Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1)

by Bartsch, Carina

  At this moment, lying in his arms as our sleeping bags seemingly disappeared and became a bed of silky-soft feathers, I saw how it could be . . .

  This night, this one night, I wanted to feel what I had never felt before. Just for this night, I wanted to make my dream come true and lose myself in the two of us.

  I closed my eyelids, feeling the warmth of his body and the rhythm of his breathing. Slowly, as though I were moving in my sleep, I nestled back into him, and his arm held me tighter.

  I realized I hadn’t fallen for Elyas. I was irrevocably in love with him.

  CHAPTER 21

  AUF WIEDERSEHEN

  My back was sore, and I stretched. Why didn’t they make tents with spring mattresses? I grumbled over the loudness of the birds singing songs to each other and decided it was much too early to get up. I rolled over, my eyes still closed.

  “Mmm,” I said softly. It smelled so good here . . . sweet, tangy, fresh . . . kind of like . . .

  I opened my eyes and found myself looking right into the face of a sleeping Elyas. His nose was only a couple of inches from mine. He was lying there so peacefully, so relaxed . . . almost like an angel.

  Strange, I thought, that angel was the first word I thought of, when all this time I would have sooner compared him with a devil. But right now, angel was the right word. His closed eyes and carefree expression gave him the innocence of a little boy.

  For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel small in his presence, and for the first time, I felt I could watch him, unhindered. His smooth, incredibly soft skin, his delicate cheekbones, his eyelids, his straight nose, and . . . his lips. So sensual, such a beautiful color. I could still taste that first kiss.

  I stretched out my hand, intent on running my fingers through his cinnamon-colored hair and taking in the contours of his skin. But the instant before I touched his face, I pulled my hand back.

  My eyes studied what my hands could not touch. It sounded absurd, but I knew that this was what I wanted to see every morning until the end of my days. I would never tire of watching him.

  I memorized every detail of his face, every unevenness of his skin, trying to store it like a mental photograph I could pull up any time I wanted.

  I scooted closer to him, captivated by his aura and robbed of any control of my own. I carefully rested my head under his chin and snuggled in, with my hands drawn up to the base of my neck. I felt like I was floating upon the sense of warmth and safety that enveloped me. I closed my eyes and fell asleep for the second time in his arms, a smile on my face.

  Loud clattering woke me. This time, I instantly remembered where I was and with whom. I had sensed him even in my sleep. And, for once, my dream was waiting for me in reality. But when I opened my eyes, a gloomy, dull feeling spread outward from my gut.

  Elyas was gone.

  I was by myself in the tent. All that was left—the only evidence it had really happened—was his scent.

  Where had he gone? Had I bugged him by snuggling so close? I shook my head. No, last night he had done the same thing. I couldn’t explain his absence and started to shiver. It felt at least ten degrees colder in the tent without him.

  I lost myself in the memories and was trying to regain warmth in my limbs when the zipper on the tent shot down.

  “Emely-Bemely,” Alex squeaked, crawling through the opening.

  “Lo and behold,” I mumbled. “What did you say again? Something like ‘I’ll be right back’?” I would never let on that, in retrospect, I was grateful she had gone.

  She knelt in front of me. “Oh, I know. But Sebastian was so sweet. Sweeter than chocolate! What else could I do?” She rocked back and forth.

  So much cheerfulness this early in the morning was too much for me.

  It was written across her face how she was dying to report every last detail. I rolled my eyes, ran a hand over my face, and sighed. “All right. Spit it out,” I said.

  “Oh, Emely!” she said, holding her hands over her heart. “It was so beautiful! I love him, I love him, I love him, I love him!”

  “So things got rolling?”

  “Yes! And it was so great. He was so tender . . . His hands, Emely. I’m telling you: his hands!” She melted away. “Sebastian is the embodiment of a sex god! I can hardly walk!”

