The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix) (26 page)

And Micah wasn’t done. Not even close.

My fingers digging into his hair, I had to pull him up before I shattered into so many pieces that I’d never recover. I wanted to pleasure him, but he wouldn’t let me.

“I don’t think I can last,” he whispered hoarsely, “and I want to be inside you the first time.”

Holy shit, no one ever said anything like that to me. I lifted my legs and hips, and grabbed his hard ass and pulled him into me. We both cried out as he entered. And immediately our bodies burst with an urgent need that took completely over. At least, I thought everything was purely physical, sensual, sexual, even animalistic as he pumped into me and I rocked against him. But then we both climbed higher and higher until we hit our peaks and came together, and that’s when I knew my soul was still in the moment.

Utterly and completely in it, but then . . . not.

Our first kiss didn’t compare. Our souls hadn’t really bound then. Now.
This
.

Oh. My. God.

What was happening? How could this even be possible?

I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I didn’t ever want it to end. I’d never felt so removed from my body, literally, yet so whole. So complete.

We are one.

Together.

Again.

Night blackened the window when we finally collapsed from exhaustion. Sammy’s whining and barking jerked me awake when I began to doze off in Micah’s arms. My dog frantically scratched at the door as if trying to tear through it.

Chapter 19

  Leni’s hand moved from her flushed neck to her mouth, her elbow bumping my arm because we huddled so closely together, leaning over the book on the table. Her body had tensed up next to mine, and heat radiated from her skin. I couldn’t help but wonder if her panties were wet after reading Jacey’s detailed description, and the more I thought about it, the more the urge grew to find out. So I bolted from the table, and walked several paces to the truck, needing to put some distance between us. I placed my palms on the truck’s hood and dropped my head between my arms.

What the hell was she doing to me? The old Jeric wouldn’t have given a second thought to finding out. He would have wrapped an arm around her, grabbed a tit with one hand and slid the other between her legs, and if she wasn’t wet yet, he would have made her so until she begged for him to take her. The old Jeric would have already had her in the sack, one head or the other buried between her legs.

But the old Jeric then would have sent her on her way, everyone content with the sexcapade.

I’d never let girls get to me like this. I had fun with them. We drank, we partied, we laughed, we played in the sheets, and then they went home. I felt nothing else for them. Friends, with benefits. No female had ever slid under my skin like Leni had.

And she hadn’t even tried. She didn’t seem to know what she did to me. So many girls had wanted from me what I couldn’t give them, but Leni had no idea she was the exception. The only one who could make me want to give her everything. The world. Myself. Whatever she wanted. For the first time ever, Jeric Winters was whipped. Already. What the hell was I supposed to do about it?

Nothing. Live with it. That’s all I could do.

Because Leni wouldn’t put up with the old Jeric. She’d be the one sending me on my way and that thought hurt worse than a kick to the ball sack. I’d rather that spine-curling pain than the agony of losing her. Which brought me to my original question: What the hell was she doing to me? How could I feel the way I did about her? I didn’t think it possible to ever feel like this about someone again. But this was different and so damn strong, I couldn’t imagine
not
ever having these feelings for Leni. Like they’d always been there, buried, just waiting for me to meet her.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to get ahold of myself. When I turned back, Leni was up, too, leaning against the table, her eyes glazed over with thought as her hand stroked her throat. The late-afternoon sun glowed fiery orange over the lake behind her, creating silhouettes of the pine trees on the far bank.

“Do you think their Shadowmen are the same guys who attacked us?” she signed as her eyes focused on me. Not exactly where my mind had been, so it took me a moment to understand what she meant.

I shrugged. “That was twenty-three years ago.”

“Maybe it’s the same group, if not the same men.”

“Who? What kind of group? And why us?” The questions made me edgy, and my hands moved sharply as I signed. “Who are they to us, this Micah and Jacey?”

Leni chewed on her bottom lip then looked at me. “I have a theory about that.” She hesitated for a moment. “What if they’re your parents? Your biological parents?”

Fuck
. I wasn’t expecting that. The idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. “
You
found the book. Why would you think they’d be my parents?”

“Maybe Mira had had it. Maybe it came with you, as a baby.”

I didn’t like this idea. It didn’t
feel
right.

“Maybe they’re yours,” I signed.

Her face showed the same look of surprise I’d felt when she suggested they were mine, but then her brows drew together.

“The story
does
feel vaguely familiar, like I’ve been told it before,” she said. I’d been thinking the same thing as we read—like I’d heard this story a long time ago. “But it’s impossible. I mean look at me. They both sound very white.”

“Jacey, yes, but we don’t know Micah’s background. Maybe he’s mixed like you—brown eyes, dark hair . . .”

“She would say something in the journal, especially back then. She even asked if he’d been a skinhead, which would make no sense.” The way her hands flew about, she didn’t like the idea any more than I did. “Besides, they can’t be. Not unless everything my parents ever told me about how they met and got married is a complete lie.”

I watched her for several beats, waiting for her to realize the irony of her words. But she didn’t. “From what you’ve said about them—disowning you like that—I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Her eyes hardened as she glared at me.

“You know nothing about my parents!” she signed angrily, and I expected her to flip me the finger, but instead her hands fell limply to her side and the fire extinguished immediately. Her gaze dropped to the ground, and her toe pushed at a rock stuck in the dirt for a minute, until she looked up at me again with her damn fake smile that looked authentic if you didn’t know her like I did. Already.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded. “You have a right to be angry. Get mad for once, Leni. Let yourself be
real
.”

