Now, he’s my best friend.
I know a little of how he feels about torture. I can’t imagine this girl being out of my sight. She asked me in class what I was doing here. I was out of time, so I answered.
When she read the words on the page I projected, she did the same, her heart stopping for two beats this time. Holy heck! if she passes out I’m gonna get my chance at mouth to mouth. Maybe the kiss doesn’t work if it’s not reciprocated.
Then I plunged even more and wrote out the short four line clue in rhyme. Kind of. I like writing, but I never let anyone see. Too geeked out for most. But this girl...she made me want to spit sonnets.
She shocked me even more with the glowing eyes again. Did she want me that much? I couldn’t help the smug feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I was into her wanting me. But it was too much. I’d spent too many years with girls hating my guts because of this cursed power unless I threw it out there to draw them in. They flirted yes. But they never came near me unless I persuaded them first. And I knew I wasn’t ugly. I had it going on in the looks department. But the cursed power was too much...for the rest.
Emma...was different.
Lunch was a farce with pretty boy Rick watching her every move. He wasn’t over her, he just couldn’t have her. I’d picked up around school that he’d cheated on her and that’s why she hated men. I could understand that. But that wasn’t me. And it wasn’t just Rick. I could feel Rick’s presence had, at some point, been surrounded by my kind. Rick might be a jerk naturally, but he’d been influenced somewhere in his life by us. And that would have only happened because he was with Jem, Emma, at the time.
I had a hard time justifying my own innocence though with women. I’d never hurt a girl the way that boy had hurt Emma. Not that I’d ever admit that to a single soul, but I was much worse than that in too many other ways.
I was a killer. Maybe they weren’t always human, but they were living and breathing no more because of me oh moi.
She’d hate me if she knew the real me. I could never tell her. But what kind of love is that.
What the friggin’ heck? I just admitted the L word. What is wrong with me?
I followed her to work. It was Thursday at the mall with few shoppers and the girl of my dreams. Except I never had dreams.
Emma had a set routine. I’d watched her for three days now. Drive home, see the stalker neighbor who always showed up when she was alone, and drive to work. In the store, she was almost OCD. She’d start on the left of the store and work her way over. She’d start with the left room to change clothes in and go from there. She worked on the left side of the cart of clothes to put back and move over from there. Always left. She was left-handed and she tapped. I was proud of my discoveries. I knew something else about her that most might not. I felt singled out. Only no one, including the girl, knew I was there.
Loneliness was a bitter enemy.
A familiar face came into view. It was the shrimp who like to stop her in the hall all the time at school. She had no idea he was watching...all the time.
Jay was his name. He was standing outside the store watching her. Just like me.
Who’s the stalker now?
She left the store when I wasn’t looking and there it was. Caught.
“Are you spying on me, Ames Cahn?” She marched up to me never dropping her eyes from my neck where her eyes leveled out to. Her same finger dug into my chest and lowered. I pressed in a little just to tighten the connection. Did she feel that same buzz?
“And if I am?” I put it out there. Her eyes drifted up to mine now. Something in the way she put one hand on her hip seemed to heat me up. I’d seen girls. I was a friggin’ guy for crying out loud. I knew she was feisty, but as she leaned sideways on one leg and pointed her index finger into my stomach for the second time, everything just tightened up.
The others said that when you find your mate, your true other half, something changes. I was beginning to think they, the previous leaders of my world, were telling the truth. I’d never cared one iota about a girl or the way she carried herself in front of me. I’d never once let one tell me what to do like I was doing right now. That little thought alone put a smirk on my amused face. She was the enigma to my disastrous run life that I’d given up hope on and just resumed as the nasty villain.
Perhaps there was hope after all, curses of not. If I just ignored the lousy way things look for the one girl a stupid letter said I can’t have and somehow do...maybe it would all fix itself with magic I didn’t have and she did.
She took a step closer. I felt the familiar emotions welling up inside of her sending signals that were dangerously close to landing a kiss on her right here in the middle of the mall. It was the strangest feeling for me. I was caught between desire and need unlike any I’ve ever had before. For the first time, I didn’t want to just have my way with a girl. I wanted more.
She must have felt my own heated craving because her blue eyes started to dance around and I knew what was coming. I’d seen it twice before now. If I had any doubt she felt the same, I had proof in front of me now.
She took one big step back from me sending my own heart into fits. I felt her pull away from me, locking me out. Did she know she was even doing it?
“Ames, you are the most stubborn guy I’ve ever met.”
“So I get to be put in that category?” I looked around for the Jay kid. If he was watching, he was getting an eyeful.
“What category is that?” she mused.
“The guy category. Despite my downfall for being what I am, I can contend with those other guys?” I hoped my stupidity wasn’t showing too much if she turned me down.
“I’m not even sure I know what you mean since I am not completely familiar with what you are. If by the fact that you are indeed like other guys then you’re a lying cheating jerk like the rest of them. So putting you in that category presents a negative tone in my book. If that’s the way you want it, state your business and make it fast. I have things to do.”
