FIVE #4
I closed the space between us, pressing my face into his chest, wrapping my arms around his back, squeezing tight.
There was a moment of stunned silence before the tree limbs he called arms wrapped around me, crushing me closer to him.
We stayed that way for a long time, until the warmth felt like something I would remember always, the scent of The Green clinging to his skin, his arms feeling like a safe place to be.
But then, spell broken, we both pulled away at the same time.
"Turn the handle to the top for hot water," I told him, ducking out without making eye-contact, a bit worried he would see the truth in my eyes. That the embrace meant something to me.
Because I hadn't known kindness either.
And feeling it from him made me think I could really get used to it.
But not with him, I reminded myself as I slowly pulled off my shoes and pants, climbing into pajamas - the only pair I had in my bag.
He was going back to The Green. Hopefully to find his family. Maybe fall in love with one of his kind, create another generation of rare creatures.
And me, I was going to go to New York City. I was going to disappear. I was going to get a job. An apartment. And maybe, just maybe, I could meet friends. I could build bonds. I could possibly even find a man. Of my choosing.
Why the idea of that filled me with something resembling dread was beyond me.
The door to the bathroom opened, bringing a gust of humid air as Drake walked out in the robe that had opened to a V down nearly to his navel.
I was almost embarrassingly aware of his nakedness.
"Humans have us beat on cleansing as well. The soap burned a little," he admitted, shrugging.
"They're not natural," I supplied, jumping up off the edge of the bed a bit frantically, rushing into the bathroom.
"I'll be back out in a moment," I told him, then proceeded to take almost an hour, stripping out of my pajamas to take a quick shower myself, slipping back into them after, then washing his clothing as promised.
By the time I moved back out to the bedroom, I found Drake in the bed under the covers, sleeping like the dead.
Sleeping the sleep of a free man, a man who knew no one would wake him with demands, with anger, with violence.
I slowly climbed in beside him, careful not to make him stir, wanting a peaceful night for him for the first time in who-knew how long.
I woke up sometime later to something in my hair.
When my head twitched as if to dislodge it, something beneath me moved, rumbling. No. Chuckling.
Consciousness came to me all at once.
And now, well, I couldn't use the excuse of being cold, of being drawn to his warmth.
That it was simply survival.
No.
At some point during the night, I had moved across the expanse of the bed, climbed upward onto Drake and, oh my, cocked my leg up over his waist.
What was wrong with me?
Even as that thought formed, I understood the sensation in my hair.
Drake's fingers were sifting through it, fingertips rubbing my scalp in a way I had never felt before, something calming and also stimulating, a feeling that moved from his touch and down my spine, making a tremble rack through my system.
Feeling it, Drake's hand froze in my hair much like his air froze in his chest.
Unsure what possessed me to do so, I mumbled into his chest. "That feels good."
My voice sounded almost choked, foreign to me.
Beneath me, Drake's breath exhaled hard, almost like that of a hiss.
"I figured."
His voice sounded off too.
Rough. Grumbly almost.
I thought I had said something wrong until a long second later, his fingers started working their magic once again, fingers focusing a bit more on my scalp, working in slow circles that were sparking a need in my body, something akin to that which I had felt in the woods right before Drake had made it explode into pleasure.
And, suddenly, I wanted that again.
I wanted that by choice.
I wanted that with him, by his hands.
I wanted it the way it should have been.
Not thinking, not even sure what one was supposed to be thinking of in such a situation, I simply acted, did what my body was begging me to do.
My knee shifted, planted at the other side of his hips, allowing me to slide over him fully, pressing my palms to the soft sheets made warm from our body heat, looking down at Drake as my hair fell forward, curtaining us.
"What are you doing, Amy?" he asked, voice still rough, but now also cautious, curious.
"I don't know," I admitted, watching as his dark eyes went a bit hooded, as the red within them somehow brightened, stood out more in the dark depths.
Taking a breath that shuddered out of him, he reached up to tuck some hair behind my ear. "Then maybe you shouldn't do it," he suggested, trying to be the reasonable one, the rational one. Maybe even the thoughtful one.
But I didn't want reason and rationale and thought.
