Indigo Vamporium (7 page)

I shrug, “Nothing special. You?”

“I have to check out a spot tonight, otherwise I'm free.”

“Would you like to come to my place for coffee?” I offer, rather excited that no one will be home.

He nods, “That would be awesome.”

“Are you done surfing?”

“Yup,” he smiles. “I'll leave my board for Jo to take home. Can you give me two secs to jog out to the wreck to get my threads?”

I nod, melting under the potency of his smile, appreciating his physique suctioned in black neoprene as he covers the distance to the old rusty boiler in a quarter of the time it usually takes me.

He disappears behind the wreck, remerging two minutes later in jeans and a navy henley. Wow, he looks so hot in that.

Standing, a little giddy, I dust the sand off my lycra gym long length shorts.

When he rejoins me, he plops his arm around my shoulders, “Where to?”

Having a mini seizure at the warm muscular contact, I point up the road, “Three blocks over, behind the stables.”

“Cool,” he grins, looking up, “It's blue for a change.”

Walking with him to the parking area, I look up too, noting how incredible the cobalt sky is today. It's flawless.

“Yup. It's like that a lot in summer.”

“I hope I'll get to see it in summer.”

Peeking at him, examining the strong features of his face, I mumble, “How long are you here for?”

“Until school goes back. We have to head to Croatia.”

Only four days! Crucify me now.

Chapter 8

Tasmin:

After coffee and milk tart, he says, “Should we go walk on the beach?”

What's wrong with staying right here, where it's warm?

“Sure,” I smile, just wanting to hold onto his companionship a little longer.

He holds the door open for me, letting me walk out first.

“Got your keys?” he asks.

Checking my pocket, I nod.

He makes sure the door is locked before capturing my hand in his, walking sedately with me past the green paddocks where horses graze in idle gloom. The sun has vanished under a thick duvet of ominous cloud.

“It's peaceful here,” he comments, looking at the wide empty fields separated by trees that back onto Noordhoek beach.

“It is,” I agree. Too peaceful most of the time.

He gives me a sexy smile, looking into me when he glances my way, the light burnishing his dark hair with shimmering health.

We walk in tranquil silence, through my secluded neighborhood and the riding school's serene fields, using the horse trail to get back onto the beach. He walks to the breakers, looks up and down the beach, and then tugs me into sitting with him, alone on a very big beach.

He stares into me again, leaning closer, his shoulder pressing against mine, “There's something very magnetic about you.”

Likewise dude.

Instead I just smile, ducking my head and appreciating his leg pressed up tight and warm to mine. They're so long and muscular, he really looks sinful in blue jeans.

Absently stroking his thumb over my hand where they interlock, he looks up and down the beach again, twisting back, dipping his head and carefully pressing a warm heady kiss on my lips.

My heart stalls, flooding me with heat and adrenaline.

Delicately breaking it, he smirks, “I've been dying to do that.”

You and me both.

Laughing nervously, I return his smile, my heart doing a triple pike in my chest.

*

Seithe:

There's something about a woman's affection that makes everything right in the world, it makes anything possible. Every time our gazes lock, I feel the compulsive tug of her spirit, pulling me into her breath, into her shadow.

It's when I fold her hands between mine that life pauses, staring into her laughing eyes glossy with spring. It's the first bud to flower in my pulse, pulling my heart into captivity with the infectious melody of her laugh.

Infatuation bridles my attention in dedication's firm hold and I forget what I was about to say, lost in her charm.

“What?” she smiles, biting a plump bottom lip in her natural shyness.

“You're... beautiful.”

Her pink cheeks deepen to rosé, uncertainty dancing in her eyes as she searches my gaze.

She doubts my words.

“You are,” I murmur, heaviness infiltrating my limbs with somber insecurity.

She blinks numerous times, against the wind, against my penetrating stare, self-consciously staring at the ocean instead of at me.

Glancing around, our isolation is undisturbed, and I lean closer, tension spinning a web around my heartbeat so it feels labored and restricted. Warming her hands, I tuck them safely between my thighs, dipping my head to catch her bottom lip in a gentle nip.