  “Oh God, Alex . . . ,” I moaned. “Too much information.” Not only was there too much cheerfulness this early in the morning but also too much sex being had by other people. I pulled myself up, rummaged through my backpack for my toothbrush and toothpaste, and then crawled past Alex out of the tent.

  “Don’t you want to hear about it?” she asked, following me out. She stood next to me as I squeezed some toothpaste onto my toothbrush.

  “Yes, but not at this hour,” I said, shoving the brush into my mouth.

  “It’s two in the afternoon,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said. It made sense, though, considering how late I had been up last night. Last night, I thought, drifting off again until Alex chimed in.

  “Say,” she said, crossing her arms skeptically, “can it be that I saw Elyas coming out of your tent earlier?”

  My heart stopped for a second. God, did nothing escape this woman’s notice?

  I looked in another direction. “Yeah, and I wonduh who I have to fank for ’at?” I said, my mouth full of toothpaste.

  “How is that our fault?”

  I spit out my toothpaste. “Take a wild guess. It has something to do with a sex god and no longer being able to walk.”

  “Oh, right.” She looked down at the ground but smiled. “Sorry. It wasn’t planned . . . At some point Elyas was just gone.”

  “It’s ferfectly underfandable,” I said, brushing some more. She stared at me expectantly. The cells of my brain ran at full power until I finally remembered. Dammit! I had completely forgotten to complain about Elyas’s visit. I wonder if I could make up for that now, or would it incriminate me more?

  “And . . . ?” she finally asked.

  “And fwat?”

  “Well.” She pursed her lips. “I’m just wondering why Elyas had such a goofy smile on his face.”

  Maybe he was he just gloating that he had finally finagled me into cuddling with him.

  Shit. I had promised not to assume the worst about him. But easier said than done.

  “How fould I know why he wuv fmiling?”

  “Emely.” She started tapping her foot. “If something’s going on and you don’t tell me, I’m going to kill you!”

  “Oh, nonfenf,” I said. “Nofing’v going on!”

  Not yet, at least.

  Probably not in the future, either!

  “Speaking of murder,” I said after rinsing out my mouth, “you are officially a stupid cow for telling Elyas about Luca.”

  She held up the palms of her hands and shook her head. “I didn’t tell him, I swear!”

  “Then how does he know about him?”

  Alex thought for a moment; then her eyebrows rose. She ran the toe of her shoe over the tips of the grass. “Maybe . . . possibly . . . perhaps . . . from Sebastian?” Her voice got high.

  “From Sebastian?” I stared at her. “You told Sebastian?”

  Had she gone totally nuts on me? She did not tell a budding clinical psychologist that I, at the age of twenty-three, had an e-mail boyfriend. He probably had prescriptions in his drawer for serious psychoactive pharmaceuticals already made out in my name.

  To top it all off, Sebastian was Elyas’s best friend. Had this woman no sense of propriety?

  “Please don’t look at me that way. It’s not what you think,” she said.

  “But . . . ?” I motioned for her to continue.

  “A couple of weeks ago, Sebastian asked me if there was a guy in your life, because you’d never mentioned one. He didn’t have any evil intentions
; he was just interested.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I was just honest and told him there wasn’t a guy in your life right now, apart from one you’d been writing e-mails with.” She shrugged.

  “Should I start forwarding the e-mails directly to him? Or would he prefer you tell him about them?” I snarled.

  “No! I didn’t go into detail at all—seriously! I just painted a rough picture.”

  I sighed.

  “Are you mad?” she asked cautiously.

  “Yes! But that’s never concerned you before.”

  “Good, then you can finally tell me what happened with my brother.”

  “I did already. Nothing!”

  “You must have done something.”

  “We just talked and went to sleep,” I said. “Separately!” I hastened to add.

  “You two have been talking an awful lot lately,” she remarked.

  “Alex, you’re being ridiculous, trying to interpret something that didn’t happen. You’re not happy unless there’s a scandal going on, right?” I turned and went back inside the tent to change.

