Dark Secrets (67 page)

“
But, I look like a
flamboyant zebra.”

“
You look
beautiful.”

“
Well, I feel
naked.”

“
Well, you’re
not—yet.” His eyes slowly drifted to my jeans. “May I?”

“
Mm-hm.” I nodded,
holding my breath.

In one yank of my
button-fly jeans, the denim parted, revealing my pink underwear. I
drove my thumbs into the waist and shimmied them down my hips,
feeling the air cool my skin where the rain made it soggy under my
jeans. David watched, his eyes falling past my underwear to the
apex of my thighs, down my skinny white legs and to my knees, his
lips splitting into a grin when I carelessly stumbled and tripped,
kicking my ankles free with about as much finesse as a
drunkard.

As I stood expectantly
in front of him, more naked than I’d ever been with anyone, the
whirling winds circled the clearing, sweeping my hips, my arms, my
belly, touching all the places I knew David was dreaming about. And
for the first time in my life, I felt beautiful before his
eyes.

The patters of rain
stopped completely then and the beads of water glistening in
David’s hair and over his lashes looked almost out of place. His
golden skin showed through his white t-shirt, made almost
see-through by the rain, hugging the curvy bulk of his chest and
arms. He spread the collar and slipped it past his head, peeling it
away, all sticky and soggy, from his skin, then dropped it to the
grass beside my clothes. I smiled at the pile; he smiled,
too.

The sun wandered in
for a peek at this innocent step toward danger, making the water on
David’s skin sparkle. He looked as though he was starring in the
wrong storybook.

“
What’s funny?” he
asked.

“
I like the sun on
your skin.”

He angled his arm
outward and studied it, running a hand down the droplets, his eyes
flashing to another thought for a second.

“
What?” I
asked.

“
What’s
what?”

“
What were you just
thinking?”

“
Oh. Uh—just that…”
He laughed. “I hope the rain didn’t soak through my
jeans.”

“
Why?” I asked,
watching him unbutton them.

“
Because,” he said,
slipping them down his hips. “My briefs are white.”

“
So?” I said, but as
soon as I heard my own words, the white of his shirt, all
see-through with the water, registered in my mind. “Oh.”

He winked and tossed
his jeans aside, allowing me a moment to scrutinise. My waterfall
gaze drifted over his broad shoulders and the tight skin across his
chest, down the cagey ripples of his ribs, stopping at the thick
band of his underwear. Above those, there wasn’t the obvious
six-pack I kind of expected, just that nicely contoured ‘V’ leading
up smoothly to his ribs.

A girly giggle
twitched at my lips. “I always wondered if you were a boxers or
briefs guy.”

David looked down,
then shrugged. “These are kind of in between.”

“
They’re sexy and—” I
pouted. “They didn’t get wet.”

He threw his head
back, laughing. “Quite frankly, I’m relieved.”

“
Well—” The heavens
forced my gaze away from him, “They won’t be dry for
long.”

“
No.” He
curled his palm and caught a few raindrops. “I should be taking you
home.”

“
I don’t want
to go home.”

“
I
know.”

My toes
angled inward, my lip hiding behind my teeth as his suggestive
smile brought my blood up to my heart in a heat wave. “I want you
to come closer.”

“
I know.” His words landed all hot and moist on my face, his
chest suddenly inches from mine. “And it’s taking everything in me
not to want
you
right now.”

I shook my
head. “You can want me.”

David folded
over a little, his brow coming to rest on mine; I looked up into
the anguish his closed eyes tried to hide. “Lay down,” he
whispered, stepping back.

The grassy
bed beneath my feet felt sticky, the summer’s dying heat making the
rain rise off it in a warm cloud. David stayed standing, stiff and
tall as a tower, while I pressed my palms to the grass, my elbows
shaking, and edged jaggedly onto my back, trying to look
relaxed.

“
Close your
eyes,” he demanded sweetly, still not opening his.

“
Okay,” I
said, but after six long breaths and two fistfuls of grass pulled
from the soil, only an empty breeze had caressed my half-naked
body. I opened my eyes. David?”

I watched him
expectantly, waiting for him to look at me. He didn’t. He was
fighting that battle within—the war between the vampire and the
human—and as he dropped to one knee, then the other, his fists
tight, my main concern was not the possibility of my own death, but
that he might deny himself the pleasure of my blood.

“
You remember
not to scream, right?”

I nodded,
biting my lower lip.

Without a
second thought, both his hands cupped my face, then slid down my
jaw and over the curve of my neck, slipping my bra strap off my
shoulder. “Just stay still, Ara.”

The air
coming into my lungs felt empty. “Are you…are you going to take my
bra off?”

“
Not if you
don’t want me to.”

My eyes
opened to his breath on my chin, his lips within reach, his body
immensely close but not touching; wanting but not taking,
practically floating down the length of mine like he was just a
layer of heat in the atmosphere. Every nerve in my brain called out
to him; every part of my body, tingling hot, begged him to press
himself against me. 

But he didn’t
move. He just smiled to himself, leaning on his elbow beside me.
“Well, do you want me to take it off you or not?”

I could feel
my pulse, racing like a twitch in my neck; felt my body succumb to
the lust—scream out its own instinct-driven desire to die at his
hands. But I wasn’t ready to undress completely. “Not
yet.”

His eyes
stayed on the bare patch of skin, his lips softly landing there as
he smoothed the strap back in place. “You okay?”

“
Yeah,” I
said, then quickly reached down to scratch my sticky leg. “The
grass is just really itchy.”

“
Shall I run
to the rock and get the picnic rug?”

“
No,” I said,
eyes wide. That would just give him too much time to think about
what he didn’t want to do to me.

