Blood Moon (Moon Books) (3 page)

I guessed I understood his eagerness. I wanted to know everything about him too. Even about other guys. To be honest, it hurt less to hear about the few guys he’d been with than when he mentioned his parents. I’d always felt they liked me and to hear that they had told him to push me away made my gut twist.

He told me he’d started working for his parents that first fall, taking college classes online and learning the ropes of their family business. I realized at that point that I had never known what they’d done all those years or how they’d come to live in that big stone mansion in the middle of nowhere. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but something stopped me.

There was one thing I had to hear him say, though.

“Before we go waltzing into the sunset, there’s something I have to ask, Noh. Your parents didn’t want you to be with me three years ago. I’m not sure what you think is going on here tonight but to me it seems like we’re heading that way pretty quickly.” He nodded and squeezed my hands. I let out a long shaky breath. “I want this, believe me I do, but how is it going to be different? I mean, are you ready to tell your family to go screw themselves?”

Noah let go of my hand to run his fingers through my hair and down along my jaw. His touch sent little happy skittering tingles across my skin. He put his hand back in mine and threaded our fingers together.

“It wasn’t quite like that...I mean they didn’t—well, it’s hard to explain. Anyway, I really hope tonight is the start of something for us too and I’d be ready to tell my parents to screw themselves in a heartbeat.”

My heart sped up and I grinned until I noticed the crestfallen look on his face. “Noh, you don’t have to say anything right away. I mean, we don’t want to start with the family drama before we’ve even had any fun together.”

He shook his head. “That’s not it. I mean, it doesn’t matter what they think. It never will. They died, Zack. In a crash that first September we were apart. I’d have come to you sooner, but I didn’t know what to say. I figured you hated me.”

I was floored. I realized his hands were shaking in mine and I squeezed them reassuringly. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Me too. A big part of me almost hated them when it happened. I feel bad that things weren’t different. I never really had the chance to say goodbye.”

I leaned over and hugged him, kissing his cheek and running my hands through his hair. He pulled me into his lap and I wrapped my arms and legs around him as tightly as possible.

We stayed like that for a long time, comforting each other, wishing things could’ve worked out differently. I for one hoped that things were going to be a lot different, starting pretty much immediately. He’d basically told me he wanted to be with me and I wanted him more than anything in the world. It would be just fine with me if we pretended the past three years never happened.

I breathed in, closing my eyes and smiling. I had walked past guys at school every once in a while who smelled just a little bit like him and my body would catapult back to this place almost instantly, remembering what it felt like to have his arms around me. It always hurt so bad, the remembering. I smiled, happy that it didn’t have to hurt any longer.

After a while he leaned back and looked at me. He rubbed my hair between his fingertips again and smiled absentmindedly. “You know I like you like this.”

“Really, you like it? Maya keeps calling me emo-boy and wanting to put her eyeliner on me. My mother hates it of course. I just wanted to try something different.”

He chuckled and leaned in for a slow gentle kiss. “I think it’s sexy,” he whispered, smiling the sideways half grin that had always made my thighs quiver. “Kinda makes me want to pull on it.”

I just about passed out.

Noah gave me another long kiss, filled with sliding tongues and nibbling teeth, his hands slipping under my shirt to glide along the tiny hairs on the small of my back. I could feel him growing hard beneath me and I instinctively ground my hips into him shivering and threading my fingers into his pale hair, tugging on it like he’d just said he wanted to do to mine. He moaned and pushed up into me, increasing the contact.

After a few minutes the kiss softened and we held onto each other, letting our breathing calm down. I didn’t want to ever let go. He had me so turned on from that simple kiss that I would have stripped my clothes off and told him to take me right there on the dock, splinters be damned. I stopped the deviant thought in my head. We had plenty of time for that later. We’d just found each other again and the last thing I wanted to do was rush it.

I opened my heavy eyes and smiled sleepily at him. When I finally focused, I noticed that the sky was starting to get light, turning from midnight blue to pale lavender. I thought of how amazing it would be to sit with him on the dock holding each other and watching the sunrise.

