Scars and Songs (44 page)

Ride fast? 
Yeah, my mind went completely to sex right there.

We walked through the empty yard and she opened the garage door letting out a
low sigh.  Yeah, my mind went completely to sex right there too.  Well, until I looked into the open garage.

“Oh, fuck me.  Grace, I thought you said bike!  That’s a…” 

Blushing, she handed me a helmet from off one of the shelves and strapped one on herself.  I knew my mouth was hanging open.

“A Harley Davidson Super Low 883?”  She laughed.  It was taking my breath away. “You still up for a ride, Shane?”

“Crap, Grace!  Every single day I spend with you…you have managed to shock me and turn my world upside down…”
Yeah, I started babbling.  Next, I probably would be slapping on lipstick and doing my nails
.

Then, she did the sexiest fucking thing I ever saw a woman do.  It wasn’t a lap dance or a strip tease; she raised her leg, slung it over the bike, and pushed it out of the garage, through the backyard into the front of the house,
effortlessly
.  I could barely walk alongside her; I was so damn turned on.  It took a great deal of self-control not to bend her over that bike and own her right there.  It was primal and animalistic; my body ached so badly for her it was bordering on fucking
pain
.

“Grace, there’s no freaking way I’m riding bitch behind you.”  I wanted her body wrapped around me.

She slid herself over the gas tank and patted the seat behind her.  “Then you drive,” she said throwing me the keys.

“God, you’re so damn beautiful,” I whispered.

I slid up behind her and she settled her body into my lap. My helmet automatically collided with hers as my head slumped forward when the warmth of her body nestled perfectly in between my thighs.  Muscles along my legs stiffened and twisted; my entire body was in flames.  I placed the key in the ignition, turning it and when the engine roared to life, the vibrations of her body against mine almost sent me over the edge. 
I needed to get a handle on my arousal or else I was going to embarrass myself up against the back of her ass on this bike
.  I eased off the clutch, kicked my feet up and pulled out into the street.  I wrapped one hand tightly around her waist while the other steered and Grace leaned back into me and smiled. We cruised down the streets alongside the sandy beaches of the Atlantic Ocean, cold wind whipping on our faces, burning our eyes and stinging our uncovered hands.  The waves along the shoreline lapped against the beach and I could swear I heard it over the rumble of the engine.

Wanting to get closer to the ocean, I drove up onto the boardwalk and rode above the old wooden slats for a few miles.  Then I just needed to stop and sit with her in the sand, so I parked the bike and helped her off.  Wordlessly, I took her hand and pulled her onto the beach, over the sand and right to the cold waves that crashed themselves against the shore.

I sat down on the sand and gently tugged her to sit down beside me.  Our hands lingered in each other’s and neither of us said anything.  We just quietly stared out over the shimmering waters of the Atlantic, savoring the warmth that had sparked an inferno in our hands. 

Softly, I pulled her closer to me and sat her in my lap with her legs draped over mine.  A distant look fell like a shadow over her face and she busied herself by staring at her
hands.  I wondered what her thoughts had turned to, making her look so sad.  Softly cupping her chin in one of my hands, I pulled her face to look at me.  There was a fluttering feeling in my stomach and my heart hammered
un
rhythmically in my chest.  I studied her face, trying to gauge if kissing her now would be too soon for this
friendship
she wanted to have.

Her chest rose and fell faster under my stare.  Softly, I skimmed my fingertips from her chin across her jaw, down her neck and into her hair.  My fingers were icy cold and I knew the feel of them on her skin was like fire.  I pulled her head towards me, my lips gently pressed against her
s, both of us panting and struggling for air. Then, I slowly pulled away.  Pain darkened her features, and I knew I made the right decision on the kind of kiss.  A small tender kiss like that had us both panting and wanting more.  I wanted to take this
friendship
slowly, because by the time we got to more than friendship, we’d be fast, hard and explosive.  I wanted to savor every moment of Grace.

I leaned back on my arms and smirked at her, “So what the heck was all that crazy talk with Lea’s parents?” 

Grace pinched her lips together, and sighed heavily shaking her head. 
Frustrated, love? I feel your pain.
She shifted herself on my lap and I pretended not to notice; it almost killed me.  Cursing under her breath at me, she lay down on her side in front of me, leaning her head against her hand.  “It’s just a funny game we play when her mother asks us inappropriate questions. Caroline knows we were just teasing her.  We call it,
Oh Dear
.  When someone asks us questions that are too personal, we try to come up with the craziest answers.  The first person to make her mom say
oh dear
wins.  Lea usually wins.   You know Lea, she’s got
a way
about her, sometimes you have to wonder where she comes up with some of the things that fly out of her mouth,” she laughed.

“They’ve been like parents to you, huh?” I asked.

Her eyes turned glassy and looked out across the ocean.  “Yea, they took Jacob and me in after my parent’s accident and after my release from the hospital.   I was fourteen and Jake was eighteen, but he left for college soon after my parents died.”

I watched her carefully, wondering if I should say something more.  I wanted to see what she had to say about her
ex-boyfriend
and if she had any clue if I was still
Shamsiel
.   Clearing my throat, I took a deep breath and just went for it.  “So what
did
happen with that ex-boyfriend of yours?”

Her eyes slowly moved back to look into mine. They probably tried to measure my sincerity for few moments, lingering on thoughts before her words emerged.  “I was an idiot,” she whispered, looking away.  “I just loved him so completely that everything and everyone dulled in comparison to him.  But it wasn’t in his nature to love
me
the same way.  When he had the chance to take me with him, or stay with me, he just left.”