The waves serenade her with primordial poetry, whispering secrets of devotion every time they run up the sand to bless her with wet kisses, missing by three feet, giggling in fizzing flirtation when they dash back to the safety of the next swell.

Releasing her hands I slip one of my own up the side of her face, wrapping warmth around her neck with my fingers, sliding three of them into her hair, resting my thumb next to her ear, guiding her closer, using the hold in her brunette tresses to prevent her from withdrawing.

She closes her eyes, sucking a stressed breath through her lips, pulling my exhalation into her lungs. Sinking pressure onto her mouth, I savor the taste of vanilla chapstick mixed with lingering coffee. It's delicious, encouraging me to lick inside her bottom lip, tracing the heat hidden in moist seclusion.

The hands between my thighs tremble, mirroring the shakiness in her breath. Employing my free hand I frame her face, skating my tongue across hers, amazed at how soft and velvet it is.

A flame ignites deep inside me, a lone flicker in a hurricane lamp, dancing frenetically in the precarious breeze of discovery.

Her petite hands hold onto me so tightly, it strikes me humble. Anchoring her heat to my legs, it ribbons erratic courage up to my heart, pouring passion into my pulse.

Tracing her lips, delving across the fragile warmth in her mouth, tasting her spirit, it's like swallowing a flame, burning a hole right through me, shutting out every sensation but the delicate petal pressing silkiness into my mouth, teasing my lip between tentative teeth which bite with the gentleness of a cloud.

It seals our fates, branding the sigil of dedication and loyalty across each chamber of our hearts, staining my soul with her colors, her smell, her incredible nubile skin.

Wintry weather curls a warm furnace around us like the fleece of a chenille blanket, wrapping newborn love in swathes of protection, shielding us from interruption.

When she opens her eyes, the whites are so porcelain bright, I realize too late my irises have turned into beacons of angelfire which highlight hers.

She inhales with such dramatic force I pull back, keeping my hold on her head, pressing a last lingering promise across her lips.

Breathing her in, I close my eyes, treasuring it deeply in my subconscious where I can call on it at will.

“Your eyes...” she whispers, when our lips unseal with the clutches of a sticky envelope being pealed open. Reluctantly parting.

I nod, reopening my eyelids, this time ensuring my irises are pure blue to truly blast her senses with the angel encoded inside my DNA. “It's a genetic disorder.”

“Really?” she gasps, her hold on my legs biting worry into my thighs. “Your eyes have gone from brown to blue.”

Smiling lazily, I sit back, wrapping an arm around her and cuddling her cozily close, shielding her from the sneezing wind.

“My dad had it and he passed it on to all his children. It seems to flare up when we have heightened emotions. It's responsible for the glow and color morphing.” I pause, hiding my smirk by staring at the rollicking surge of sea spray. Waiting the allotted time for my words to sink in, I give her a bashful glance, feigning shame, “I know it's creepy.”

She stares into my eyes for ages, moving to trace the dimple next to my mouth, pressing a bold finger into the cleft of my chin, riveted to my eyes with her focus, her fingertips decoding my face's landscape like a blind woman reading braille. Subconsciously she leans closer, staring into my eyes as if they are crystal balls which can share cloistered mysteries.

“They're so blue, so pure...”

She blinks, aware of how she's invading my space... my face... leaning her soft curves heavily into my chest to examine my soul by gazing into their windows.

She's about to withdraw, tension flooding her muscles in readiness, but I use true speed to strap a restraining arm around her waist, keeping her heartbeat firmly across mine, cherishing the primal heat that burgeons between our bodies in ethereal friction.

Unable to find the words to communicate the thousands of emotions and thoughts bombarding me, I simply kiss her once more, saturating the fusion with everything I can't say.

I want to keep you safe, see every dawn reflected in your eyes, hold your hand when it's cold, know you're there when I need an ally to catch my fall.

Slowly releasing my hold, I set her free, giving her the opportunity to run for her life, unhindered.

