Chapter 19 #2
“Good.” He sits up and inches closer to me, our knees touching.
His thumb drags across my collarbone, skating across the gold chain I never remove.
“I want to smell the salt water on your hair and then wrap it around my fist. I want you to spend as much time in the water as you could possibly want, till you’re bursting with joy.
Then I want to pull you up onto the sand and…
” He swallows, seeming to remember himself.
I raise my wineglass to my mouth. “I would like that.” My heart is so loud I worry he can hear it.
“Yeah?”
The apartment goes completely dark. Every light turns off, including the digital clock on my nightstand. I can’t see a thing, but I can hear Trip’s staggered breaths and a soft curse under one of them.
“Was that…?”
“Yes.” His voice is gruff.
I grab my phone and shine the flashlight. I might have some more powerful ones in a closet somewhere, or some candles to light. “Let me grab—”
“Just give it a second.” His baritone in the dark sends vibrations through my skin. If he truly did ever want to haunt someone, he’d be dang good at it.
The end-table lamp flickers on, then the overhead lights. There’s a whirring sound from the kitchen. The refrigerator and other appliances must be back up and running.
“Trip, why?”
“Let’s just keep playing.” His tone precludes any argument.
I flip the cards and wince. “I win.”
His face is expressionless as he pulls the T-shirt over his shoulders and it evaporates into thin air.
Holy shit. It’s my turn to gape. Every inch of Trip’s torso is that same gorgeous caramel color.
But what helps—or doesn’t help—matters is that the caramel color is wrapped around perfect biceps, toned shoulders, and abs with a V that disappears beneath the waistband of his boxers, along with a line of chocolate-colored hair.
Thin tattooed lines paint pictures across his chest, along his shoulders, and down one of his biceps.
The sharp point of a record needle on his arm, a chess piece on his left pec, thin vines and flowers down his side, what looks like a small cursive g by his wrist, and a Roman numeral three.
He is a dessert. No, stop objectifying him.
This isn’t even technically his real body.
But it doesn’t register enough for the thrumming between my hips to stop.
A coil being pulled tighter and tighter until I’m not sure how much more I can take.
He has the audacity to look embarrassed. “This—it’s my body at the time of the crash. I doubt it still looks this way.” He lets out a half-hearted chuckle and his cheeks flush. “A few more bumps and bruises, at least.”
“Oh, Trip. That—that doesn’t matter.” I clear my throat and reach toward his hand.
“It’s okay.” He shrugs and nods in my direction. “Your question.”
“Oh, right. Why does the light—the electricity thing happen? At the Plaza you said it had only happened once before. When?” It’s more than one question, but I need answers to all of them. Plus, he doesn’t call me on it.
Trip goes very still, like when Kotka perches on a ledge.
“The first time was the same night I realized I wasn’t in my body.
When I woke up from the accident. I saw my hands just as they are now.
But when I looked past them, I saw myself.
Lying there, in a hospital bed.” He runs his hand through his hair and it musses the curls.
“I freaked the fuck out. There were tubes hooked up to my body, and wires and…” He pauses.
“Then the lights started flickering and before I knew it the machines were beeping. A nurse ran in, and I got out of there as fast as I could. I haven’t been back since.
” The last part is barely more than a whisper.
I reach out and rest my palm where his is. Mine goes through his like it’s water, and they turn into one, conjoined hand. “Do you still think it happens when you’re emotional?”
He nods. “Some kind of heightened state.”
“And just now?”
He rolls his eyes at me. “I think you’re smart enough to figure that one out, Elz.”
I look away and find my reflection in the full-length mirror on the other side of my living room. There I am, sitting alone in my underwear. What are you doing, Libby? Babcia’s words come back to me.
Spirits are lost souls for a reason. Playing their games can be dangerous.
But when I look back at Trip, with one brown curl falling over his brow, the devastation on his face from what he just told me, I want to dive in headfirst. Playing his game might be dangerous, but I’ve never lived dangerously a day in my life. I’m sick of it.
We stare at each other, nearly naked in more ways than one. I go to pull the next pair of cards. These will determine who is truly getting naked. Am I ready for this?
From my pile: a ten of diamonds. From Trip’s: a jack of hearts.
I hold them in front of my face, not revealing them just yet. I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Don’t hold out on me, Elz. Who won?”
This is it. It’s my turn to—as they say—bare all.
I scrunch my nose and tuck the cards to my chest. “Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.”
“Oh no you don’t!” He reaches for the cards in my hand, and I scramble backward, crab-walk-style, out of his reach.
He dives for me, and I scrunch into a ball, forgetting for a moment that he can’t actually touch me.
When I remove my face from my hands, Trip is above me on all fours.
His thighs cage mine and his hands rest on the floor on either side of my head.
That beautiful tan chest rises and falls above me as he takes deep breaths. Exertion or exhilaration, I’m not sure.
His eyes are locked on mine, and I’m frozen to the spot, waiting for him to do something, for either of us to do something. The cards are moot at this point and we both know it. This is an entirely different kind of game we’re playing.
Trip dips his head, hair falling into his face, until he’s so close our noses would be touching.
“Elz,” he breathes. He braces himself on one arm and uses the other hand to trace the planes of my face, until his hand cups the back of my neck and his thumb rests on my lower lip. “Tell me what you want.”
I want him. I want friction. This no touching is driving me mad.
I tilt my hips toward his and let my hands fall away from my chest. The cards flutter to the floor.
He nuzzles into my neck and it’s as light as the wind kissing my skin. I turn my head and expose more of myself to him. The cards rest on the floor next to my face, forgotten. Hearts. Diamonds.
Wait. The head rush when I sit up and through him is unmatched by anything I’ve ever felt. Trip’s spirit is electric with energy, and it courses through me.
“Trip,” I gasp.
“Elz.” He’s not focused, still chasing an impossible touch.
“Trip.” I put more force behind the word.
He rolls off me onto his forearms, eyes still glazed with desire.
I take a breath. “I think we might be thinking about the curse all wrong.”