by Mia Sheridan
“If I warned you I was coming.”
“Nothing could have warned me you were coming,” he said, half under his breath, his voice right next to her ear.
She startled, turning toward the place he must be, letting out a small laugh.
“Stop,” she said, her voice more breathy than she’d meant, the pleasure in that one word belying it entirely. “I can’t tell where you are.”
She heard the small crunch of something then and the warmth of his hand taking hers.
“Follow me.”
She grasped his hand, holding on to it as though it were a lifeline, stumbling slightly as he began to move ahead of her. “I can’t see where I’m going.”
“You don’t need to,” he said, his voice carrying back to her. “I know this land like the back of my hand. I won’t let you fall.”
She grasped him more tightly, reveling in the solid strength of him.
He sped up, pulling her slightly and she laughed with joy as she moved her legs more quickly to keep up with his long, sure strides. They wove through trees maybe, or perhaps around rocks, she had no idea, but he obviously did and she trusted him. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now. She trusted him with her safety and was willing to let him lead her where he may, even in the pitch-dark of night through unfamiliar territory.
He wouldn’t let her fall. Though in all honesty, it was far too late for that. She’d fallen. Somewhere along the way, she’d already fallen.
When he stopped suddenly, she ran into him, laughing in surprise as he turned, both of them colliding softly right before he stepped back, out of her field of vision. “We’re in the woods?” she asked.
“Yes. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to follow monsters into the woods?” But she knew he was teasing her.
“I must like danger too.” She smiled but then grew serious. “Because I think I’d follow you anywhere, Jonah.” Her tone held all the gravity contained in her heart, the truth of her confession. Yes, she would. She’d follow him anywhere.
Jonah was quiet for a moment before he uttered, “Clara.” There was a warning in his voice, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t heed it, and he must know that by now.
She heard the rustling of what sounded like tall grass nearby—the overgrown sugarcane fields maybe—and the hoot of an owl, the soft whistling of the wind.
“Happy birthday, Jonah.”
There was a pause before he said, “Thank you. How did you know it was my birthday?”
“The family tree in Justin’s folder.”
“Ah.”
“I brought you something. A gift. It’s why I came. To deliver it in person.”
“A gift?”
“Yes. Just a . . . it’s nothing really, but . . .”
When he didn’t interrupt her awkward stuttering, she rushed on, nervous that he was displeased. “I tried to call you first—”
“I was out here.”
“What were you doing?”
“Just walking.”
It was then she heard the squeak of hinges, tilting her head in surprise as she realized exactly where they were standing. Oh.
“We’re standing among the slave cabins,” he said, confirming her thought. He pulled on her hand and she followed. “There’s a small step up,” he said, guiding her so she didn’t trip. “Go on in. Turn on the flashlight on your phone so you can look around. I’ll stay out here.”
“You don’t have to stay outside. I won’t turn the flashlight on you, I promise. I wouldn’t do that.” Her voice was a whisper, filled with the solemnity of her promise.
He paused for the span of two quickened heartbeats and then she heard him step up behind her. Trusting her, she thought, and the knowledge brought a warm flush of pleasure to her skin. The door swung shut squeakily behind him, and she heard him step to the side, not moving any farther into the room. She smelled old wood and the sweet, rotting scent of wet leaves.
Clara turned away from Jonah, swiping at her phone, the sudden bright light causing her to squint against the glare. She turned on the flashlight and set it to its lowest setting, sweeping it once around the room.
It was empty of furniture, just four bare walls that surely held secrets they’d never tell and wouldn’t want to if they could.
Clara walked to the window, running a fingertip down the cracked and dirty glass. Even if there had been light beyond, the visibility would be poor.
Clara walked around the room, pointing the low light into the corners and at the ceiling, careful not to turn it in Jonah’s direction, careful to allow him the darkness where he felt safe.
After a couple of minutes exploring the room, Clara shut her phone off, returning it to her pocket.
She turned back toward Jonah, stepping carefully as she moved blindly to where she knew he stood. She heard his breath as she drew closer, the steady exhale that told her where he was.
“Reach for me?” she asked and he did, grasping her outstretched hand so she could find him.
She stepped closer, right up to him, and their breath mingled, the slow exhales she’d heard moments before growing less steady.
Something sparked in the air, something Clara was surprised didn’t illuminate the darkness, something that felt bright and shimmery and she swore was raining upon her skin like the fallout of a broken star.
“I thought there’d be sadness here,” she said. “I thought . . . I don’t know, that I’d feel heavy hearted or—”
“I know. There’s something about this one. I feel the same way when I’m here. It’s funny that you do too.”
Clara wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it felt as though she was sharing something with Jonah, something indefinably special.
She took his other hand in hers and stepped even closer, their bodies meeting. This is how they’d stood in that hotel courtyard, and she’d longed for it again. Now? It was even better, fuller . . . more. “Do you think places hold memories?”
She heard his arm move and then felt the tentative brushing of his hand on her cheek and sucked in a breath, leaning in to him.