  She pestered me a while longer but couldn’t manage to squeeze a peep out of me. Once she was sick of trying, she changed topics and volunteered details about how Sebastian had pestered her. If I held my hands over my ears, she spoke louder.

  Once I was dressed, we joined the others, who were sitting on blankets around the ashes of the campfire, having breakfast.

  At the sight of Elyas, I got a strange and hard-to-describe feeling in my stomach that reminded me of the moment you look into the other person’s eyes after having sex for the first time.

  My head knew I was being silly, but my gut didn’t understand. “There you guys are,” Sebastian said. “We’ve got beer and Snickers for breakfast. What may I serve you ladies?”

  Beer and Snickers? It sounded like Alex had been cooking.

  “That’s a tough call,” Alex answered. “I’ll take a kiss!” she said, giggling as she sat on his lap to claim her breakfast. Apparently not everyone experienced that embarrassment thing when they looked into the other’s person’s eyes after having sex the first time.

  I put my hands in my back pockets and looked around. The only free spot where the ground wasn’t wet was next to Elyas. Why didn’t that surprise me? I hesitantly walked over to him. He smiled as he noticed me approaching. “Good morning, woman of my dreams.”

  “Good morning, pain of my ass,” I said as I grabbed a Snickers and sat near him but with ample distance.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  Oh, great. I was in for some serious harassment now. He had noticed me cuddled up to him when he woke up. I averted my gaze and worked on opening my candy bar. “Tent floors are so uncomfortable. How did you sleep?” I peered cautiously at him.

  “Yeah . . . kind of uncomfortable,” he mumbled, looking at his feet. Then we looked into each other’s eyes. “But how could I have slept poorly with you at my side?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Hmm, no good?” he asked.

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “Too forced.”

  He took a heavy breath in acknowledgment.

  “Emely, we were just talking about you,” Andy said.

  I looked at him and then around at the group. “About me?”

  “After we caught Elyas coming out of your tent, we were concerned for your virginity.” He didn’t even try to deadpan it and just smiled. Great. It was so lovely to find out people had been making fun of me behind my back. I glared at Alex, who had gotten me into this miserable situation, and decided on the only solution I still had available.

  “You know . . . ,” I began, coyly twirling a strand of my hair around my finger, “at first Elyas made an effort . . . But then,” I continued with a disappointed tone, “he finished the whole thing a little . . . early.”

  “What?” Elyas said, choking on his candy bar.

  “Premature ejaculation isn’t anything to be embarrassed about, sweetie. It can happen to anyone!” I winked at him as everyone laughed.

  Andy in particular couldn’t stop. “What’s this we’re hearing about you, Elyas? You’re a quicker draw than McGraw, eh?” He laughed loudly at his own joke and slapped his knee. Elyas rolled his eyes and patiently submitted to the humiliation. Eventually, after everyone had turned to other conversations, he leaned over to me with a suggestive smile.

  “Emely,” he whispered. “We can go back into the tent right now so I can convince you of my stamina. And, believe me, sweetie, you’d be surprised.”

  Images—so many images! All in my head at once!

  I tried to shake them out as my cheeks radiated warmth. My blushing put a smug smirk on Elyas’s face. I definitely preferred the innocent-looking, sleeping Elyas; I got along with him much better, at least.

  “Do you have the same images in your head right now that I do?” he whispered. I turned even redder, if that was possible.

  “If you’re picturing your neck in a guillotine, then yes!” I said.

  He chuckled. “I don’t believe one word you say.”

  “You should.”

  “And if I don’t? Are you going to glare me to death or something?”

  “You haven’t the faintest idea how often I’ve wished I could.”

  Still smirking, he took a sip from his water bottle. “Oh, believe me. I do.”

  I shoved a piece of Snickers into my mouth and chewed, disgruntled. “You could have spared us all the laughter,” I said. “The next time you come into my tent, make sure no one sees you.”