“Look,” I murmured quietly, pointing towards the horizon. “Isn’t it pretty?”

He nodded. “I haven’t seen a sunrise in a long time.”

“Neither have I. Who the hell wants to get up that early?”

He smiled too, but I noticed the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Zack, I don’t want to go, but I’ve got a ton of work to do today and I need to get some sleep. Can I see you again later?”

I grinned at him. “Of course you can.”

“Want to come over to my place and hang out for a while after you eat dinner?”

I nodded. I would have been happiest glued to him all day long, but I’d take what I could get.

He gently untangled our legs and stood before pulling me up next to him. I was stiff from sitting for so long, I stretched and yawned hugely. He reached over and rubbed his fingertips on my exposed stomach. “So cute,” he teased with a smile before pulling me into one last warm hug. We walked down the dock together, hand in hand, unable to stop smiling.

“I’ll see you later,” I mumbled through another big yawn.

“Yeah, you need to go to bed, sleepy.”

He gave me a sweet lingering kiss before heading his direction on the lake path.

“Night, Noah,” I called after him quietly.

He waved, smiling, then turned and I watched him walk until the path curved behind some trees and disappeared.

I nearly skipped home.

Impossible Things

That evening Noah seemed different. Not sad different with flashes of his old humor like the previous night, but weird different. Uncomfortable. Like there were things about himself that he didn’t want to air in the light of the moon.

I’d been looking forward to seeing him all day. Ha. Looking forward doesn’t even begin to cover it. I couldn’t fucking wait to see him again. The night before had been such an amazing dream that I felt like I needed to be back in his arms before I would know for sure that it had even happened. I was tired as hell when my sister came bounding in to wake me after I’d been asleep for maybe four hours, but I couldn’t even manage to be annoyed. All I wanted to do was smile, laugh, dance around in circles. Who cared if I was tired? Noah was back.

I knew there was no way I was getting out of the house after dinner without telling my mother what happened, so I confessed that I’d been out walking the night before and had run into Noah on the dock. I let her know I was going over there later that night to catch up with him. After she hugged me and told me she was glad I’d found my best friend again, she pinched me hard and told me not to go wandering around by myself at night. I hated when she did that. It hurt. She always told me when I was little that I’d remember how much it hurt before I did something stupid that might hurt worse. Mom logic, I tell ya.

The hours passed slowly. I couldn’t keep busy enough to make the time speed up. I fidgeted and fussed with my clothes and my hair and broke into grins at the oddest of moments. I swear my family must have thought I was possessed or something, but I couldn’t act normal. When I caught myself looking at the clock and realized it had only been two minutes since the last time, I laughed. How could I have it that bad already?

It seemed like my mom waited until it was practically midnight to start cooking dinner, but finally the food was eaten (by everyone but me) and the table was cleared. I rushed through helping Maya with the dishes then I scrambled to my room to change into jeans and a clean shirt. I tried not to be nervous but there was no escaping it. My stomach had been tied in a knot all day. Some of the nerves were good; the butterflies that always flew around in my belly whenever Noah was near. Some of the nerves were bad. I tried to convince myself otherwise but I was afraid that things were so perfect they couldn’t last.

* * * *

When Noah opened the kitchen door to let me in I felt an instant jolt to my system. He was dressed simply, in low-slung jeans, flip-flops, and a button-down opened over a tank top, but his silvery blond hair was mussed from his fingers, his eyes looked a little sleepy, and the smile he gave me was intimate and sexy as hell.

“Hey,” he greeted me and reached out to take my hand.

“Hi,” I answered, grinning foolishly.

Kiss me please, before I pass out!

He didn’t disappoint. The second the door clicked shut I was in his arms. He twined his fingers into my hair and he gave me a soft welcoming kiss.

“I missed you today,” he murmured.

“Me too. I think this was the longest day of my life.”

We both laughed, then he ran his fingers down the back of my arms and took both of my hands. “What do you want to do?”