Another speech with a directive. They were becoming a favorite pastime for me. I could get her riled up and enjoy it more if she’d just see it my way and realize she should think I am the best thing since sliced bread. But of course, she’d just told me what she thinks of me if I put myself to equal terms with the others guys before me. Luckily, I’m not.
“Well, lucky for you, I’m not an ordinary guy.” I assumed she would take my sarcasm and run with. I pushed both hands in my pockets in wait.
“Well, lucky for you I’m not your ordinary girl. I can smell a con man anywhere and your name fits you like a glove. Now get on with why you’re here or leave.” I think she was proud of herself for accenting my name synonymous with the word con.
Okay. So she wasn’t going to make this easy. If I knew a dramatic check of my watch to show how much little time I had would get my point across to the feisty beauty in front of me, I would. She was getting impatient and hot as fire cracker. I decided to go for blunt. Well, more blunt than showing up in her school, sliding her cryptic notes, and invading her circle of friends.
“I was sent here to find you. I am-I serve under someone who sees to you also. You’ve been hidden for eighteen years in plain sight and the time has come for you to know what and who you are.”
She didn’t flinch, reminding me what else I liked about her. She didn’t hold back all the time. Maybe it wasn’t always at the right time in my opinion, but her resilient resolve to know the truth was a definite plus to her intelligence.
“And that is?”
Worried she wouldn’t believe me and would just walk off, I pulled out the big guns. “Can I show you?” It was a huge chance and not a very smart decision on her part as a girl alone in a busy mall with a seemingly strange guy making her late to return to work.
She looked at the escalator that would take her back down to the store. She looked at the area around us where everyone was eating and paying us not the least bit attention. She looked back at me
.
“What do you have in mind?” She had her decision, but studied me pensively.
And I had mine.
Now we’re getting somewhere. I clapped my hands together and said in a deeper than meant to be voice, “Follow me.”
EMMA
Ames conned me into leaving work and telling them I’d thrown up in the bathroom. I don’t think they believed me.
I told Ames I would be right back because I forgot something. I chanted in my head for Tonya to just drop in from thin air. Yeah, not going to happen. I really just wanted to escape and ponder the right “impractical” decision to make here. But by the time I faked my invisible item out from under the counter to play the part, I decided I wanted to know more. I caught him watching me from fifteen feet outside the door causing me to lose my balance.
Something fell out making a thud noise on the tiled floor and bounced once telling me it was a book or notebook. Notebook. The one Ames wrote in. I’d stashed it here and left it. How careless of me. Frantically, I snatched it up and turned to where the words had disappeared earlier wanting to create my own magical will to see them again.
The page was there. The words to. I reread them.
Her eyes like the sun, her hair like the yellow licks of a flame.
I had to see what it was she had that made the king so harnessed to have her.
I took the task in hope for a favor of the king. She would take me to a new world.
I tore out the perforated 8 ½ X 11, folded it three times, and tucked it into my boot for later. I shoved the notebook back under the counter and aimed for the door. My boss was glaring daggers at my lack of paleness. I held my stomach for effect, but knew she’d busted me.
In the parking lot Ames waited by my car. I hadn’t noticed he left me.
His long legs crossed over like his arms folded at the top. He untwisted when he saw me and pushed off the side of my Mustang.
I sighed at the gorgeous specimen before me. He really was just plain gorgeous.
I wanted to tell him that in no way—even if a man eating dragon swooped him up, burnt his skin off, clawed his eyes out—would I go with him. He did all this talk about him compared to the human guys that left me baffled as to why we talk about the things we do. He rambled on about how being human wasn’t always the easiest, but being something close to it was harder. He was going to give me something that would change things. I just knew it. Some piece of information that was vital to my existence. So, I stayed.
“Why don’t we take my Jeep?”
I shrugged and made sure he knew I expected him to drop me here later to get it. And that I would leave a note at home with who I was with.
He didn’t deny me a spin by the house and I wasn’t expecting Randor to be on my doorstep. He greeted us with a wave, but when Ames stepped out of the car, he suddenly bolted back to his house.
“Sorry, he is usually a little friendlier.”
“Who is that?”
“Randor, my neighbor.”
Ames moved a little closer to my side as I opened the front door. I didn’t get all the strangeness, but nothing with Ames was normal to me.
“Does he come over often when no one is home?”
“Oh, he and my stepfather study the stock market. He comes by to pick up papers and stuff.” And chitchats longer than I like, but Ames didn’t need to know that.
Ames grunted and tugged on his hair making it all disheveled and way too sexy for me to--or should--care about. I wondered if he knew of his habit.
Back inside his Jeep, his left hand was on the wheel and his other rested on his thigh. For gear shifting, I guessed.
My own hands fidgeted with my bag. Nervous wasn’t the half of it.
He said he’d show me instead of telling. On some dark level of thinking I knew this was the wrong thing to do. My adoptive father had numerous talks about strangers and then some hairier talks about boys who where even stranger to avoid at all costs.
