Dark Secrets (68 page)

He laughed,
my wet skin making the path of his breath obvious.

“
David.” I
parted my knees and let him kiss my inner thigh, feeling his wet
hair drip against my undies. “What are you doing?”

“
I want to
know every inch of your body by only the memory of my
lips.”

My eyes flung
open as he kissed fabric, folding it down over my hips a
little.

“
Don’t
worry,” he said. “I won’t go there—today.”

Droplets of
rain tickled my flesh, skimming silkily over my belly, staying on
my skin until they reached my back, soaking away into the ground
then. It was cold, I could tell, and I hoped the goosebumps over my
skin, probably making my legs prickly, didn’t turn David off
touching me.

“
You’re not
prickly, Ara,” David said, caressing the underside of my knee
delicately, bringing my ankle up over his hip as he drank the rain
from the curve of my waist.

I drove my
fingers into his wet hair, following the movements of his head
against my skin. “David?”

“
Yes, my
love?”

“
I want to
feel you against me.”

“
I know you
do,” he said, and when I hooked my fingers just under his elbows
and tugged him upward, his bare chest and arms slipped across my
body, stealing a quick gasp as I felt him on top of me for the
first time. It was like a hunger finally fed; a wave finally
meeting a rock, dissolving into spray. For everything else in the
world that made me cry, in this moment I finally found life. I
wanted to tear away the wet remains of fabric between us and feel
him inside me.

He laughed
breathily into the flesh just below my ear. “Ara, I can't think
straight when you think that way.”

“
Don’t then.
When you think straight, you deny me what I want.”

He stopped
and pushed up slowly on his elbows, elevating his chest from
mine.

I stared him
down, beads of water blinding me, the rain pouring into our quiet
little world as if it had no care for the fact that our forever was
limited. “I know what you’re doing,” I said. “I know you’re about
to tell me we have to stop.”

“
I have good
reason for that.” He rose onto his knees, keeping his hands beside
my shoulders, his body forming a shelter over mine.

“
What
reason?”

David nodded
to the now dark sky. “That rain’s gonna get heavier any
minute.”

“
No. This
sucks! You never give me my own way.”

“
That, my
love, is because your own way involves me taking something from you
I'm not willing to take.”

“
My
virginity?”

A cheeky grin
spread across his face, golden under the grey sky.
“Yes.”

“
Oh, my holy,
freakin’ God. You have got to be kidding me!”

“
Sorry. I'm
not.”

With the cold
conclusiveness of reason, the small split in my wrist started
stinging. “Why? Is my virginity like kryptonite or
something?”

“
No. Even
better.” He dropped a quick kiss on my mouth. “It’s
sacred.”

“
Sacred?” My
arched brow thickened the sarcasm.

He breathed
out through his nose, closing his lips into a thin smile. “Yes, my
love. You will always remember your first. If you choose not to
come with me, one day you
will
fall in love with someone else, and you’ll want
to be pure—untainted—for him. If I take you now, you can never go
back. I would hate for you to regret any of our interactions one
day.”

“
David. This
is the new world. It doesn’t work like that now.”

“
That may be
so, but it still works that way for me.” His wide, sincere eyes
looked right into mine, his voice intense with conviction. “In my
society, virginity is a virtue to be praised and cherished, not
something girls give away without reflection or care.”

“
But—”

“
Ara, please?
It’s what I want for you.” His harsh tone forced me into silence.
“Sometimes you can think too much with your heart and not enough
with your head. I have to be the adult here. I have to protect you
from yourself—from your human nature.”

“
But, David,
I can take care of myself. I’m a big—”

“
It’s my job
to protect you,” he scolded then softened. “Even if it means I’m
falling apart.”

“
Fine.”

“
I’m sorry,
Ara.”

“
I said it’s
fine.” I looked to the side, tears coating my eyes.

“
Come on
then—” He pulled away a little, helping me to my feet, standing
closer while I closed my eyes, waiting for the world to stop
dancing. “You okay?”

I nodded,
rolling my undies back to the correct position.

“
Okay, let’s
get you home before you catch a cold.”

“
No.” I threw
my arms around his ribs and cupped my wrist, forming a chain of
unyielding force. “We’re staying a little longer today.”

“
Is that so?
And…” He tried to lift my chin; I held fast, refusing to even look
at him. He gave in. “What exactly are you going to do if I decide
to force you?”

“
You
won’t.”

“
Hm, you’re
so sure of yourself,” he said, but I heard the smile in his tone,
and the fact that he did nothing else except tangle his fingertips
in the hair at the nape of my neck and hold me, proved I was
right.

My bones
turned to rubber inside my flesh, loving the closeness of skin on
skin, with my vampire. And though the summer rain continued, I felt
only warmth. His blood had awakened me, like a powerful drug, and
mine had filled his veins—giving him life, fuelling his movements.
There was no fear—no weight to the truth right now that, one day,
he'd be gone, and my arms would fall empty to my sides—the feel of
his embrace gone, his body gone, his smile just a memory fading,
and his lips, never more a kiss that belonged to
me. 

But I owned
it now.

I smiled into
his skin.

Despite
everything that waited, despite everything I knew would happen, it
felt like I could exist eternally, living forever in this one
breath of closeness with my everlasting knight. For today, there
was no tomorrow.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

“
Ara-Rose?” Vicki
called from downstairs.

“
Yeah?” I answered
quickly so she wouldn't come up and spot my vampire
pillow.

“
Emily’s on the
phone,” she said.

“
Ergh! Why’d she call
the home line?” I said to myself. “I have a mobile.”