“You know, I don’t even care. I’m just happy to be here.”

“I’m happy you’re here too.”

The night was fun, but like I said before, Noah was acting a little strange. He was still gorgeous and attentive, sweet and wonderful, but I could tell there was something wrong. He’d look at me oddly; like he thought I’d disappear, and whenever I asked him anything about his family he’d clam up and change the subject. It was a little unnerving.

The next night he was acting strange again, and the night after that. It threw me off so much after the warm perfect guy I thought I’d reconnected with the first night on the dock, the guy I remembered from when we were kids. I tried to ask him about a million times if I could help him with his work, hang around and read in the yard while he made his phone calls or whatever. Waiting all day to see him was driving me nuts but it seemed like he didn’t want me there except at night when he wasn’t doing anything family related.

When we were younger the weird family stuff had started before I ever kissed him and it seemed to still be hanging over him even though his parents were no longer around. What could possibly be going on to make him not want me to be there? Why, no matter how many times I hinted for clues, would he never tell me what he did during the day? What was he hiding? I was starting to spin crazy scenarios in my head. Were the Harpers drug lords, spies, secret royalty hiding in the U.S. from unknown assassins?

By the fourth night I was ready to tie him down and torture some explanations out of him. I guess I got a little carried away with the spy scenario. Turned out I didn’t have to force the explanations out of him at all. Once he got started he was more than willing to tell me what was going on and because of that it may have ended up not only being the strangest night with Noah but the weirdest night, up to that point, in my life.

* * * *

When I showed up at his door on that fourth night, a half an hour late because I’d been outside pacing like a crazy person, the Noah that greeted me was the one I’d started to believe didn’t exist anymore. His face looked open and sweet and so beautiful. I saw no signs of the fidgeting, the shadows. At the same time he seemed tired, like some huge weight was bearing down on him with unbelievable force.

He hugged me tightly and pulled me inside. “I was starting to get scared that you weren’t going to come.”

“I thought about it honestly. You’ve been such a head case the past few nights. But now it seems kinda like—well like you’re you again.”

“I’ve been more than strange. I’m really sorry. It has nothing to do with you. Well...I mean, it’s not about you.”

I nodded in vehement agreement. I know that! Just tell me what the hell is going on so this weirdness between us can go away!

“Take a walk with me?” He held out his hand and I took it without hesitation.

Of course we ended up at the dock. We stood there quietly for a few minutes, his arms circling me from behind and my head resting on his shoulder. Finally, I decided it was time to get whatever it was over with.

“All right, Noah. This is getting ridiculous. There’s something you’re not telling me. It’s Zack, remember? I know when you’re hiding something. I barely see you except late at night and you’ve gotta know I want to be with you like every second of the day. You’re supposedly running the family business but you haven’t said a word about what it is you’re even doing, you won’t touch food, and you look like hell. Gorgeous, but like hell all the same.”

“Listen, I’ve just been really stressed about my family stuff and I’ve been taking it out on you. I know that’s not fair and I promise to stop.”

“That’s good, but it’s not enough. You gotta tell me what’s going on. I want to help!”

“I really can’t tell you, Zack. I want to but...”

“But what? Don’t you trust me? I’ve never given you a reason not to. I mean we can’t be anything if you aren’t going to trust me with—”

He put a gentle finger over my lips. “Of course I trust you.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t want to tell you because you’re gonna think I’m nuts, okay?” He gave me an imploring look. “I told you my family was weird but you have no idea what the extent of it is. You don’t understand what we do. And it’s not over just because my parents are dead.”

“Is it illegal or something?”

“No, well, I don’t think so. I mean we even work for the government sometimes, so even if it’s...unusual it’s been above board.” Noah took a deep breath.

“What we do is part of the reason I pushed you away before. Well the whole reason truthfully. My parents didn’t actually mind at all about us being together, in theory at least. They loved you and they did want me to be happy. They thought they were trying to protect you. I was trying to protect you.”