/’It would have been better if I had known back then that "never say never"! Maybe if I had not uttered the words, then what he never wanted would not have happened... But back then, it seemed to me that he speaks too philosophically; it seemed to me that he speaks too serious for the age he supposes to be. Back then it seemed to me that he speaks too deeply as a lover of girl who actually not even wanted a boyfriend. All that girl wanted, all I wanted back then was a friend. Because I knew that I would be missing him as a friend. And because I knew that I would be hurt if this would have happened.
Because maybe, just maybe, I would have had other feelings for him, but that they were so fresh, that I was not sufficiently aware of them. Now I can think otherwise about what I ought to do or say. Now. But back then...’/
Then I assured this with all the certainty that I was capable of. His eyes look at me gently. He approached me just a little, moving very slowly. But when his lips were put on mine, I almost winced at how quickly he did it. As if he wanted me not to be aware of what he was doing, in order for me to not have time to retire. My heart speeds up again. And again, I feel the same dual feelings of revulsion and equal pleasure.
He’s not breathing. He let go of me slowly, his eyes with golden lights that I enjoy seeing.
“See you tomorrow!”
Chapter Nine
/’Then I vaguely remember the days that followed. I was becoming increasingly worried about my mother. I remember her moving increasingly difficult, starting to cough blood, she was becoming weaker. My thoughts on these things were so bleak, that I prefer to drive them out of my mind, deliberately. The few clothes we had, I put on her, in a pathetic attempt to warm her up. So it's not surprising that the terrible hunger began to torment me again. I wonder as I often wondered, how come I didn’t get sick, how come I not died, how come I survived. And I wonder if it would have been better to have been dead, but to be what I am now.
And of course I remember Dane. We met every day. He was like a kid who enjoys every time a new toy. But I was always the same. I do not understand why he enjoyed my presence so much, but I was quite pleased by his reaction. He made me feel accepted. For him, it did not matter that I was poor, shabby and hungry. And that was for me the most beautiful gift that anybody could give me. And then, of course, the New Year's night. I remember clearly that night. So clearly, as though there hadn't got it over such a long time, such bitter fights, or bitter suffering, such many of dead people...’/
I think that I would have loved to still have that gown from him. I wanted to look beautiful again. Not that I would have been pretty, but because that dress could turn into a real princess the ugliest frog. I have come pretty close to Dane now. He's really a true comrade. And if I had not started to like his sporadic kisses, he could have been like a brother to me.
But the truth is that Sky could have been my brother, but not Dane. My heart starts slightly to race at this thought.
“What is the matter?”Dane asks me.
“Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“You have your heart chop chop all of a sudden.” He explains.
I wry smile at him with a grimace which I hope it is very unpleasant.
“These supernatural senses of yours are not always an advantage,” I say to him, “but rather a total disadvantage, especially for the people around you.”
He smiles.
“Please, believe me, that they are to me as well a great disadvantage. Even more than for you.”
He has something in his voice that makes me feel awkward. So I prefer not to ask him what he meant. He smiles wider, as if he knows what I think.
“There's little time left until midnight.” I say in a tone of conversation.
“That's right.” He admits it. “Do you realize there are just three months since we’ve met and it seems to me that I know you like for forever?”
“And yet, there are only three months.” I stubbornly insist.
He covers his eyes with his eyelids, so that I wouldn’t see his expression. He does this a lot lately.
“Anyway, “he said in a cheerful tone, a bit forced “that and the fact that it's the New Year, is worth celebrating. I brought champagne.”
“Champagne?!”
“Don't you like it?”
“I don't know. I've never tasted such a thing in my life. But I am willing to try it.”
In my mind, I really hope it’s something I could eat. But when he pulls an oblong bottle, I have realized that it is in fact a drink. I'm trying to conceal my disappointment under a small smile.
“If it's alcohol, you know I do not drink.” I warn him.
“This thing cannot even be called alcohol!” Dane encourages me. Oh, please, try! And if you do not like, then don’t drink.”
I put the bottle to my mouth. Some bubbles sting my nose. Unwillingly, I laugh.
“This drink has a personality of its own!”I say.
Its taste is easy pungent. Initially, it seems to me that it’s actually quite sickening. But it also has a peculiar sweetness after you swallow it.
“Not bad.” I admit.
And I take a sip of it occasionally. It's good to feel that I have something in my stomach, be it even liquid. At a certain moment I stagger a little, although I am seated.
“Wow!” I laugh. “Note that I'm not even cold. This drink is magical somehow?”
And I lifted the bottle to my mouth again. Dane stretches to take the bottle away from me.
“You know, I should probably stop drinking.” He says.
“Don't be silly! Look how little I drank from it.? Not even half!”
And I keep drinking a little more. I wonder now why everyone blames the drink. It is not true that it takes your minds. I analyze myself and I realize that, apart from the fact that my limbs are slightly gelatinous, and that I have a pleasant feeling of warmth that starts somewhere in the stomach, I'm perfectly aware of what I do and what I say. I might also have my tongue in my mouth a little limp, but I can still express myself coherently and logically.
“Patricia, come on, give me the bottle!” he tells me. “Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to bring champagne.”
