by Lily White
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, laughter in his voice.
My cheeks heat to be caught.
“I didn’t think you’re the type to dance.”
Shoulders shaking with more laughter, he spins me again. “I went to all the same cotillions as you. It was required we learn.”
I wouldn’t know anything about that. Mason always took off immediately when we arrived anywhere, and I spent the entire night hugging a wall.
Although, I did watch the other kids dance. It just never occurred to me that the guys were required to learn like the girls were.
“I’m grabbing drinks,” Damon calls out from where he stands near the door. “What’s your poison?”
“Grab us a few beers,” Ezra answers, his eyes tipping down to me. “Unless you want something else.”
“I don’t drink.”
So crooked, that smile, only one side curling.
“Tonight you do.”
Looking over my head, he tells Damon, “Get her something mixed. Not one of Gabriel’s drinks.”
Damon doesn’t answer before leaving.
“Why not one of Gabriel’s?”
Laughing, Ezra spins us one more time, but then grabs my hand to spin me on my own and pull me back to him as the song ends.
Tipping a finger beneath my chin, he tilts my face up to his.
“Because you’ll die if you drink it. Let me give you that piece of advice now. Never, and I mean never, accept a drink from Gabriel. Nobody knows what he puts in them, but they are strong enough to knock out an entire group of alcoholics on the fumes alone.”
I laugh at that, but the expression on his face is serious. It only draws my attention to the fading bruises and discoloration, the marks that had been an angry purple a week ago that have now faded to a sickly green.
Reaching up, I run my finger along one just beneath his left cheekbone. Ezra attempts to move away from the touch, but I won’t let him.
“What’s happening to you?”
He grabs my hand to pull it from his face, the bright amber of his eyes becoming dark. “Don’t worry about it.”
The edge to his voice only ignites my temper. “But I want to know.”
Lowering his face until we’re eye level, he fills my vision. I realize that every time he does it is to intentionally throw me off balance.
Ezra must know how it affects me. His half grin quirks the side of his mouth, his gaze searching mine as he reaches up with his thumb to smooth the crinkle of skin between my eyes.
I didn’t even know I was scowling.
Ezra’s expression shifts, a blend of confusion and surprise, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Easy there, killer. You’re supposed to be having fun tonight. Why ruin it?”
“Why am I just now finding out the real party is in the solarium? You fuckers left me out there all alone with the peasants.”
Turning at the sound of Shane’s voice, I watch him and Damon walk into the room.
Damon throws his brother a beer as he approaches us, a red cup in his other hand I assume is meant for me.
When I reach to take it, he holds it away, a playful smile tugging at his lips.
“Not so fast. I think the next dance is mine, and then you can have this.”
Ezra’s fingers grip tighter where he touches me, restrained possession in that hold, but eventually he lets me go.
“Fair enough,” he says before walking over to drop down on the couch next to Shane. I don’t miss how his stare stays locked on me, though.
After setting the drink down, Damon tugs me close, and we dance to a faster song.
I’ve always been a good dancer, and had taken lessons for years. It’s fun to discover the twins can keep up with me.
Who would have guessed?
All this time, I’d thought these two were only good for the fights they often got into, but apparently their bodies can move to music just as gracefully as they can to brawling.
Maybe that’s why it never looks like they’re walking, their predatory prowl a hint to just how coordinated they are in other ways.
While Damon and I dance, more of the Inferno boys waltz into the room. Sawyer and Taylor, plus Taylor’s date, Katie, followed by Mason and Milly.
Glancing at her, I notice she’s changed out of her prom dress into jeans and a simple black cami.
“Having fun yet?”
When Damon whispers against my ear, a shiver runs down my spine. Our eyes meet, and he grins exactly like Ezra. These two are so alike it’s insane. Even their mannerisms are identical.
It reminds me of what Ezra showed me at prom, and I glance down to see the faint single freckle that marks the left side of Damon’s neck.
Son of a bitch.
All this time, there was something different about them, but it’s so subtle I’m not surprised very few have noticed.
“Yes, but can I have my drink now?”
“I suppose,” he says with a dramatic eye roll that makes me laugh.
Letting me go, he grabs it from the table, but before handing it to me, he takes hold of my hand and leads me to Ezra.
Practically shoving me down onto his brother’s lap, Damon gives me the cup and winks.
“Bottoms up.” He says this as Ezra’s hand comes up to take possessive hold of my waist, both of them jumping into a debate Shane is having with Sawyer about classic muscle cars versus modern ones.
With zero interest in that topic, I sip from my drink and fight to swallow whatever it is. I assume it’s pure alcohol with a little bit of soda mixed in, the liquid burning my throat as it goes down.
Deciding not to drink too much of it, I turn to listen to the conversation, but my eyes lock with Mason’s, that glacial blue stare narrowing on mine for just a second before he looks away.