I just wanted more of the feeling coursing through me.
My eyes roamed over his face, never wanting to forget it even though I knew our lives would go different ways, even though I knew that my death would precede his by decades - or longer - since I was to stay in the human realm.
I would be returning to the Earth before he even looked like he aged a day.
"Can I kiss you?" I asked, eyes flicking up from his lips to his eyes.
"Amy..."
"It's a yes or no question," I told him, feeling his hand tighten in my hair. "Just a kiss," I specified.
At least, that was all I was planning on.
"Okay," he agreed, eyes going smaller still as his breathing went unsteady beneath me.
I lowered down to him in what felt like slow motion, every part of me feeling over sensitive, poised for the moment.
It was a small thing, surely, to most.
To me, kept cloistered, kept as pure as possible for my mother's personal gain, it felt big. Huge.
My lips pressed to his, a shiver moving through my insides to find his lips firm, foreign, yet welcome.
I fumbled.
Or, at least, it felt like I fumbled, like I had no idea what I was doing.
But Drake's hand twisted in my hair, his lips parted, coaxing mine, demanding more.
A low, throaty sound escaped me, making his body shift, turning, pressing me back into the mattress, his body half moving over mine, crushing into me.
My leg rose up, wrapping around his lower back, pulling him against me, shuddering hard when I felt his hardness pressing against my inner thigh, so so close to where my body was begging for the contact, begging for things long denied it.
My hips ground upward as a low, throaty moan escaped me, the sound seeming to shatter something between us, making Drake pull away hard, pressing up on his hands, putting space between our bodies.
"Just a kiss, Amy," he reminded me, voice rough with his jagged breathing.
"It's not enough," I told him, hands grabbing for the lapels of the robe, dragging him back downward.
His forehead pressed into mine as his air rushed out of his chest. "I don't have too much control left here, honey. Please don't push it."
There was a vulnerability in his voice, something raw and sweet that somehow managed to let me think through the desire clouding my brain, burning my body.
"Sorry," I mumbled, hand moving up to run through his short hair.
His eyes opened, brows drawn low over their dark depths. "Don't apologize. Do you have any idea how lucky someone like me is to get to have you want him?
"Someone like you?"
"A prisoner. Someone who has been broken day in and day out for more time than he even knows consciously."
"You didn't choose to be a prisoner, Drake.
That isn't who you are. You're... you're a legend come to life," I told him, not understanding the insecurity within him, but hating my parents all the more for embedding it there.
"I think I'm the lucky one. I mean who else in all The Green could claim she got to kiss a Draca?
" I asked, smiling a little when his eyes lost the sadness, found warmth instead.
On the nightstand, the phone started screaming, making Drake shock back, eyes wide.
"Our wake-up call," I explained to him, reaching for the phone, pulling it up to my ear.
"Wake-up call," the chipper woman at the front desk declared.
"I appreciate it," I told her, hanging up. "We set it up so we didn't miss check-out," I reminded him as he fell onto his back, hand resting on the hard outlines of muscles in his abdomen where the robe had opened.
"Right," he agreed. "It's time to leave," he added, sounding resigned.
I guess the same feeling settled inside me as well as I sat back against the headboard. "I will walk you back to the veil," I offered.
"No."
"Yes," I countered. "I want to make sure you can get back."
"I can get back," he assured me, sending me a smile. "I can navigate The Green, honey. I think I can handle O-hi-o." He stretched the word out, a foreign sound on his lips. "I will see you off in... what was it?" he asked, eyes scrunching up, searching for the word.
"The bus," I reminded him.
"The big, metal car that sits dozens of humans."
"And now me," I declared, forcing a smile and a pep in my voice that I did not feel.
"I don't like it."
I nodded at that. "I don't like the idea of you going back into The Green to face some unknown fate either."
"I'll be fine. I always am."
"If it turns out that your kind... that..."
"That there are none left," he finished for me.
"Yeah. What will you do then?"
"Honestly? I don't know."
"Cece will take you in," I told him with certainty. "You helped save her and Jasper. The Light will protect you from harm."
"I don't know if a life of protection is what I want. It sounds a lot like another name for captivity to me."