Instead she blindsides me by resting her head in the curl of my shoulder, closing her eyes and exhaling weight into the unsuspecting air caressing her cheeks with rosy brushes.

Snuggling, her fingers splay possessively across the knitted cable of the henley, holding to the muscle in my chest, binding me to her as surely as a spell cast at blood moon.

*

Tasmin:

Dizzy, warm, weak, he's stolen my strength and left me lethargic, with the weirdest sensation of safety.

He doesn't look at me with greedy eyes, dark with sadistic intent the way Ross does.

Staring across the subdued beach, I think of the blue in his eyes. It pierced deep inside me, right through my defenses, captivating me in a moment. And I just I know he's got the purest heart ever planted in a man.

A heart that's been broken, left to wither without water, shriveled in struggling despair, cracked with parched pain.

I knew the second I stared into them he's been blown apart, and all I want to do is hold him, kiss him better, cry his tears for him, help him carry the pain until I can find a way to heal it.

Heightened emotions... he said that's when they change. Is he upset? Do I freak him out? Does he honestly think I'd ever reject him?

Doubt gnaws holes into my security, making me lift my head to stare into his mesmerizing eyes again. They look back with unwavering intensity. Wide open, unwilling to hide, looking boldly at me knowing in the past it's seen him labeled a freak.

He did think I'd reject him. It's like being born with a deformity, it makes you wary of the cruelty so quick to scorn and demoralize.

I want to reassure him but don't want to speak of it, I don't wish to rub salt into a weeping wound.

Choosing to smile, to share acceptance in my actions, I wriggle higher, carefully returning his last kiss to him.

He smells like Mediterranean thunder laced with a masculine fragrance. His body is warm and snug, a safe haven in a cold world. There's no expectation or pressure, just the weirdest feeling of having known each other forever, needing no words, having no urgency.

It's safe.

He's
safe... and tastes like forbidden temptation. He's so delicious I keep nibbling his lip.

What the heck is wrong with me?

Wilting into him, it's wonderful when he folds his arms around me again, wrapping me up in his sanctuary.

It's so emotionally intense it prickles my eyes with glassy moisture, encouraging me to increase my hold around his neck, tightening the tourniquet that shuts down reason so we can hold this exquisite treasure a little longer.

Waves scribble furiously into the sand, recording our tenderness, witnessing the moment I fall in love with Seithe by carving their signatures into the damp earth.

The testimony is signed by the sea and the sky, the elemental guardian angels erupting in a wet scramble when rain drops a waxy seal onto sun-bleached parchment.

It feels biblical, preordained, almighty.

He hugs me tight, murmuring, “We need to move, it's bulleting down from the heavens.”

Heaven is the perfect word.

Heaven is weeping for you. I'm your witness. I saw into your heart and felt the hollow ache you've buried there.

Ignoring the rain, I broach his trust. “I saw you that day on the beach. Why are you so sad?”

His eyes shutter, emotion stunted with cauterizing brutality.

“My mom died,” he says, his divine baritone snapping into a heartbroken crack.

Bowing his head, he looks away, but the tears flushed up before he could bury them with pride.

“I'm so sorry.” I don't know what else to say, but I do know that with one sentence I obliterated our romantic moment.

He nods, gazing away from me, hiding his eyes. He speaks into the wind with hoarse emotion, “We really need to get moving.”

This time I don't object, relishing when he holds my hand, pulling me up with him into a stand, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and sprinting with me up the incline.

Where are we going? His home... or mine?

Chapter 9

Tasmin:

We run all the way home, and it's with anguish that I let him kiss me goodbye.

“I need to go, I have to keep an eye on my sister and brothers. I'll catch you soon,” he says, kissing me again, lingering long enough to wrap my heart around his fist in possessive pleasure.

Delicately thumbing my cheekbone, he smiles down at me, his eyes glowing shimmering silver, igniting enthralled fascination within me.

He dips, pecking my lips again, “See you soon.”

He doesn't say goodbye, he just takes off at a sprint into the deluge, blurring and then vanishing inside the misty haze.