The Seven Devils (YA "New Adult" Romance) (16 page)

I shrieked as he lifted me out of the water and the cold air hit me. He climbed out of the hot tub gracefully with me in his arms and then wrapped me in a thick towel. He wrapped a towel around his waist and rubbed my arms and back, trying to help me warm up.

In the bathroom I changed into a soft pajama pant and camisole set and climbed up to the loft. My heart was racing and I was obsessing over the fact that I decided to go the comfortable route and take my bra off. Now, climbing the stairs to the loft, I had become self-conscious and wrapped my arms around myself, pausing near the top of the stairs.

Neil turned out the lights so that the only light was from the moon shining in through a skylight above the bed. “Ellen, it’s alright,” he said softly.

I peeked through the rails at the top of the stairs and saw Neil wearing only a pair of plaid pajama pants. He was facing the other direction, giving me my privacy. I climbed the rest of the stairs and got into bed quickly. Neil then turned around and sat on the bed next to me.

“I’m sorry, I really should have said more about sleeping arrangements before it got so late. You’ll sleep up here and I’ll be on the couch downstairs. And please don’t worry about… anything,” he said. “We are not having sex or anything like that this weekend. I don’t want you to think that’s why I brought you here.”

I frowned a bit and reached out and stroked his arm. “Please don’t sleep downstairs,” I said softly. “I feel so much better with you next to me.”

Neil seemed to struggle with himself for a moment but then crawled under the covers beside me. “I’ll just stay here until you fall asleep,” and kissed me, “then I’ll hit the couch… or at least the floor up here.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him close, pulling him slightly on top of me. It felt so good to be close to him. He was so warm. My heart went wild as I kissed him and ran my hands down his back. Neil kissed me back hungrily and he moaned softly when I nibbled lightly on his earlobe. I felt him begin to pull back a little but I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to stop. I took his hand and guided it to my chest and he moaned again softly, burying his face into my hair. As his hand gently cupped and squeezed my breasts, it felt like the temperature went drastically up in the room. I was kissing his neck and shoulders and slid my hands down to his lower back. I tried to pull him completely down on top of me but he held firm and wouldn’t let himself be moved. Frustrated, I moved a hand down his front and had just reached the top of his pajama pants when he harshly grabbed both of my hands and held them tight to the mattress above my head. I was stunned and my breath caught in my throat.

“Please don’t be upset, Ellen,” Neil whispered, his mouth near my ear. “I… I just need to calm down a bit.” His voice was soothing and apologetic.

Tears filled my eyes and I tried to catch my breath. “Neil, please,” I said. “I want to. I want to be with you.”

Neil was silent except for the sound of his deep breaths near my ear. Finally he said, “It has been a long upsetting day. This isn’t the time. I don’t want this to happen this weekend.”

I closed my eyes as a few stray tears slid down my cheeks. “You don’t want me?”

Neil took a deep breath and then chuckled a little. “You have no idea how ridiculous that question is.”

He was silent a moment and then said despondently, “You don’t believe me.”

I shook my head no. “I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I thought you’d want me that way,” I said, crying again.

He sat up slightly, still holding my arms lightly above my head, and looked into my eyes. “I can show you…. if you’d like.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but nodded my head. Suddenly, I felt what he was feeling at that moment. I gasped and my toes curled as I felt the desire coursing through him. His heart was still pounding at an alarming rate and I knew then that if I had been allowed to touch him where my hand had been heading, he didn’t think he would have been able to keep control. As quickly as it was there, the feeling faded and I was back with only my own longing.

Neil released my arms and I flung them around his neck. “I’m sorry, Neil. I didn’t mean to lead you on like that. You just… I just want you so much. I’ll do my best to be a little less crazy for now on.”

Neil grinned. “You can be crazy all you want, just remember—no sex. I don’t want to do it before we’re both completely ready for it.”

I nodded and said, “If I promise not to try to seduce you, will you please stay with me until I’m asleep?”

“Of course,” he said and lay down beside me. I fell asleep moments later, wrapped securely in Neil’s arms.

Chapter 18

I woke up the next morning to find Neil doing pushups on the floor across from the bed. “Good morning,” I said grinning down at him. “Did you sleep at all?”

Neil stood up and began to do a series of stretches. “Not really,” he said grinning. “Mostly I just stared at the beautiful girl in my bed.”

I blushed and felt at the bird’s nest that used to be my hair. “I don’t feel too beautiful at the moment. I think I’m going to go shower. Why don’t you go for a little run or something? You look kind of antsy,” I said grinning.

Neil frowned slightly. “You wouldn’t mind? I didn’t want to leave you here alone, even for just a short run.”

I shook my head, “No, go ahead. I’ll just shower and stuff and then maybe wander down the edge of the lake if you’re still not back.”