The grin fell from her face, but confusion filled her eyes. “Why? It won’t accomplish anything, except to make a fool of myself.”

“So what? It’s only me here. Lash out if you want to. Yell and scream. I can’t hear you, but it’s not like you’d hurt my feelings anyway. I can take your anger.”

She tossed her hands in the air. “But you’re right. After the way they treated me on the phone the other night, they’re not who I thought they are. But I’m not going to take it out on you.”

“I’m asking you to. I’m
begging
. Let it out before you explode like a damn time bomb.”

“No. It’s stupid.”

“Then be stupid. Don’t you ever do anything dumb or wrong? Do you ever put yourself out there? Take any risks?”

She hesitated, but then shrugged. “I’m not much of a risk-taker.”

“Of course not. You’ve never had to be, have you?” My gaze traveled to the Airstream, then to her truck and returned to her. “You’ve always had everything done for you, haven’t you?”

She shrugged again. “My mother’s a control freak. She didn’t want anyone—including me—to screw things up.”

“So you simply did everything she wanted? She told you what to do and you obediently followed her orders?” Agitation built between us and that’s what I wanted from her, but she refused to play my game.

“Well, yeah,” she said easily. “She’s my mama. She took care of me. So did my daddy, and Uncle Theo when my parents moved.”

I nodded. “Of course they did. I’m sure teachers, the police, the authorities have always treated you well, too.”

“Yeah, they’ve always been fine.” She paused, then added, “Until the past couple of days anyway.”

“And now you’re seeing a different side of everyone, are you? Getting a little taste of disappointment from the adults in your life? And you don’t know what to do. Do you have any idea how to take care of yourself when there’s no one to boss you around?”

She threw her hip out and lifted her chin, the only reaction to my jab. “I went to Italy by myself, didn’t I?”

I gave her a rude smirk, pushing her harder. “A trip your uncle planned, paid for and sent you off to, where’d you be with people he knew, who told you where to sleep, what and when to eat and how to dance. Did you even want to go or was that more of everyone wanting to control Leni?”

“Yes, I wanted to go. It was a dream come true!”

I felt her giving in, ready to let loose the real Leni, so I kept prodding. “What? To dance in Italy? That was your dream?”

“To dance at all. Professionally.”

“Then why aren’t you? Why aren’t you dancing here in the States? Too afraid to put yourself out there where it matters?”

Her cheeks pinked, and I hoped to see a spark of fire in her eyes, what I was looking for. A hint of anger flashed, but disappeared just as quickly.

“I wanted to stay to take care of my uncle.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “That’s an excuse. What’s the real reason you didn’t go to New York? I saw you dance in Italy. I’ve seen you dance here, and you’re damn good. So what happened? Why are you here and not there?”

She stared at me for a long moment, her chest rising with a breath. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you need it.”

“Need what?”

To stop being a damn puppet. To let you be you
. But saying so would derail the progress I was making.

“You’re avoiding my question,” I accused. “Why aren’t you in New York?”

She didn’t answer except to cross her arms over her chest.

“Why, Leni?”

“My uncle needed me.”

“So much that he sent you halfway across the world for a month? And now he’s run off with my grams. For all we know, they’re whooping it up in Vegas.”

She shook her head.

“It’s an excuse,” I said again. She stood her ground, but I kept pressing. “Unless your parents made you stay? Could your control-freak mom not let you leave?”

She scowled. “She wanted me to go as badly as I did. It was her dream, too. She’d always wanted me to be a ballerina. Put me in dance when I was four years old.”

Ah. I’d seen the moms in the modeling agency and at the studios with their kids, with bright eyes of hope and longing, wanting their kids to be a star since they never were.

“Was it even
your
dream?” I taunted. “Or just mom’s?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. Her body began to tremble.
Yes
. I was getting somewhere.

“Did you even
want
it?” I pressed.

Her fists balled at her sides, and her nostrils flared.

“Did you, Leni? Or were you only doing what Mama told you to do?”

“Yes! No! I mean, yes, I wanted it. I just wanted to dance.” She inhaled a deep breath and again snuffed out the real Leni. “I didn’t get in, though, okay? Yeah, Mama arranged the audition with the ballet company, but
I
put myself out there.
I
was the one on stage.
I
auditioned and they said no. End of story.”

I knew by the way she held herself that was not the end of the story.

“So one audition and you gave up?” I asked, pushing her further.

She shrugged and looked away.

I moved to her line of vision. “You gave up because of one person’s opinion for one dance company out of how many?”

She didn’t take my bait, but remained calm. “What they said . . . why they didn’t take me . . .
Nobody
would take me, Jeric. Not in New York, not for ballet. I’m not cut out for it.”

My own anger clawed at my gut. I didn’t know if it was on behalf of her or because of her refusal to bite or because I’d had my own dream yanked out from under my feet.

“What could they have possibly said to make you give up?” I demanded.

Something flashed in her eyes, but again, only for a nanosecond. “I don’t have the right body, and I never will. I’m not long and willowy. Quite the opposite and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll never be what they’re looking for.”

The resignation her body language showed turned my anger into rage, and still, I didn’t know if it was on behalf of Leni—who the hell were they to say such things?—or because she’d given up.

“
That’s
your excuse?” I asked, my hands punching the air with each sign. I tugged on my ear. “
This
is an excuse for giving up on a dream, Leni. Not that! How could you let them do that? How could you let them make you stop dancing?”

“Because they’re right, and I can’t help the way my body’s shaped. It’s my heritage, and I’m proud of it. Besides, they didn’t say never dance again. They suggested other genres. Better for my body type and the moves I could do. Like what you saw this morning.”