She thinks I left her here?

I was in complete shock. 
What would cause her to think I left her, when it was me who gave up everything?
  “It’s kind of hard to believe that someone would leave you, Grace.  Do you still love him?”

A strong winter wind blew her hair tossing it wildly across her face, dramatically, “Always and forever, and then an eternity after.  A girl will never forget her first perfect innocent kiss.”  She breathed in deeply, “We were in really different places in our lives,
Shane.  I don’t blame him one bit for his decision. He was someone very awe-inspiring and I know I didn’t deserve his love…I just…I just
physically hurt
knowing that for so long, I held onto him when I had no chance to be with him, ever.  He made the choice just to leave. I know it was supposed to be to make me happy, but it sure as hell didn’t.”

“The man was a bigger jackoff than I thought,” I cringed.  I needed to make her forget about angels and just fall in love with the
human me
. 
That’s all I had to offer her now
.

She smiled at me and shook her head slightly, “No, we just
really
weren’t supposed to be together.  It was a real Romeo and Juliet type of relationship.  We were completely forbidden to be together.”

I leaned my face closer to hers and whispered low into her ear,
“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”

“Mark Twain? Shane, how do you know all those quotes that pop out of your mouth?”

My lips tingled from the wideness of my smile.  “How do you know all the people the words belong too?”

“Touché,” she said laughing.

I shifted even closer to her, so that my lips were now touching the warm skin of her cheeks. “
Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service
,” I whispered.

“Shakespeare.  The Tempest.”  She teasingly pushed my face away.  “
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality
.  Edgar Allen Poe.”

“You know, Grace, you are the only girl that can go toe to toe with me without batting an eye.”

She batted those stunning eyes at me. 
Fuck, I wanted to pounce on her.  If I stayed on this beach any longer, I was going to lose myself inside her.  Take it slow; don’t let her know who you were!

I almost punched myself in the nuts for ending our talk, but I had to. I couldn’t stay there alone with her, without touching her in the way I really wanted to, or telling her the stuff I really wanted to say. “Want to head back now?  I heard something about taking a little hottie out dancing tonight…” Taking her hand, I helped her up and we walked through the sand back to her bike, holding hands.

“So you’re taking out a little hottie, huh? 
Lucky girl
,” she laughed as we climbed back on the bike.

“Yea, well, it’s pretty much a lost cause.  Last time I made a play for her and talked to her, she just wanted me to treat her like one of the guys.  It’s a damn shame, because I think she’s freaking amazing.”

She blushed about ten shades of
sexy as sin
red across her cheeks.  “Wow.  So what are you going to do about that?” She challenged me.

Lowering my face to just an inch above hers, I brought my eyes right to hers, “I’m going to do
everything
I can fucking think of to change her mind.”

A small gasp fell past her lips and with it, I turned around, started the bike and drove us towards Lea’s parent’s house.  She grasped onto my waist, slid her cold hands under my jacket and shirt, and laid them against my skin.  I thought she was trying to kill me. 
Was there a more perfect way to die?

We really tried to wait for the girls to get ready, we really did.  Conner couldn’t take being in the house with Lea’s parents any longer, while they planned out how many children Conner should father and what to name all six of them.  So, instead of waiting in the middle of the battlefield they called a living room, we waited for the girls at a bar called
Sunsets
, right off the beach.

Conner slouched himself against the bar and hung his head in his hands, groaning.

After ordering two beers from a bartender with bright orange hair, I turned to Conner and nudged him with his beer.  “You okay, bro?”

Raising his head only slightly, he groaned even louder, “Six kids, Shane!  They expect six kids and they have named them ALL for us!”  He straightened up and raked his hands over his face.  “I am twenty-four years old.  I’ve been with Lea for eight months and they are talking about us having six children.  I feel sick.  I don’t even think I could take care of a fish.”

Sipping my beer, I gave him a nod.  “Do you love her?”

Conner sighed.  “Yeah.  I do.  But
marriage?
  Dude, how they hell do you know if you’ve found the right girl, I mean how...?”  He froze in mid sentence and started laughing.  “I’m an ass, look who I’m asking this question to.”

“Number one, shut up and fuck you,” I said, holding my fingers in the air counting at him.  “Number two, I…uh…” I completely lost my train of thought.

Grace had walked in.

Um
.

Ah
.

Yeah, having trouble breathing
.

The tiny little denim skirt she was
barely
wearing made those perfect legs that ended in a sexy pair of black stiletto heels look endless.  The fringed waist of the skirt hung low on her hips, showing off the flat smoothness of her belly and the sexy as sin curves of her hips.  A deep burgundy low-cut shirt draped across her chest accentuated the plump full curves of her breasts, and Conner and his problems, and the rest of the damn bar just disappeared.  Damn, she was
perfect
. 

My heart was pounding hard in my ears as my eyes slowly crawled over her body and devoured every inch of her I saw.  She smiled at me and flipped her dark hair over her shoulder, making me just about blow a load in my pants.

“Oh, my God, Grace.  Shane is completely eye fucking you and I’m creaming in my panties right now.  How does that not affect you?”  Lea laughed.

Seriously, does she think I can’t
hear her?

“Uh…” Was all Grace answered her with, and then she ran her tongue along her bottom lip.

Lea’s eyes widened as she gawked at Grace and yelled, “Holy fellatio!  You are standing there licking him up with your eyes!  Do you freaking hear the old seventies porn music playing in your head?”