Neil sat on the bed beside me and gave me a deep kiss. “Okay, don’t wander far though. I’ll be back soon and cook up a little breakfast and then maybe we’ll go out in the boat for awhile?”

I grinned, “Sounds great!”

***

Saturday flew by. We had spent the day walking the lakeshore, cruising around on Neil’s father’s boat, and soaking in the hot tub when the sun set and it was too cold to be out by the lake. I was exhausted by the end of the day and had no trouble drifting off to sleep, curled up beside Neil in that gigantic bed that evening. Life was good.

Sunday we were sitting on the cabin’s front porch, wrapped in blankets. It was so beautiful that I was having a hard time convincing myself that I had to go home and that we couldn’t just stay there forever.

Neil had been telling me about the herd of deer he used to see every year back when he was younger and his family would simply pitch a tent on the land when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence. He turned his head and looked back at the cabin wall behind us and smiled.

“What is it?” I asked.

Neil stood and put his blanket down on the chair. “Do you remember I said I had a friend across the country who also had… special abilities?” I nodded. “He’s here,” Neil said excitedly. He looked at the cabin again and then back to me. “Stay out here for a moment and I’ll introduce you. He wasn’t expecting me to have company and he’s kind of shy,” he said with a laugh and then walked through the door.

I didn’t know what to think. How could this guy be inside the cabin when we had been sitting by the only door for nearly an hour? And what would he be like? Neil seemed as though he liked him a great deal. What if he didn’t get along with me?

The front door opened and I leapt to my feet. Neil smiled and motioned for me to follow him into the cabin. “You guys are too much,” he said, laughing. “You’re both terrified of meeting each other for absolutely no reason. What a pair.”

I ditched my blanket at the door and tried to smooth my hair down as I followed behind Neil. Hopefully I looked presentable.

As soon as we walked into the living room area, a man stood up from his spot on the couch. I looked up at him and then quickly turned my eyes to the floor and stood close beside Neil. I could feel my heart begin to race. For some reason I assumed this friend would be my age, but this was clearly a grown man. He had appeared to be shorter than Neil, but was still quite a bit larger than I was, and he was wearing a plain black t-shirt and dark, expensive-looking jeans. I took a deep breath and tried not to freak out. Neil knew this man and trusted him. And if Neil trusted him, I knew I could too. I don’t know why meeting a strange man made me so nervous.

Neil put a hand on the small of my back and I glanced up in time to see him shake his head ‘no’ at the man. Neil saw me looking and obviously knew I was confused. “He was worried you had recognized him,” he explained.

Recognized him? I looked back at the man. He smiled and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you Ellen. I’m Josh.”

I took a step forward and shook his hand. He wasn’t as old as I had first suspected and was probably under thirty. He had a sort of boyish look to him. His dark brown hair was a little shaggy and unkempt and he had a great smile. His eyes were a bright blue-green and they seemed very kind. The most striking thing about him was his accent. It wasn’t overwhelming, but there was definitely a hint of something there that I wasn’t familiar with. He seemed nice, and I began to feel more at ease.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I asked Josh. “Was I supposed to recognize you?” I asked, glancing back at Neil.

Josh blushed and put a hand up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I… No. I’m rather glad you don’t recognize me, actually. It’s much easier on me that way. I feel more like myself when people aren’t…”

“Crazy?” Neil suggested. “Throwing themselves at you?” He laughed and Josh got a little redder. “Ellen,” Neil said to me, “this is Joshua Aleksandr, probably the most revered and loved violinist in the world.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. I really wasn’t one to listen to classical music. We played a lot in band, but always the Mozarts and the Chopins, never anything current. “I’m sorry I…”

“No no, it’s fine. Believe me!” Josh said quickly.

There was a slight awkward pause and I shot several mental questions Neil’s way, consisting mostly of who is this guy and how did he get in here?

Neil groaned and rubbed his temples. “Come on you guys. I can see if I stay in here you’ll both just continue asking me your questions rather than actually asking each other. I want you to get to know each other better. How about you two sit down and get comfortable. I’ll just be outside if you need me,” Neil said, giving me a quick reassuring smile and kiss as he walked out.

“Well,” Josh said after a moment and motioned to the couch. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” I replied and sat.

Josh sat beside me and said, “I wonder what he’s going to be doing out there.”

I laughed and said, “Knowing him, probably doing his daily 10,000 push ups or something.”

Josh grinned. “He’s a rather odd guy, isn’t he?”

I nodded in agreement. After a moment I said, “So are you an ‘odd guy’ too then?”

Josh began fidgeting with his watch. “Ahh yes, my strange entrance does make that quite obvious.” He sat back and closed his eyes for a minute and then opened them again and studied my face.