“
She was probably
hoping your dad would answer,” David said, his voice a gentle hum
against my ear through his bare chest.

“
If that’s the case,
she needs therapy.”

“
Good, then you could
go together.”

I slapped his arm; he
pretended to be hurt, rolling up a little.

“
Ara-Rose!
Now!”

“
Coming,” I called to
Vicki.

David grabbed my hand
as I fell away from his arms. “Don’t go? Emily can call back
later.”

“
No—I’m up now. I
won’t be long, okay?”

He groaned, then
rolled over, snuggling into the pillow where my body had just been.
“Be quick. It’s cold here without you.”

“
I will.”

Since David closed my
curtains when he came through my window earlier, I didn’t notice
the grey day until I stepped into the fresh, cool air of the
hallway. The windows all around the house were open, same as every
weekend, and the soft lemon scent of Vicki’s bathroom cleaner mixed
with the moist weight of freshly cut grass, drying the back of my
throat as I drew a deep breath. I tucked my hands under my arms,
wishing I’d put on a sweater to come down. “Morning,
Dad.”

He smiled over his
newspaper. “Morning, honey.”

“
Any good news?” I
hurried past him to the phone on the wall.

“
You know what I
always say,” he moaned, lowering his nose into the paper
again.

“
Yes, I do. No need
to say it, Dad.” I took the phone from Vicki. “Hey, Em.”

“
Hey, Ara. What are
you two doing today?”

By ‘you two’, I
assumed she was referring to David and I. “Lazing around.
Why?”

“
Everyone’s going
bowling tonight. You guys wanna come?”

“
Um—” Bowling versus
bed with David. I leaned against the wall. “Maybe. What
time?”

“
About
six.”

“
Oh, okay, well,
yeah. I’d say we will, but I’ll have to check with
David.”

“
Okay. When will you
see him?”

“
When I hang up the
phone.” I grinned, watching Vicki. She had no clue what I was
talking about, thank God.

“
Oh my gosh, Ara. You
rebel. Did he stay last night?”

“
No, no. Nothing like
that. Just...early,” I hinted, hoping she’d catch my drift—and
couldn’t help smiling suggestively.

“
Oh. Okay. So, like,
sneak through the window sort of thing?”

“
You got it.” I
giggled; Vicki looked at me with a raised brow. “So, six
then?”

“
Yep.”

“
Okay, see you
then.”

“
See ya.”

The phone clinked, and
suddenly I was back in the kitchen with my parents.

“
What did Emily
want?” Vicki asked.

“
They’re going
bowling tonight.”

“
Are you and David
going?”

“
Yeah, so far. I’ll
have to check if he wants to—but I’d say we probably will.” I
shrugged.

“
What time is David
coming over today?”

He’s already
here
. “Don’t know. But I’m going to get
some more sleep before he does.”

“
Sleep? It’s nine in
the morning, Ara,” Vicki stated.

“
So?” I shrugged.
“I’m a teenager. Aren’t we supposed to hibernate?”

The only other sound
Vicki made as I walked away was a loud sigh. What could she say,
really? This is what she wanted; a normal teenage girl.

The soft strumming of
guitar filled the hallway with an easygoing air as I stomped back
up to my room. When I pushed my door open, expecting to see the
outline of a vampire, my smile dropped as the bright yellow light
of morning shone through my open curtains—onto my empty bed. My
eyes darted quickly to the iPod, in its dock, with a song playing
at a volume my dad would approve of. And as I watched the rain
spatter on the glass of my window, blurring my vision of the
outside world, I listened to the words, gathering that my vampire
meant them as a musical sticky-note saying,
My love, I shall return soon
.

Not that that’s what
the words were, but that’s how David would say it.

With the absence of an
all-hearing vampire in my room, I took a moment to be human, then
jumped into the welcoming, enveloping heat of the shower, washed my
hair quickly and jumped out, wrapping the towel around my chest and
tucking it under my arm.

As I stepped back into
my room, a sudden breeze swept through my window and knocked all
the papers off my desk. “Damn it, David,” I said to myself,
squatting down to pick them up. I was sure that was closed a second
ago.

“
It was. I opened
it.”

“
Agh! David!” My
heart splattered in my chest; I looked up from my precarious squat
on the ground to the vampire perched on the windowsill like a
pterodactyl. “You scared the living bejeezus out of me.”

“
Sorry.”

“
What were you doing
out there?” I stood up, tapping the edges to force them into a neat
stack. “You ruined my homework pile. Now I have to reorder these
before I hand them in to Dad tomorrow.”

“
I’ll do it for you.”
He shrugged, obviously in no hurry to remove himself from the path
of the whipping breeze.

“
Why are you just
sitting there?” I looked at him suspiciously. “Are you hiding
something?”

He shook his head, one
of his eyes narrowing slightly into his smile as he looked over my
wet, towel-covered body. “I’m just admiring the view.”

“
You better mean the
stunning panoramic view of the hills and my backyard, David
Knight.” I dumped my disordered papers on my desk and took a step
back.

“
Nope. I meant my
beautiful, almost-naked girlfriend.” He jumped down from the ledge,
slowly pushing the window closed behind him.
“So—bowling?”

“
That’s the plan,” I
said, inhaling the fresh cologne wafting off this suave boy as he
stepped in front of me, hair all wet and brushed back, for once,
showing his forehead. He looked more like a man today in that black
hoodie and grey V-neck shirt than he ever had before. It almost
made me sad that he’d never grow older than nineteen. “So, do you
actually want to go bowling?”