by M. Leighton
“Bo, if you ever had any feelings for me, open your eyes and look at me.” When I got no response, I added, “Now!”
He was so still, he could already have been dead for all I knew.
I put my ear to his chest. In the quiet, I could make out the slow, steady thump of his heart. I knew that as long as I could hear that, there was still a chance to save him.
In repose, his usually animated mouth was relaxed. His lips were not too thick, not too thin; they were just right. Chiseled. Hard. Manly. Perfect.
I reached out and touched the tip of my finger to them, tracing the smooth contour. Impulsively, I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his.
The intoxicating smell that was distinctively Bo’s flooded my nostrils and washed over my senses. My throat clenched. The prospect of no longer smelling that scent was unthinkable.
I leaned back, just enough to lick my lips. I thought I might be able to taste him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to take it in, take a part of him into myself, to hide it away for safekeeping. I wanted something of him that I never had to let go, something that would never fade or die.
I closed my eyes against the tears that threatened and pressed my lips to his once more.
A sob shook me and my lips moved against Bo’s. When it passed, I still felt movement beneath me. I gasped. Bo’s lips were stirring under mine, ever so slightly. I increased the pressure and, much to my relief, Bo responded, deepening the kiss.
By his fervor, or lack thereof, it was evident that he was still weak, but he was alive, alive enough to curl my toes and make me remember why I’d risk my life to save him, even for one more day.
My eyes flew open when the significance of his kiss fully penetrated my mind. He was awake. If he was awake, he could feed.
Pulling back just enough to break contact, I said, “Bo, you need to feed and I want you to drink from me.”
Bo groaned and shook his head in one firm motion. He was resisting.
“Please, Bo. I want you to.” I kissed him again, hoping to draw him in with passion. “Please,” I sighed into his mouth.
His breathing increased, becoming more ragged, but still he resisted. “No,” he whispered.
“Bo, you will die if you don’t feed. I know it’s going to happen eventually, but please don’t leave me yet. Please. I’m begging you. I want you to drink from me. I want to be bonded with you forever. I want to feel you when you’re gone. At least give me that. Please.”
When I pressed my lips to Bo’s this time, I was taking the proverbial gloves off. I put my hand on his chest and leaned up, sinking into the kiss. I let my tongue slide between his lips and glide over the silky interior of his mouth. I reveled in the sweet taste of him.
Again, he kissed me back. Not exactly vigorously, but it was enough to let me know that he was quickly coming back to the land of the living.
“Bo,” I moaned, tearing my lips from his.
Scooting up over him, I straddled his hips, crushing my breasts to his chest and pressing my throat to his mouth.
“Bite me, Bo. Please. Take it.”
My heart was booming inside me and I was suspended between desire and fear, a very heady combination. Every sense, every nerve, was tightly focused on Bo and his mouth.
When I felt his lips open and his tongue touch the flesh of my neck, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. My skin was hypersensitive and his cool tongue felt like ice—smooth, sensual, wet ice. My belly trembled with want.
“Please,” I whimpered, shifting on top of him, craving the contact, the friction of his body against mine.
An instant before he gave in, I knew I’d won. I felt it somewhere deep inside me, like he was coming home, and I was his home. There was a flash of utter completion, of perfect peace right before I felt the sharp pinch of his teeth piercing my flesh.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sweet pain swept through me, a hurt so good that I never wanted it to end. For a moment, it was as if Bo and I were one person. I could feel his pleasure—the thrill of the bite, the ecstasy of the blood—as if they were my own, and I gave myself over to it, sinking into him.
I wasn’t aware of how I got onto the floor, onto my back, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the ceiling and Bo was on top of me. His body rested atop mine, his hips between my open thighs. His lips were at my neck and my hands were fisted in his hair. I held on tight, willing him not to stop, my body begging him for more.
Bo began to move, shifting and rubbing against me, pressing into me where our hips met. Husky noises of passion purred in his throat and tingled along my skin. Little pulses of electricity streaked through my body, setting my core on fire.
I was growing warmer by the second, melty, and my head was getting fuzzy. I opened my eyes and my vision swam in a hazy blur. I shut them to drown out the sights. I wanted only to concentrate on Bo and his mouth and all that he was making me feel.
Unbidden, the hair that I clutched at the back of his head slid through my fingers. My arms were falling, falling, falling until I heard the thump of them hitting the carpet at my side. They landed on a bed of cotton that cushioned them. It cradled my entire body, holding me in a sea of softness. I tried to lift my arms, to recapture Bo inside them, but they refused to obey my commands. The cotton, with its wispy fibers, held them firmly in place.
One delicate strand at a time, the cotton wove its way inside my head and around my body, stealing the air from the room, smothering it in flimsy filaments. It was growing harder and harder to breathe, but I was so comfortable, it was even harder to care.
More content than I could ever remember being, I stopped resisting. With a sigh, I relaxed back into the puffy cloud and let it take me, swallow me, consume me.