“Obviously Neil trusts you, and that should be all it takes for me to trust you as well, knowing Neil as we do. I’m just… well, let’s just say that until this point I have never told anyone about what I can do other than Neil. And it took some convincing before I could even bring myself to tell him. I hope you’re not offended by me even asking you this, but can I trust you? Would you promise that what I tell you will stay between us?”

I nodded and touched his hand softly. “Of course. This is your life we’re talking about, and I’m just some nobody you met a few minutes ago. If you do tell me, I promise you I’ll never mention it to a soul, but honestly, if you would rather not confide in me, I couldn’t blame you.”

Josh surprised me by laughing. “You’re not just ‘some nobody’ Ellen. Neil not only trusts you, but loves you. When I met him and learned what he was capable of, I didn’t think he’d ever find someone to be close to. To be able to hear every thought, every whim, that crosses a person’s mind… well you must be an amazing woman to pass that sort of test.”

I blushed and thought of Derrick. “Well, no one’s perfect.”

Josh looked at me thoughtfully. “Without a doubt. But some are much closer than others.”

I’m sure I blushed again.

“How about we make a deal? I’ll tell you all about me if you return the favor and tell me about yourself,” Josh suggested.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Whatever you’d like to know; though I’m not sure if this is exactly a fair and equal agreement.”

Josh shrugged and said, “Well, I’ll get us started. How did I get here without you noticing? I don’t really know. This is all rather new to me. About a year and a half ago, I started having sleep problems. I didn’t know if it was lucid dreams or if I was having some sort of out-of-body experiences, but I’d go to sleep and either have a dream that was so incredibly real that I couldn’t believe that it was just a dream, or I’d find myself sort of floating through the city and watching the events and the people around me. And this would happen every night. I’d wake up feeling as though I hadn’t slept at all. I mentioned this to my doctor one day and he chocked it up to the stress of always being on tour and of sleeping in hotel rooms more often than my own bed.”

“Things started to escalate, however. At first, when I would wake up and find myself miles from home, I thought I had begun to sleepwalk. When I went to sleep in L.A. and woke up in Madrid, however, I knew there was something happening to me that just couldn’t be explained,” he continued.

“Wow. You must have been so scared.”

“Terrified!” he admitted. “Luckily I had a friend in the city and simply acted as though a girl and I had had a fight and she kicked me out in only my pajamas. At that point I had no idea what was happening, let alone how to get back home after something like that happened. I cancelled the last three stops on a major tour and locked myself in my house for weeks.”

“After a great deal of experimentation and frustration, I finally got some sort of handle on what it is that I could do and how to control it. Since then, Neil has been helping me test it further. What it all really boils down to is that I go wherever I want, whenever I want. I can concentrate on a location and within moments be there. If I focus hard enough, I can also sort of hover in an in-between place where I can see and hear what’s going on somewhere without being seen myself. Almost as if I were invisible. That’s very difficult though and I’ve been trying to work at it.”

He looked away for a moment. “It’s been a strange journey and brought both pleasure and pain. I went to surprise my fiancée one evening when I had previously said I didn’t have time to make the trip and discovered she was cheating on me. It has also led me to great people such as you and Neil.”

“How did you and Neil meet?” I asked.

“It’s strange. Most of the time when I travel this way I have a very specific location in mind. If I just sort of let my mind drift, however, I’ve discovered that I can locate others with “gifts.” It’s almost as if they shine out to me like a beacon. I am drawn to them.”

“Are there many?”

“I’m not sure. So far Neil and Maya are the only two in the US I have been sure of. There are others that… Well, it’s hard to explain. It’s almost like Neil and Maya are like the sun and there are others around who, in comparison, are like the flame of a single candle. Neil has a theory that those faint lights are those who haven’t yet realized they possess these special abilities.”

I tried to wrap my head around that for a moment. “So who is Maya? Have you met her too?”

Josh’s eyes lit up and he grinned shyly. “She is my dream girl. I’m afraid I may be quite foolishly falling in love with her.”

“Foolishly?” I said with a smile. “What do you mean?”

Josh looked out the window for a moment and then back to me. “She’s just so young. She’s 18, a senior in high school, and I’m 27. She has her whole life ahead of her… and she’s so energetic and free spirited. Compared to her, I’m an old man set in my ways. She longs to see the world, and with all of my tours, I’ve already done that. She’s busy trying to decide where to go to college, and I graduated many years ago. She deserves someone as young and free as she is. I’m sure she would break my heart.”

“You mean you don’t know for sure? You’ve never talked about it?” I asked.

Josh laughed quietly. “No, I’ve never even gotten the courage up to actually meet her in person… never introduced myself properly.”

“If you’ve never met her, how are you so in love with her?”

Josh’s face colored. “As I said, I find myself physically drawn to her, and I can be somewhere without others being able to see me,” he said sheepishly.