Chapter 4 #2
“What have you done to me?” I rasped. I kept saying stupid things, when it was unlike me to say anything at all.
“I’ve bewitched you,” she whispered, then laughed.
Her hands slid over my hands, which were resting on her hips.
The hem of her jeans was impossibly soft under my palms. Her fingers—so much smaller—curled in the spaces between mine.
She drew my hands up, so my thumbs roughed over the soft, warm bare skin of her hips.
And that touch, in that moment, was more intoxicating than all the stars in the sky.
I held her like this while she peered through the telescope, her head nestled against my neck.
“Who hurt you?” I whispered. I needed to know about the tears.
“No one,” she said, her fingers reaching up, trailing down my jaw, sending electric shocks in their wake. “Everyone.”
I wanted to ask her to stay with me. To come with me as I dropped Roger off. To take her wherever she wanted to go. To tell me who she was and to answer, if she asked about me. I wanted to lose myself completely.
But she was just passing through. She hadn’t wanted to give me her name. The message was clear: she wanted only this.
It was a taste of my own medicine. I wasn’t used to being in the passenger seat. But I’d take whatever she gave me.
My hand migrated to her jaw. Its soft edge fit so perfectly as I angled her face toward mine. It was like she was made for the rough cup of my palm.
“You’re perfect,” I husked.
She made a soft sound, and I realized she could feel my need surge under her.
I shifted, trying to get it to calm down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long time.”
It had been a few months since my last careful tryst. But that hadn’t felt like this. Not even close.
“Don’t be sorry.” Her breath was soft in my ear. She took my lobe in her teeth.
There was no hiding anything now.
When she released my earlobe, I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, the force of need clashing with the knowledge that this was the only moment I’d get with her. I didn’t want this to be the only moment. I was breaking all my rules; every single one of them.
“I—” I began.
But a loud snuffle sounded in the chair a few feet away. A snort next, as Roger sat up, looking confused.
The woman stood, pulling her glasses from her pocket. “Morning,” she said to Roger, a smile in her voice.
I tilted my face back, closing my eyes. My heart thundered against my ribs.
Both at how close we’d been, and at what an ass I was.
How carried away I’d gotten. Dirty old man.
And still, even knowing what a shit person I was, my eyes drifted to her, to the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the size of that sweatshirt swimming on her.
I wanted to see her in one of my shirts. Smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. Eating eggs I’d made for her. Demanding I tell her all the names of the plants in my garden. In Latin.
But her smile faded as she looked at Roger, concern tilting her brows.
Roger looked scared.
“Hey,” I said. Guilt draped over me like a cold blanket. I got up and went to him.
“Roger. It’s me. Do you remember where you are?”
He blinked, still not focusing.
I wondered if I was looking at my future. The shame from that internalization was enough to knock the last bit of sense back into me.
“Let’s get you up.” I reached out a hand.
“Why did you say it was morning?” Roger asked the woman.
“Oh, it was a joke, I—” she looked at me helplessly.
I’d help her do anything. I’d help fly her to the moon.
“You fell asleep, Roger.” I hefted him out of his chair.
But even as I held him, I forgot about Roger as the woman bent down to pick up her blanket. “I’m going to go.”
She was leaving. That was it. Just like that, the magic was slipping away.
I searched her eyes, begging her to stay with no words.
In her gaze I saw a plea not to stop her.
I wouldn’t. But it still felt like a boulder in my chest.
“We’ll take you home,” I said. “We’ll be driving right past the hotel.” I was desperate. But I also wasn’t going to let her go without knowing she was safe.
“I’ll be fine. It’s not far.”
Fuck no. “This is a safe town, but not on the shoulder of the road at night.”
“It’s only ten minutes,” the woman said. I caught an edge of defiance in her voice. A test.
I couldn’t push. I’d come across like a creep. But I couldn’t let her go on her own, either. I was about to tell her I’d go get her a cab when a voice came from over the ledge. “Hey!”
“Ellie!” the woman called, looking relieved.
“I got us a ride!” her friend said. “On the tour bus.” She glanced down at me. Smiled, but held back. “Unless you want to—”
“I’m coming.” The woman looked back my way. She smiled, then she came over and rested her hands on my shoulders, rose up on her tiptoes, and kissed me on the cheek.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even form the words I should have, like can I have your number? Just to check in on you wherever you are? Just so you don’t disappear like these stars a million lightyears away?
But she was already gone, up the slope to round the ledge, and it was just me and Roger. On our own again.
“Come on, Roger,” I said. He was heavy, but the lead in my arms wasn’t him.
“Who was that?” Roger asked as he ambled beside me up the slope.
“I don’t know,” I said simply.
Roger looked confused. He probably wouldn’t remember her in the morning.
If only I could say the same.