him uncomfortable. But I sure knew that tomorrow I would be mentioning some wedding plans. It was time.
Epilogue
My life is war and peace and love and heartache all mixed into the bowl and packed into a jar labeled Grace’s Believe It or Not. And still mixing!
Someone’s advice vibrated through my brainwaves. Let the past guide you...learn from it...but leave the past...in the past.
I had learned so much about the three men that seem to run my life in this world. I felt like they each have some part to play and I can’t move on until I find out and acknowledge what those roles are. I felt like Kin was lost in a whirlwind of misunderstanding within his own court. As if he’s been misplaced. He wanted me to be the answer to that puzzle, but I still don't think it is the right direction.
Pike was stuck in limbo. Waiting to leave behind the bereft place in life he feels he can’t escape. He just wants to be needed. Wanted. Important.
And my Ian. Well, he was finally finding his place. I know that his soul was closer to feeling at ease. I saw it in his face when we talked about the future. He’s my breath of fresh air and I am his oxygen. It’s like when you finally kiss a man you can’t live without the taste of, you find out that oxygen is just a tool you use to take breaks between living around and without each other throughout the parts of the day. I can’t live without him.
The courts need peace. I believe I am going to find that but the details are not all there yet. They were so set on the prophecies leading the way, I think they let them misguide them. Sometimes you just have to let things fall where they may.
Sneak Peek at Denial, book one of Goblin’s Kiss Series.
AMES
I let the girls crowd around cuz’ well...I was a guy. They were each telling me their names.
When I turned to the sound of one talking about another girl approaching, there she was.
If l could have prepared myself for what I would be confronted with, I’d have never believed it. My body shook at seeing her, feeling her burning energy. The last time I saw her she was seven, but up close and made into a woman now...
Almost dropping my notebook, I stopped for a brief second before continuing my stride in her direction. The closer I came, the stronger it got. At some point it became so strong that I planted my feet to the ground and waited for her to ascend upon me rather than get any closer.
She kept on. Closer. Two feet. The tips of her shoes knocked mine. Her hand clamped down on my arm. H
eat flooded me, grounding me to the floor.
The groupie cheerleader named Christina barked something at her I didn’t quite hear since my insides were barbequing and roasting to a good 100° above even the unusual scorching Tennessee heat. The girl taunted her with her words finding it seriously easy to downgrade her self esteem in front of me. Were these human girls even more evil than I? I doubted it, but it was a close second.
Jem was toying with the girls as her emotions were doing a flip-flop motion with a combination of anger and and desire.
I don’t even know how I know how she was feeling it. It’s a power I’ve never held.
She actually liked me. I didn’t know how to compute this information. She wasn’t repulsed by me and she didn’t siphon anything from my own emotions to help herself. Processing this was beyond jacked up much more than the fact that I was even feeling her emotions in the first place. All of this was just wrong.
After the initial shock that she didn’t use any of her own pain inducing powers on me, I decided to let go of my own and see how it fared. She didn’t seem to be the queen of evil I’d expected of her. She didn’t have an ounce of malice in her body at the moment. But I did have an overwhelming urge to search her body for scars and other distinguishing differences that would make me know her better than any other man on this earth.
The girls stepped up their fowardness. They pressed even closer in as I moved towards Jem. She had the same piercing eyes that matched my own as she did years ago. Her blue to my odd green. Girls have always dug it. Human ones. My own kind counted me as the odd man out more so than even the humans.
Jem’s hair was long and had shiny waves of golden brown even in the florescent light. Not really a guy thing to notice, but I did. She was cute and beautiful all in the same way. She bit her bottom lip as if nervous, but tossed her hair back in confidence. She was fun to watch.
During the initial greeting, the Christina girl leaned against Jem’s body and I suddenly went ape. She was too close to her. I reined it in and held my fists to my clawing body. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was of my own people, I would have to wonder why I felt the urgent need to protect her. It wasn’t healthy for dang sure.
It gave me the same disgusting feeling it always did. Human girls were cold, clammy.
Jem didn’t like the groupie girl doing what she did. Interesting.
Groupie girl pressed in more and I let it be to see what Jem’s next reaction would be. I was fascinated to say the least but I hated it too. I had a job to do.
When the girl ran her fingers up and down my arm Jem visibly scrunched up her face and a soft whimper left her lips. Was she in pain?
I stepped away from both of them wanting this girl’s inhuman pain to disappear. I didn’t want her to hurt. Yes, I did. No, I didn’t.
I bit back a small smile, but she saw it. Not able to take my eyes off her, I nodded to groupie girl and held out a hand to Jem unable to control what I was doing. I swallowed back the bile that my throat caught from wasting energy on the bubbly cackling chatter behind me now. If they weren’t following due to the magic within me before, they were now.
This girl, I got nothing. It was like she cut it off. She didn’t give an ounce of emotion over to me on purpose though I was trying like everything to get it.
Groupie girl Christina barked a comeback and then said my name, “...Ames here will find out how taken you are all too soon.”
Taken? Did that mean she was already claimed? By a filthy human? I shook my head enough she didn’t catch it. I didn’t care if she were claimed or not. It only made it harder if she were attached to someone to have to embrace this new world she would have no choice in turning to.
Christina laughed a little like a guy on steroids and took her little fawning guy traps away from us.
Ring!
Great! I was alone. With her.
Tainted Page 35