He smiled to
himself—his secret smile—and cupped my neck, his thumb sliding down
over my chin easily with the rain’s assistance, coming to rest just
under my jaw, tipping it up to expose my throat. “Your life is in
my hands right now,” he whispered against my pulse. “And the most
beautiful thing about that, Ara, is that all I can read in your
mind is desire.”

“
That's
because you don’t scare me, Mr Knight.”

“
I wish I
did.”

“
No you
don’t.”

“
You’re
right,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine as he reached down and
took my hand, folding it open to press a firm kiss on the softer,
more delicate side. “I like you this way.”

I looked at
his nail sitting ready at my wrist, one firm indent away from
releasing my blood. “Then what are you waiting for?”

“
Someone to
stop me.”

I gave him a
reassuring smile. “I trust you, David.”

“
You
shouldn’t.” He traced a shallow, horizontal line, drawing slivers
of red out over my milk-white skin, like pinhead rivers running
quickly for the sea. But I didn’t feel the cut—just the pressure of
his fingers gripping my bone.

Only a beat
passed after that before the black in his eyes washed the human
away—the vampire taking control, pressing his teeth down on the
outer edges of the wound to open it further. Thousands of tiny
bubbles raced up my veins, making my fingers want so badly to flex
out and either shove him away or run along his jaw.

My blood
could finally reach him—was deep inside him right now, touching his
heart, coursing through his veins, warming everything I could never
physically touch. I wanted it to stay there forever. I wanted the
sun to go down around us, and rise again tomorrow, leaving us here
like this, always.

I rolled my
face to the leaves above, watching them swirl around, while my
lungs filled with humid air, the rain moistening the back of my
throat with each shallow breath. And the feel of David's thumb in
the cup of my palm, holding my hand in place against the stubble on
his chin, made me feel so close to him—to the human that loved me;
the human that was buried deep beneath desire right now.

But the trust
was magic—almost euphoric, as if the world around me was just a
soft echo—like being lost in the perfectly tuned note of a song I’d
never heard. I could float away, were it not for David grounding
me, keeping me here. I finally knew what it felt like to be his
victim; a human that could nourish him, but loved enough to be left
alive. I felt the lick of death, felt the peace others must feel
when they finally give over to it—how nothing in the world really
mattered anymore. In a funny way, it all just seemed kind of silly
to worry about the things we did.

Slowly, David
drew away, leaving a moist, cool patch on my wrist, and smiled down
at me. A stain of crimson love bled from his lips in rivulets,
seeping out over his perfect smile.

My chest and
shoulders lifted with each deep breath, guiding my soul back to the
present.

“
Are you
okay, my love?”

I nodded. “I
might actually have found Heaven on Earth.”

David studied
my face for a second, then cupped the back of my head and rolled me
up, slipping behind me, slowly looping his arms around my
shoulders, like the wings of a mother swan. “I think you’re
delusional.”

I giggled
quietly, resting my feet beside his, our knees bent, committing the
feel of his bare chest on my slippery, rain-soaked spine to memory.
If I ignored the breeze making my wet bra cold, I could actually
pretend we really were naked together. “Thank you,
David.”

“
For
what?”

For letting
me have my own way, for wanting it, too, for not denying that he
wanted it, for being more than just an ordinary boy—for… “For being
real.” I tucked my brow against his ear and slowly tickled the back
of his wrist, imagining his blood in my mouth.

“
You don’t
have to imagine it, Ara,” he said, kissing the bone above my eye.
“If you want it, you can have it.”

“
Really?” I
turned slightly at the shoulders to look back at him.

He lifted his
wrist and shut his eyes tight for a second, and when I snuggled my
spine against his chest again, saw red gush out over his skin. He
tipped his arm, balancing the liquid there as he slowly offered it
to my lips.

Without
hesitation, I opened my mouth and scooped up the runaway drops with
my tongue, wrapping my lips around his arm, the warmth of sweet
orange-chocolate flooding my mouth like liquid made of satin
ribbons.

“
Describe it
to me,” he whispered into my hair. “In your thoughts.”

I swirled the
warm blood around on my tongue and let it slide down my throat,
into my stomach—like the first hot cocoa of winter; smooth and
rich, warm—like his voice.
You taste
like...like...

“
Okay.” He
slid his index finger against my lip then down my chin, gently
pulling my face away from his wrist. “That’s enough, my love. I’m
not sure what it’ll do to you.”

Through the
whir of the world spinning around me, I turned my head and looked
up into David’s eyes, filling with that amazing, almost transparent
shade of green, but brighter than ever before—Dorothy’s Emerald
City illustrated in the gaze of a vampire. “David, I think I can
see your soul.”

He closed his
eyes around a smile. “You are so damn sweet.”

I licked my
teeth, tasting his blood again. “Mm, no,
you
are.”

“
I am, huh?”
He looked at my lips, moving slowly onto his knees in front of me.
“Let me taste it.”

I opened my
mouth to touch David’s, his tongue skimming across mine, pushing it
away from the sharp edges of his fangs. Warm sweet butter and salty
copper mixed in our kiss, and it almost felt like David and I were
thinking the same thing—thinking how amazing it was to taste the
essence of him and me; everything that made us exist broken down to
flavour between our lips—tangible, real.

My body sung
with ideas and desires too long refused.

“
I know,”
David whispered into my breath.

“
You know
what?” I angled my face to the sky, laying back on my elbows as his
lips travelled down my neck, over each and every one of the tiny
scars there.

“
I know how
you feel.”

I moaned, my
breath expelling in a half gasp as his lips circled my navel
suddenly. “Mm. I don’t think you do.”