I shake my head.
“Yes, it was a great idea.”
As he stretches decidedly after the bottle, I quickly take it to my mouth and drank thirstily. Enough. More than enough. Then, he takes the bottle from me swiftly.
“Hey!”
I yell at him, pissed. But Dane pays no attention to me. He throws the bottle. I think he threw it far away, that I could not see how far or to hear where it fell. I lay back, my hands under my head. Normally I would have been frozen. But really, this potion called champagne has magic in it. Dane is lying next to me. I think that I normally would I be standing at his proximity. However, I have a pleasant mood of bliss and confidence. And especially I'm feeling pleasant warmth. Actually, I'm really hot, which is very strange. Because it's a terrible cold outside, and yet to me, I feel like I can take off the few clothes I have on me. I look at the sky. The stars are shinning.
“It's nice, isn’t it?”
“Very.” says Dane, although he was raised on his elbow and looked at me.
“Do you realize that the New Year came? That it had been a year of our lives?”
Dane does not answer my attempt to philosophize, which is quite strange about him, because he is first when it comes to philosophy.
“Do you want to meet my family?”
Dane’s question catches me completely off guard. I head back toward him swiftly. Which was a mistake. For this time I feel completely dazed. I started to sweat, which is very strange. I take off my jacket.
“What are you doing?”
Dane is upset and he tries to put the jacket on me again. But I laughed.
“Leave it! I’m hot! You were saying?”
“I asked you if you want to meet my family.”
I laugh again. I laugh in one and all.
“Sure.” I say. “As long as you
do not want to meet mine, I am willing to know yours. Especially if they are all charming like you.”
Somewhere, in a corner of my mind, I know I talk shit and I know I would not have said that Dane's beautiful, especially to Dane himself. He approaches me closer, and he looks at me amused, and with some curious interest.
“Are you drunk?”
I laugh.
“Of course not!” I vehemently disagree with him.
Hiccups. I laugh again.
“Why ... hic ... hic .... Do you.... You say..... Hic..... This?”
Dane puts his hands on my face. His hands are cold, but I’m really fine. I'm very, very hot. His face is getting closer and closer to mine.
“For that you have just told me I was beautiful.” he tells me as he kept confidential.
“Really! I say, what an idea!... Did I tell you that? I can't believe this! And even if I were to say, what have I done wrong? That is what it is, you're beautiful, especially when are you smiling and I can see those gorgeous dimples of yours.”
I get up on one elbow. I stagger again. The ground seems spinning me, but I'm trying to stare at some steady a point somewhere in front of him and I gaze my eyes on his. They have orange dots again. My heart beats faster
“Are you aching?” I tease him “To what?”
His hand caresses my face and the thrill that runs through me from head to toe makes me even warmer, and makes my heart beat faster and faster.
“I do. I’m aching.” he whispers. “For your lips, for you.”
I don’t say anything. Again, my mind shoots a wake-up call, but I choose not to care. Then I hear Dane speaking again.
“But I feel your heart beating and I know what this means. So do not worry, I will not take advantage of your dizziness, because I know from experience that the way your heart beats is warning me that you consider that things have gone too far and you do not like it anymore.”
God! It never seemed to me that Dane would be so obtuse! He takes his hand off my face and he gives further back. Obtuse, indeed! I stick my mouth to his mouth. Or maybe it was near his mouth, I’m not too sure, because I no longer have a good sense of direction.
“Patricia!” he says with surprise.
His tone resembles a growl now.
He keeps me away fiercely enough. His fingers on my face will leave me bruises, I’m sure. But as well I know that he never intended to hurt me; and, comparing his fingers with my dad’s fist, this is nothing. I see how he holds his breath. His jaws and his Adam's apple move and shake spasmodically. His irises sparkle.
“That’s not right…” I hear him moaning. “That's not right at all. This isn’t you; you’re not controlling your senses!”
He speaks quickly, as if talking more to himself, as if he wants to convince himself of something. So he releases me, and he step backward. Then he turns back to me and he takes a deep breath, as if he would clear his head. But I'm stubborn. I stand too. In fact, more I lurched. And of course, I stumble. If it hadn't been for Dane’s arms, I surely would fell down. And here we are now, one on top of the other, I am over him. I feel as though I've been dropped on a concrete floor. Dane’s not breathing again, but I feel that he was shaking.
“Getting cold?” I tease him.
“As a matter of fact,” he answers to me pretty rigid, “even if I would have been cold, now I'd have been burned out from too much heat.”
And his voice is a snarl again. But, instead his voice put me on my guard, it actually makes my heart beat more powerfully, and my body even warmer. It gives me the feeling that I'd like to be closer to him; so I entwine take my fingers after his neck and I bubble until I find a more comfortable position in his arms. Danes tremble is increasingly louder.
“What is it?” I ask him puzzled.
But he does not reply than a short moan. He was like almost unable to even move.
“Dane?”
He swallows with great difficulty, and he clears his throat a few times until he manages to speak.