Not understanding what the hell his problem is, I relax back against Ezra’s chest and laugh when his fingers tickle my side.
An hour passes while the seven of us sit around talking and joking with each other. Every so often I catch Mason giving me a weird look, but choose to ignore it.
Ezra’s hand taps my hip after a while. “Get up. I need another beer.”
I push to my feet and expect him to walk past me, but instead he grabs my hand to tug me along with him.
It’s either that or I stay here with Mason and them, so I choose to follow Ezra out of the solarium and into the main house.
The party is blowing up at this point, the entire senior class filling the house as well as a bunch of juniors.
There are a few college students in the mix that I recognize as former seniors who were a year ahead of us.
The halls are packed once we reach the main part, and Ezra pulls me behind him, tucking me close as he navigates the crowd.
It’s not too difficult. People are more than happy to move out of the way when they see him coming, a few girls trying to get his attention as we pass before glaring at me when he ignores them.
Once we’re in the kitchen, he grabs another beer from a cooler and turns to look at me.
“You want another drink.”
My cheeks heat when I admit, “I didn’t drink the first one.”
Smiling at that, he grabs my hand again and leads me down another long hall, up a back flight of stairs to the second floor and into an empty room.
As soon as the door closes, the music and din of conversation from the party is muted, just the two of us staring at each other in comfortable silence.
Ezra steps closer to me, stealing my space once again. I don’t mind giving it to him, though. Although I’m not sure why.
“Did you enjoy your prom?”
Our eyes lock when he asks the question, my damn pulse pounding harder than it should. I have to swallow the knot of nervousness in my throat.
“For the first time, I can actually say yes to that question.”
He grins, a dimple indenting his cheek I hadn’t noticed before.
“Good.”
All I can see are the bruises again. I have the urge to count them. To dedicate them to memory and then find out exactly how they got there.
Instead of saying anything about it, I sigh and ask something else.
“Why are you doing all this?”
“For fun.”
He pops the cap of his beer off using the side of a table near me and tips the bottle to his lips. For some reason, it fascinates me.
If I’m not careful I’ll end up addicted to Ezra, which means it will only hurt more when I have to walk away.
“We only have six weeks left of school,” I say, not really sure why.
Another sly grin before he finishes off the beer he’s holding with a few powerful swallows.
Setting the empty bottle down on a side table with exaggerated care, he glances up at me, the shadows of the room disguising the discoloration on his skin I know is there.
“The way I see it, that means you have six weeks to come out of your shell and be as crazy as the rest of us.”
“I’m not in a shell.”
Except, that’s not true at all, is it?
I’ve been sheltered.
At least when it comes to guys and all that entails.
I often feel like I’m standing in a sea of faces, all these lives flowing around me with their own directions, while I’m stuck in place waiting for a marriage that was demanded of me before I had the chance to take my first full breath.
That fact is made even clearer when Ezra steps closer to me, and my heart thumps like a trapped rabbit, my pulse so jagged I can feel it everywhere.
My skin feels electrified, a buzzing that’s both a warning and a plea.
But for what?
Him?
Or what he represents?
This isn’t just about the boy, it’s about me.
About my choices.
About the freedom I want to make those choices.
And while those thoughts spark and burn inside my mind, he dips his head to take up all my vision, to be the only thing I see.
This feral, carnal, predator of a boy who fights as good as he dances, who is as kind as he is cruel, who mystifies me and keeps me constantly knocked off balance.
“You’re in a shell, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
His voice is a rough whisper, those beguiling eyes of his trapping mine.
“So what do you want to do about it in the next six weeks?”
The buzzing is stronger now, like I’m a live wire that’s fallen and is popping and cracking on the ground. It doesn’t help that his energy adds to it, a wild, untamable violence that dares me to do what I want for once.
I want to be wild and untamable like him, if only for six weeks.
“Just fun?” I ask, somehow managing to speak around the knot in my throat.
“Whatever kind you want.”
Our mouths are a teasing inch apart, breath soft and mingling.
Closing my eyes, I feel him all around me, this kinetic, extravagant force that steals my ability to think.
What do I want?
Him?
Them?
All of it and nothing at all?
Six weeks to pretend that I’m not trapped.
Six weeks to take for myself all the parts of my life I don’t want to give to Mason.
I open my eyes and become lost in an amber stare that will always represent chaos and freedom.
“Nobody will know?” I whisper.
The tip of his tongue drags across the crease of his lips, and I watch that movement before locking my gaze with his again.
“Nobody will talk about it,” he answers, his voice barely disrupting the silence of my indecision. “I’ll make sure of that.”
I think that’s good enough for me.
Damn it.
Every girl gets to be crazy at one point in her life, right?
Reaching forward with shaky hands, I grab the sides of his jacket and shove it off his shoulders. The material slips down Ezra’s arms as his eyes hold mine, his body moving slowly to help me strip the jacket away entirely.