A small groan rose from his throat, so quiet that she wasn’t sure she’d have heard it if she’d had possession of all her senses. The ones she was using were so attuned, so highly sensitized, so acutely aware.
“No.”
For a moment she was confused about what question he was answering. For a moment she’d been lost in his touch, and for a moment she’d forgotten she’d asked about places holding memories at all.
“No,” he repeated. “Only people hold memories.”
She smiled, pressing her face more firmly against his palm. He turned his hand over, moving his knuckles down her cheek and she sighed.
People . . . souls, Clara thought. Then maybe Angelina was really there, and the old cabin was a place that held happiness for her. She liked the thought, but it brought sadness too.
Clara turned her head, brushing her lips against his knuckle and he groaned, louder this time, her name following an exhale of breath.
“These walls, though,” Jonah said, “they’re sacred. They belong to others.”
He took her hand, and she inhaled a quick breath of air as he pulled her from the cabin, back out into the night. He was walking ahead of her and she laughed as she hurried to keep up, running into the solid breadth of his back when he stopped, turning so they were facing each other again. He turned them around slowly as though dancing, and she felt something hard against her back. “Just a tall fencepost,” Jonah murmured.
Clara lifted her chin, breathing in the air. She smelled something sharp and sweet and fresh. “The garden that grows on its own,” she said, a note of wonder in her tone. “I can smell it.”
“Yes. It’s the tomatoes.” She could feel his breath on her face and moved in even closer as he again brought his knuckle to her cheek the way he’d done a minute before. “They’re so big and sweet you can eat them like an apple.”
Clara smiled against his knuckles
, darting her tongue out to taste him.
He froze, her tongue dancing lightly over his fingertips, tasting the clean saltiness of his skin. His breathing was coming out more jagged now, as if he’d just begun to run, and she realized her heart was pounding quickly too, moving the blood through her to the rhythm of Jonah’s.
Jonah brought his hands up and used them to frame her face as if he could somehow see her, though there was no light in the darkened corner where they stood.
Clara tipped her head back instinctively, her lips parting as she waited. A hot, liquid thrill went through her, cascading down her limbs and pooling at the apex of her thighs.
Foggily, she remembered thinking that there was nothing like the anticipation right before a stage curtain opened. Nothing at all. But oh, how wrong she’d been. Waiting for Jonah’s kiss was like that moment, only infinitely better. Oh yes. Something wonderful is about to happen, her heart sang.
His lips landed on hers, soft yet firm, and it felt like a thousand fireworks exploded in her belly. His hand moved to the nape of her neck where he gathered her hair between his fingers, pulling gently as he pressed her mouth more firmly to his.
She moaned, and it seemed to ignite him. He swept his tongue into her mouth, and she met his with her own, learning the taste of him, the feel of his body pressed to hers, the way he swelled and hardened against her hip.
Their kiss went deeper, something seeming to possess them both—neediness, desperation, only without a painful edge. Clara loved it, whatever it was.
Both of Jonah’s hands were in Clara’s hair now, and she reached her arms up, gripping the muscles of his biceps as he explored her with his mouth.
She wanted to reach up higher and touch his face, to learn the feel of him if he wouldn’t let her see him with her eyes. But she knew that would put a stop to what he was doing, and she would do nothing to discourage his kiss, the magic that was sparking around them, the joy coursing through her heart.
Jonah’s hips moved back slightly and then toward Clara again, an unconscious gesture of arousal—of his body’s need to thrust—and it made Clara throb with her own desire.
“Jonah,” she gasped between kisses, her hand moving between them, over the hard planes of his chest. He moaned as if her touch pained him, drawing away slightly, but then pressing himself toward her again as if he couldn’t help himself.
Clara nipped at his lip, running her tongue over his bottom one, feeling the ridges there and the way it dipped slightly into an unnatural sort of frown, that part of him he thought made him unlovable, the proof of all his sins. She wanted the chance to prove him wrong. Someday.
Someday.
He made a small movement with his head, taking charge of the kiss once more and leading her away from his scars, his message clear: not this day.
God, but the man knew how to kiss and apparently an eight-year dry spell—if she was assuming correctly—had done nothing to dampen that particular skill.
She felt like she was floating in a vast midnight sky, his lips her only anchor to reality, the only path out of the darkness. It was a kiss born of a thousand starlit dreams. A kiss she never wanted to end.
After a minute longer, he broke away, his breath coming out in soft pants as he leaned his forehead against hers.
She went up on her tiptoes, seeking his mouth again and he laughed, a sound that was some humor but mostly frustration and ended in a pained groan.
“Was that my present?” he asked, and she heard the smile in his voice. She didn’t dare reach for him to trace the curve of his lips with her finger. Someday, she told herself again, repeating it in her mind. Someday he’d trust her with everything he had. Someday he’d allow her to see all of him.
Clara laughed, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him the way she’d held him in his bed a few nights before.
She turned her nose into his chest, inhaling his scent, the one she was coming to know as well as she already knew his voice.
