Chapter 42 #3
When I open it, the doorman holds out a large bag with the Comets’ logo on it. “Miss Tomes, this just arrived for you.”
“Thank you,” I take it from him, watching as he disappears into the lift.
“Aww, look how fast that put a smile on your face,” Christina says as I open the bag and pull the note stapled to it.
Heard we’re going to have extra luck on our side tonight.
Wear the shirt and bring your friend.
Car will be waiting for you @5pm
J a side of him I adore.
Running my fingers across the silky petals, I settle back into my chair, allowing the warmth of the sun to soak into my bones as I fall into my most treasured memory of us…
Golden speckles flicker in the muted light from the twinkle lights draped from the beams on the ceiling and the candles dotted around the corners of the shed while my grandma’s small record player crackles beside me with her favorite Elvis record, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’.
It’s been played so many times; the sound is scratchy as it murmurs around us.
This is not what I thought my evening would be when Grandma asked Mom for me to stay with her tonight to help her prepare for tomorrow’s feast day. I never imagined I’d be meeting Elijah here.
“How are you so sweet?” The question tumbles from my lips choked with emotion.
A deep flush spreads across his face in the soft golden light around us. “You were sad that you couldn’t go to the graduation prom, so I figured we could do our own.”
“That’s… ummm… thank you.” I don’t know what to say. I thought he invited me here to hang out together. Every second we get from now on really is a moment closer to losing him.
I’m a woman now, and he’s a man. Although The Elders changed their mind about Naomi from Ohio, it’s only a matter of time before they find him a wife. It won’t be long now for them to auction me to the highest bidder. Whoever will have more to offer for my hand.
Somewhere in my heart, I’m still hoping that we can be birds. We can fly away together.
“I know the church shed isn’t the same as a fancy hotel in Portland.”
“It’s perfect,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him so tight that I feel the heated thrum of his heartbeat pulsing wildly through him.
The ga-donk, ga-donk, ga-donk of his pulse is the sweetest music to my ear pressed to his chest.
“I made you something,” he murmurs into my hair at the same time as he claps my hand in his and pulls away a smidge. Enough to hold it between me and him. “I tried to go into the city, but my mom had me running errands for the feast tomorrow, so I couldn’t get you the real thing.”
Reaching back to the tabletop, he gets a mini bouquet with a few white irises from the church garden along with small wisteria blossoms tied together with cotton string. I’m speechless while he wraps the string around my wrist with intense attention.
“They’re beautiful,” I tell him when he gazes up at me with apprehension rounding his stare.
“You really think so?”
“Yes.” My whisper soaks into the emotionally charged air as I edge forward, wrapping my arms around his neck and offering him my lips.
Elijah’s kissed me before, but this feels different. It feels like more, and I’m not sure how that kind of kiss works. I don’t think he does either, because he pauses, hovering his mouth over mine as though he’s trying to figure out how to take what he wants.
In the end, I take the chance and pull him closer at the same time as he presses his lips to mine.
Holding them there for a second before he deposits a chaste kiss, followed by another.
Then another that lingers as his tongue tentatively licks at the seam of my lips, coaxing them open with a groan that shallows out his breathing.
I’m not sure how it all evolves. It’s quick and desperate and clumsy.
His tongue swirls with mine, making it hard to think past the minty taste of him.
Sweet and spicy all at the same time. And as I gasp for air, his teeth sink into my lip with a guttural growl that has my fingers twisting into the short strands at his nape.
Good Lord.
How am I meant to survive this?
My heart is pounding so hard that when his hands hold my throat, I can feel my pulse echoing through his flesh and bones.
I’ve never felt so close to him. So entwined with him.
“You taste good.” The remark rumbles from my throbbing chest without a care of what I should and shouldn’t say. “Can we do that again? Will you kiss me like that again?”
“You, too, sweet girl.” Elijah smiles at me, rolling his lips between his teeth like he is trying to get every last drop of taste from them. In the muted light his dark eyes appear darker and bigger.
“You’re so pretty, Elijah.” My words are rushed and breathless and nothing I’ve ever said before is truer.
Grinning softly, he leans flush to me. His entire body is pressed to mine, and it seems awfully cruel for God to have made us fit so perfectly together when we’re doomed to be torn apart in his name.
“Ditto,” he murmurs over my lips.
There’s no hesitation or trepidation when he takes my mouth this time. Somehow, the confidence makes our kiss sweeter. The growing roughness warms through me, a slow fire taking over my blood, building to an all-out inferno that leaves me wanting and needing more.
“Hey,” Christina hollers, flicking my face with water from her glass. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Sorry, I was just thinking about… I was just…”
“Daydreaming,” she concludes with a waggle of her brows.
“Yeah, I guess I was.” The lewd grin she gives me makes me blush at the memory of mine and Elijah’s first kiss.
As stunted and controlled as our lives were back then, everything was simpler.
He was the only boy I loved. The only boy I wanted every second of every day.
I would spend hours basking in the memories of our time under the willow tree and our kisses.
Even the chaste, gentle ones that were barely a second long.
There’s not a single doubt in my mind that I still love Elijah. I still think and dream about him all the time. Not a day goes by that I don’t want to be with him or near him. But there’s a spark in me, a flame that I didn’t know existed in my soul until Jayden.
I may not know what last night was, but I know that it was the single most encompassing of my life. I’m also certain that I’d give anything to feel as tethered as I felt between them.
For that moment my life felt as though it had a greater meaning than I had ever imagined, and I want to hang on to that feeling and explore it.
I want to feel as alive and wanted as I did when I was sandwiched between Elijah and Jayden with their heartbeats pounding into me. When their hands were on me and their breaths warmed my skin.
I want them more than any kind of freedom I’ve ever wanted. Like my every breath depends on their existence.