This boy posed no threat in my eyes and I had no idea why. I did know that I was through with all things male since last April and here it was September and I was falling off the wagon. Gale was right about something. One day I would find my prince and I would know it when he came. I was just scared of that day. He’d have to be perfect. Loyal. Faithful.
Ames flexed his fingers before positioning it over the gear shift. I stared at his large hand and measured it against his body. He was huge. Built like a train huge. I did the same as yesterday and noticed something else about him I hadn’t before. He had a chiseled jaw line with deep set eyes. His one earring in the left ear sparkled in the sun. And his skin...it was unblemished like my own. I didn’t have a single freckle on any inch of my body. Before I knew what was holy and good, I shouted out my question.
“Do you have freckles?”
His eyes danced with a knowing look that turned sexy for a second and then serious. “I could come back with a delicious statement that would make you blush buckets, but I’ll settle for giving you a freebie. No and you don’t either.”
Did I mention cocky in that list?
I swallowed hard as I had often in the last three days and held the handle as the Jeep lurched out of the driveway. He could read the irritation in my glare from reading me with such unabashed derision. He wouldn’t hurt me. He hopefully was there to save me from whatever it is...that I am.
I asked if he could run by the school and let me grab the economics book I left in my locker making me able to create small talk about Mr. Vamp’s project. Ames didn’t seem interested in the project idea, but he walked me in to get my book. We never came up with any sort of plan.
We drove out of the parking lot. The guy in the parking box house looked at me strangely but let me go. Bad man. He should have at least asked if I was okay riding with the new guy.
I scowled in his direction and berated him some more in my mind.
“What are you thinking?” Ames asked frowning with my reaction.
“That man let me leave with a strange guy and didn’t think twice,” I gritted my teeth.
Ames clucked his tongue, “You know, not all of us are so evil minded. You’ve just met the wrong ones.”
He meant guys. “You’re all the same.” I should know.
“Not all of us,” he said too soft but I heard. “But judgment before proven can eat one up with anger. Sometimes you just have to take a chance. Trust someone.”
Blech!
“Oh, yeah. What makes you so special?” I countered his mumbled comeback sticking with the belief I can trust no one. The seatbelt was rubbing my shoulder blade so I unbuckled and refastened just to avoid his stare then dithered with my bag to busy myself from his secret-keeper eyes. I really needed to stop doing just that—the staring at his eyes part.
“For one, I would never lie to you.”
“Yeah right. You lied since you arrived.”
“Have I?” he challenged.
“Yes, you didn’t say what you were when you saw me in the hallway surrounded by girls Wednesday before classes.” I thought back to Christina and her cronies at work on him. I was so mad they were near him.
“I didn’t lie. I couldn’t reveal myself to you like that and you not react the wrong way. Look at what waiting did to you. Think what learning something like that can do to you in a matter of seconds. I was never dishonest,” he moved his hand to the bottom of the steering wheel and put the other on the gear shift. When he shifted into the next gear, I watched his hands. He was right. He never lied. I just didn’t listen.
“So what are you?” I asked hoping he would tell me now.
“In good time. For now, let me show you something.”
He took me to the edge of the woods five miles from my neighborhood. Living in the suburbs was life outside of any kind of countryside views. The woods he stopped the Jeep in front of were the same woods Tonya and I had found junior year and brought back several friends, including boyfriends, to see the rolled up carpet that from a distanc
e resembled a dead body. We’d trembled and shrieked at all the right times to get comfort. It was a great plan that went as any when you’re a teenage girl who just wanted her boyfriend to pay attention to her instead of Halo or Call of Duty army dudes.
I eyed the same place where “the body” had been. I giggled under my breath low enough he’d never hear.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You heard?” I wouldn’t survive him. He didn't answer.
“I told you I would show you. Are you sure you want to?” He was offering a way out maybe.
“Will I be able to just walk away...from this?”
Our eyes locked for one.two.three seconds dangerously speaking words that told me more than I think I wanted to know and maybe not.
He rubbed a hand over his growing shadow across his chin that made a sound I would’ve never thought could register with my senses like it was now, but it was heavenly. I watched in awe for the seconds he kept his fingers moving in thought. When he put it back on the steering wheel and released me from the spell I was in, I took in the air I’d held back silent as I could but it didn’t work.
He checked my face, widened his eyes and smile, “What were you thinking?”
The implications were shrouded heavily in his words but somehow he knew. I dropped my mouth at his intense stare and tried to ease the growing tension with adjusting my seatbelt again. It backfired tremendously when his hand reached over and unfastened it for me letting our fingers touch for a brief second.
“Your eyes, Emma. They say more than you could ever imagine.” He put his head on the wheel in front of him hiding his face from me. He knocked his forehead against it once.
“That is so not fair,” I growled. What’s got into me?
“Not fair,” he mumbled. His head lifted and he turned that same inverted way to the side to show me his face. No, his eyes. Bright green. I swear the glow was getting stronger or I was just that transfixed on his every feature.
Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One) Page 7