“Listen... Patricia... I... Those like me.... I... We.... We have different reactions than ordinary people. We respond differently to stimuli.... Our feelings... My senses..... Are much inflated than those of others…”
I smile with delight. I think I know what he means. He means he is turned on. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I'd have the courage to bet on that. Well, now and I have enough courage to do enough like to stick my lips to his lips again. I hear him long exhaling, all the air inside him leaving his body. However, he pulls away from me.
”No, Patricia, this is bad.”
His voice is tormented, and me, as a jerk, I'm glad of his ordeal, and I am satisfied. Our faces, though not touching because his arms keep me away, are close enough that I can get my tongue out to lick his lips. Dane reacts as he would be electrocuted.
“This is not right.” he repeated like a litany.
Then I lick his lips again.
“Ah…” he moans. “This is not right. This is not good. This is… Oh, my God, this is so good! So good!”
And yet, I know that if Dane would really want, he would have stopped me. Only that he didn't want that enough. And in that moment I didn't want to be stopped. I don't want him to stop; I didn't want us to stop.
Dane is moaning again, but with a sound of capitulation. He pulls me hard next to his cold body. Although I always perceived him as having a very rigid and tough body, Dane was simply stiff as a rock. He was tenser than the arch stabbing with an arrow.
And yet, his mouth is over my mouth. I open my lips. The smell of his mouth is mind-boggling, pleasing, and aromatic. Then his cold tongue, rapacious, wraps around my tongue. In fact, my imagination was poor in comparison with the reality of his taste and texture. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate. This is the only association that I can do now. Although there are many unimaginable tastes that I taste. I stick all my fingers in his hair. The heat that I felt so far is nothing, compared to the heat that passes through me in waves, from head to toe. My heart bumps like jumping out of my chest.
Then his chest raises a growl. I do not know when we changed positions. Now I was lying on him, now he sat upright, my legs encircling his waist. We kiss as if there would not be tomorrow. Like we've never kissed afterwards. As it would be the first and also the last kiss we shared.
/’If I only knew…’/
…
…
The heat I feel led me to almost break my clothes off. Before you realize, I am naked from the waist up.
“No.” he wheezes. “Stop!”
However, he just says that. Because I know that he doesn't want me to stop. He does not want me to cease to unbutton his shirt, doesn't want me to stop myself from sticking my body in his. Yes! The ice of his body feels so good against my ardor! His moan brings more pain than pleasure. I look at him, and but his face is frozen in an ecstatic expression. Through the veil of his eyelashes, his irises shine more orange, more red than yellow. Instead of being scared, this actually makes me so very pleased.
It is something to feel that you are the master of another being. Because I know that at this time, Dane is all in my power. A terrible sense of total ownership envelops me. I've never had anything to be only mine, that is new, that has not belonged to anyone before, and that I do not have to share.
Dane tries to keep me away from him again, but he does not have, or doesn't want to have strength enough to stop me.
“Wait, Patricia! Give me a minute!”
But I don't want to give up yet on this sense of ownership, this feeling of having someone in my domination. And I know that if I'd give him this minute break he asks for, if I would let him breathe even more than a second, he would have been the one who would have pushed me. So I’m fiercer over him. This sense of a total belonging joins unknown bodily sensations, but so glowing, that no power on earth could stop me. I stop his words with my own lips, while I press my thin and naked body against his. Hearing the sound he makes out of his throat, half hu
man, half animal, or whatever he is, another thrill passes through me from head to toe. One that literally takes my mind: one that makes me lose my control and any balance. I began to lick him and to bite him wherever my teeth meet his skin that has that divine smell and taste that I cannot get enough.
“Oh, my God!”
Dane hissed as between agony and ecstasy. And indeed he agonizes as much as he delights himself. He then holds me so hard, that he almost leaves me breathless. His teeth stick to my skin, easily, his tongue tasting me all. He puts his hands over my very small breasts. I scream. It seems to me that more pleasure than this kills me. I do not know exactly what we are doing. It seems that everything at the moment is reduced to sensation, to instinct. Dane seems that would devour me.
I am so deepen in this passion, with such lust, that even if he forgets his vows in this moment, I could not care less. I do not know right now if he wants more to delight his senses, or he wants more to bite me as to satiate as well a hunger and terrible lust. But whatever it is, I swear to you, right now I’m nothing more than an instrument that Dane plays at his sole discretion. And although I know in a corner of my mind, in a far corner of my mind, I should be ashamed, I cannot help myself pulling his clothes, just as I cannot stop taking off mine.
And here we are, ice and fire, Dane and I, something supernatural, and incomprehensible, with a poor human being, flesh over flesh, nakedness over nakedness, breathing over breathing. And everything seems so natural, that I cannot even remember why I so fiercely rejected before his approach.
For a split second, the thought of him being a beast or something of the sort replaces the orange, almost red glances of Dane. And briefly, I repel such closeness between us with the same intensity with which I wanted it a moment ago. I realize his grip is painful, as well as tomorrow, I will be full of bruises and that my own conscience, which now stubbornly quiets, will defiantly yell at me later. My heart stops for a second, a second when I push Dane with all my force, and a second in which I reject him with all my fiber.
The Huntress Book 1 Memories Page 8