“We should get back,” Jonah said, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the scent of her hair. He rubbed his cheek on it, the side of his face that had less scarring if it had any at all. She’d only really seen his chin, half of his mouth, and a portion of his cheek.
“Do we have to? I like being here, in another world with you. It’s like it’s just us in all the universe.”
He chuckled. “That would get lonely for you, wouldn’t it?”
Clara smiled, thinking of the people she’d miss—her father, of course, but she already lived with that. But she’d miss Mrs. Guillot and Madame Fournier, and the myriad of people she looked forward to seeing day after day, surprisingly even a few of the other dancers who had been treating her more warmly of late. “Maybe a little, after a while.”
She rested her cheek on the soft cotton of his shirt. He’d phrased the question in a way that excluded himself, and it made her realize that he’d already been lonely for so very long, perhaps he didn’t even consider that he could ever get any lonelier than he already was. It made her heart hurt for him. All because he believed he should be an outcast.
He looks like a man who’s been terribly hurt by the world and believes there is nothing left to love about him anymore.
Oh, Jonah. She held on to him more tightly, wanting to assure him she wouldn’t let him go, but very aware that he might be the one to push her away.
She hoped with everything in her that that wouldn’t happen, that she could convince him there was a life for them outside this deep, fathomless darkness.
She would meet him here as long as he let her, but her most fervent desire was that at some point, he would take her hand and let her lead him out of the emptiness of this universe built for two, into the light of the world.
He had so much to offer. Not just to her, but to others as well. She believed it with her whole heart, even if he didn’t yet.
And he made her so blissfully happy. She wanted to share that happiness with everyone.
“Come on,” he whispered. “I’m going to walk you back so you can get home. Go to the house and call for a car. Myrtle prefers not to drive at night, but I’m sure Cecil would be more than happy to drive you.”
Clara started to protest. She wanted to stay there longer. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. But it was late, she had early practice, and she should do the responsible thing and get the rest she needed.
“I’m going to dream about you,” she said as she leaned up and kissed the underside of his jaw, the side he’d already exposed to her. She felt his chin move and the light ghosting of an exhale from his nose and knew he was smiling.
“I’ve been dreaming about you for a while now,” he said softly, very seriously, as though it were a dangerous confession.
“What do you dream?”
“Things I shouldn’t.”
“No,” she breathed. “Whatever you dream, I promise you I want to make them all come true.”
He breathed her name. “If only you could.”
“I can, if you let me.”
He smiled again but it felt sad to Clara, even in the darkness, even without her sight. He kissed the top of her head once more and then took her hand in his.
He guided her through the forest area once more, around obstacles, and through trees that rose up in front of her so suddenly that she gasped a few times. But he gripped her hand more tightly, pulling her close to his side as he walked the path he obviously knew by heart.
Eight years, she thought. Eight years of walking this property, day after day, night after night. Again and again. His world condensed to the acreage of Windisle and nothing more.
The stars came into view first, their twinkling glow dancing through the darkness above and creating singular pricks of silvery light.
Clara could make out the movement of Jonah in front of her now, though barely. He turned very suddenly, and she let out a startled laugh as he pulled her into his arms, kissing her firmly but quickly and releasing her just as fast with a s
mall push.
Clara took a step forward, spotting the light of the house through the break in the trees in front of her.
“Goodnight, Clara.”
She reached for him, and she saw the bare glimpse of his fingers, reaching for her too before he melted into the unlit woods. My monster. My wish collector. My love.
“I left something for you on the bench behind the house,” she called. “Goodnight, Jonah. Happy birthday.” And then she turned, heading for the light of Windisle. Away. Always away from Jonah.
When all she wanted was to draw nearer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jonah smiled as he set the music box down, watching as the tiny ballerina spun to the tune of All I Ask of You.
He ran a finger over the blonde dancer, spinning endlessly and to his heart’s desire. If only he could ask the same of Clara. This was her sweet way, he supposed, of asking him to think of her even when they were apart. God, if only she knew. He did nothing but think of her. Ache for her. Want her with a desperate need that made his stomach cramp and his muscles clench. Heartache, he’d learned, was a very real thing. He suffered from it.
And yet there was a sweetness beneath the suffering. Torment that he kept seeking out, over and over as if Clara were not only the symptom, but also the cure.
Christ, I’m a goner for her, he thought with a pained sigh.
Jonah wondered if she’d chosen the music with purpose. He recognized it because he’d seen The Phantom of the Opera several times, once on a business trip to New York where he’d scored Broadway tickets. He’d taken a date, and yet when he tried to picture her now, he couldn’t even see the vague outline of her face.
The love song the music box played was from a story told about a masked phantom, unwilling to show his damaged face, and the woman who loved him anyway.
God, Clara.
Yes, she tormented him, but she’d also begun to loosen the immovable noose around his neck. He wasn’t sure if it was wise to even consider that. But since the very first day he’d spoken to her from behind the weeping wall, her life-giving essence had . . . infused him. Before her, taking full breaths again had been almost unimaginable.