  “The next time?” Elyas raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh shut up. You know what I meant,” I said.

  He just kept grinning. “Anytime, sweetie. I thought spending the night with you was really nice.”

  I didn’t answer and took another bite of my candy bar. God, I didn’t even like Snickers.

  After “breakfast,” the group dispersed and got busy taking down the tents. Most of us finished quickly, but my best friend and I had the same trouble taking ours down that we’d had putting it up. Alex apparently thought she could talk a tent down. If she kept on blathering this way, it wouldn’t surprise me if the rain fly came down on its own.

  Elyas, Sebastian, Andy, and Sophie stood near us, talking about the best route to take home. I overhead Elyas saying he’d rather take a different route, but the others weren’t into his suggestion.

  What were they all standing around talking for, anyway? They could have come over here and helped us with our tent.

  “Some boyfriend you got there,” I told Alex, pulling one of the tent stakes out of the ground. She was still fiddling with the two poles she hadn’t been able to get apart for five minutes.

  “Well,” she said. “Having a sex god who’s also helpful at taking down tents—that would be asking a lot.”

  We fought with the stubborn equipment for a while longer, until I’d had enough.

  “Hey, sex god!” I called over to the boys. Three heads abruptly turned my way.

  I sighed. If ever there was an instance of men overestimating themselves . . .

  “The one in the middle, I mean,” I said, pointing at Sebastian. “Our fashion expert over here can’t get her poles apart. Would you be so kind?”

  “Why didn’t you say so, Alex?” he answered.

  Elyas and Andy seemed disappointed I hadn’t meant them, but they turned back to their conversation.

  Would they all have turned around if I’d called out, “Hey, limpdick”? I made a mental note to try that next time. At the moment I still had to finish with the tent. Sebastian helped as much as he could, and soon enough, all the parts were neatly organized at my feet.

  Great—so he is both a sex god and helpful.

  We folded the rain fly together, then the tent, and
then we stuffed those parts with the stakes and poles into the bag. Once everything was expertly packed, we joined the others.

  Elyas acknowledged me with a smile without interrupting his conversation. I didn’t know where to look and ended up looking at the ground. I looked up when I heard Andy’s laugh, which somehow made the whole area vibrate. I had apparently missed a joke. As I cautiously peeked at Elyas, I could tell he had missed it, too. I looked at the others, but no one else noticed our cluelessness.

  “Hey,” I said, butting in and keeping my eyes on Andy. “Do you know if there are any bears around here?”

  “Why?” Andy frowned.

  Elyas was the only one who understood what I was implying, and smiled.

  “Well,” I said, scratching my head. “Elyas and I could have sworn we heard some loud growling last night. It must have been some kind of wild animal.” I shrugged, and Andy and Sophie stared at me, wide-eyed.

  Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Alex. “I didn’t hear anything. Did you?”

  “No,” Alex said, shaking her head, “and I can’t imagine that there are any bears around here. Can you describe the sound more?”

  “It was definitely loud,” I said. “It sounded like a bear.”

  “Strange . . . ,” Sebastian said. He didn’t have a clue he was standing face-to-face with the bear right now. Drops of sweat appeared on Andy’s forehead, and Sophie looked frantically from face-to-face.

  “It is strange. Very strange indeed,” Elyas said. “In fact, we thought we might even have heard two of them—a bear pair, so to speak.”

  I pressed my lips together, hardly able to restrain my laughter. Andy and Sophie, in contrast, grew paler and paler.

  “Well . . . we . . . uh, we didn’t hear anything, either,” Andy finally said.

  Elyas’s eyes met mine, and we smirked. The two of us. For an incredibly long time. Just as I was about to dissolve into the shimmering, turquoise-green ocean of his eyes, I looked away. Only to look into the skeptical eyes of Alex. She scrutinized me, then Elyas, then me again. Dammit! Where did she come from? Did she have Stasi espionage training or something?