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know if I think too much, I’ll convince myself to stop. Which is why I don’t think. I just keep going.
Ezra watches me while I struggle to unbutton his shirt with fumbling fingers, an enigmatic stare that doesn’t rush me along or attempt to guide my decision.
He’s letting me call the shots, and I think that if he didn’t remain still, I’d stop, only because I’m so skittish right now.
Working my way down, I tug the hem of his shirt out from where it’s tucked and finish unbuttoning it.
There’s another quick second of hesitancy before I think fuck it and press my palms against the heat of his chest to shove the shirt from his shoulders as well.
Once he wriggles the shirt away entirely to let it fall to the floor, I pause to see the extent of damage to his body.
New bruises on top of old ones, all different sizes and colors, at different phases of healing and fading.
My temper spikes again, my eyes crawling from one to the next as a blaze ignites just beneath my skin.
“What’s happening to you?” I murmur, my fingers lifting to trace the edge of one mark that blends into another.
Grabbing my hand to pull it away, he dips his head to catch my eyes, his finger tipping beneath my chin to tilt my head up and away from the clear evidence of something horrible.
“Tonight’s not about that,” he reminds me.
“Will you tell me?”
I can’t help the anger in my voice, the violence Ezra awakens inside me.
“Not tonight.”
Fingers tangling with mine, he tugs me closer but instead of kissing me, he allows me to lower my head to kiss one of the bruises on his chest.
I hear a breath rattle over his lips, feel a shiver run down his body as I move my head to press a soft kiss against another angry mark.
Trapping my chin with his fingers, Ezra tilts my head up again, but loses the ability to let me lead this dance.
His lips are gentle against mine at first, soft and warm, a slow movement that becomes more demanding as his tongue slides across the crease of my mouth.
As soon as I part my lips and allow his tongue to slide against mine, a low growl erupts in his chest, his hands moving to my waist to tug me closer.
Outside the room, the party continues on, laughter and music filtering into the shadows where Ezra and I are hidden.
I don’t let the noise distract me, don’t worry about what’s occurring beyond the searing heat of his kiss and the way his hands run up my body to cup my cheeks and trap me in place.
Our mouths open wider as he walks me backwards, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip playfully, his amber gaze holding mine in place with such ferocious heat behind it that I can’t breathe.
When the backs of my legs hit what I assume is a bed, Ezra stops.
We stand for what feels like hours in a moment of desperate indecision.
I know what that bed means.
So does he.
And with the way he pauses now, I also know he’s giving me every opportunity to make a different decision.
“You sure?” he asks.
No.
Yes.
Maybe.
What happens if he steals my heart while I steal my freedom?
I think that’s what scares me the most.
“Just fun?” I ask. “Just six weeks?”
Because what I’m really asking is whether we both can let go when it’s over.
“Whatever you want.”
There’s more to that promise than this. Than right now.
Than just him.
The only question is how much of what he offers will I be willing to accept?
I suck in a breath and blow it out slowly, making a decision that could be bad, or could be good.
The consequences don’t matter as much to me as stealing the power to make that decisio
n myself.
I’m stealing this part of my life.
This moment.
This tiny chapter of my lifelong story.
“I’m sure.”
Heat rolls behind an amber gaze that will always render me helpless.
When his hand moves to pull down the zipper at the back of my dress, and when he lowers his head to kiss me as the dress slides off my body, I close my eyes as a promise whispers in my head.
Just six weeks...and in those weeks, a lifetime of choices.
Present
Emily
People say time can pass in the blink of an eye. I never understood the expression.
Time, for me at least, has passed slowly. A turtle’s low-bellied crawl toward the inevitable. I’ve dragged my heels my entire life, never wanting to reach the inevitable.
But now, ten years after two boys attached themselves to me in so many ways, time is slipping through my fingers like water.
No matter how much I wish I could hold on, it flies past, and I’m left with only a few more years, two at most, before Emily Donahue dies her final death and becomes Emily Strom.
Thanks to what started as six weeks of fun, I’ve had the past ten years to live my life as I wanted.
For as magical as the past few years have been, it’s been frustrating as well.
I’ve had my heart broken, something I never thought could happen.
But I’ve also learned to patch it back together again.
I’ve become stronger.
Rid myself of the shell.
I’ve been crazy and wild and carefree.
I packed a lifetime into the years I had before this night.
And I have two boys to thank for it, even if I haven’t spoken to them since they left for college after the weeks we had together.
“Anybody important show up yet?”
Chuckling at Ivy’s question, I wonder if I should tell her I’m watching Gabriel Dane step out of a limo outside the front of her father’s mansion.
“Anybody in particular you’re looking for?”
It must have been something in my voice that tipped her off.
Ivy’s gaze snaps my direction from where she’s applying her makeup in the bathroom mirror.
I know the look on her face extremely well. It’s the same one she gets whenever Gabriel is close by, although I haven’t seen it since high school.