********
I awoke some time later with the sweet comfort of Bo’s scent surrounding me. I opened my eyes and turned my head. I was lying in my bed and Bo was next to me. He was turned up on his side, his head in his hand, staring down at me. He was so close I could feel his body pressed along every inch of my left side.
We lay on top of the covers, but I had no need of them. Bo’s body was feverish, more than enough to keep me warm in the cool of the night.
“Lucius said to tell you that he enjoyed meeting you. He was very impressed with you.” Bo leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “Between us, I think he has a little bit of a crush.”
“You’re ok.” All I could think about was the relief I felt that Bo was here with me, alive and well, talking to me in my bed.
“Thanks to you,” he said, rubbing his finger across my brow. “You saved my life.”
I shrugged. “It was my turn.”
“You risked too much.”
“Nothing’s too much for you.”
“Lucius told me everything.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’d do it again.”
“I wouldn’t let you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
Bo rolled onto his back. His weary sigh cut through the silence. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
“What?” I bolted upright in the bed and turned toward Bo.
“I’m no good for you. I should’ve stayed away.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I care too much for you to stay, to continually put you in danger.”
“Everyone’s in danger, they just don’t know it.”
He nodded and rolled his eyes. “You’re in more danger than most.”
“You’ll- ,” I began, choking on the words as I tried to spit them out. “You’ll be gone soon anyway. At least stay with me until then.”
“Every day that I—”
“Please, Bo. Do this one thing for me. Stay until the end.”
“Ridley—”
“I know it will hurt you to be away from me. But what about me? You don’t know what it will do to me if you go. You don’t know how the human half of a bond feels. But
I do.”
Bo stared into my eyes. I could see the war waging inside him. He was torn, not wanting to hurt me either way, but knowing it was going to happen regardless. I could also see his resolve weakening, so I pressed on.
“Don’t deny me this, Bo. At least give me the rest of your life. It’s not like I’m asking that much.”
It was bizarre, using his imminent death as a valid point in an argument, but I’d use whatever I had to in order to get him to stay.
“I just don’t—”
“And if you go, you’ll never find out who killed your father.”
Bo shot me a look that said Dirty trick, but I was not the least bit apologetic. If it would get him to stay, I’d remind him of his mission every day.
“Ridley,” he started, sighing again.
When he didn’t continue, I knew I’d won. At least for the time being.
“Plus,” I said, snuggling back down beside him, resting my head on his chest. “You need to graduate.”
Bo laughed and the rough rumble made my heart swell.
“Because school is so important at this stage in my life.”
“I’m sure your mom would like to see you graduate. It’s a maternal thing.” Even as I mentioned it, I realized that I knew very little about their relationship.
“Actually, you’re right. She’s really the only reason that I enrolled in school to start with.”
“See?”
“I think it’s her way of retaining some semblance of normalcy. It got me out of Southmoore, too, which is what she wanted. She thought distance would make a difference, that I’d get interested in a new life and forget about finding Dad’s killer.”
“Sounds like she barely knows you,” I quipped.
“She doesn’t, not really. She was never home much before. She was a lot…different back then. She and Dad weren’t exactly happy. I think she’s got a lot of regrets.”
“And if you left now, it would just hurt her even more. All the way around, it’s just best for you to stay.”
Hmm was Bo’s only response.
********
By lunch on Friday, I was fully recovered and Bo was still in my life, so I was calling it a good day. Savannah was prattling on about our double date and even that didn’t dampen my mood.
“We should totally go see that scary movie, Insidious. Oh, and then” she gasped excitedly. “We can go do something completely reckless like break into the marina and hijack a boat.”
“What?” If I thought she wasn’t serious, I’d have laughed. But, sadly, I knew she was dead serious. I was discovering that Savannah was fearless, too.
“You’re frickin’ nuts,” Devon claimed. His tone said he was serious, but his eyes said he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.
“It doesn’t have to be a yacht. It can be a little boat. A dingy or a blow-up raft. I don’t care what it is, just as long as it will get us out into the water.”
“Why?” This was Bo’s question. He wasn’t opposed to the idea, so long as there was a good reason behind it.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. What kind of rebellious hoodlums had I inadvertently befriended?
“Because today’s the fourth anniversary of my mother’s drowning and I want to set a lantern out for her. She loved the water more than anything.”
None of us had a comment for that and I knew that tonight we’d be breaking and entering. I felt a little bud of excitement unfurl in my stomach. Doing something completely crazy was out of character for me, but my character was changing pretty rapidly. I wanted to do as much living, reckless and otherwise, as I could squeeze in before Bo left me.
As always, thoughts of his condition sent a stab of pain through my heart. I slid a glance in Bo’s direction as he talked with Savannah and Devon. He laughed and shifted his eyes to me. He winked and my stomach fluttered in response.
It seemed incongruous, a cruel twist of fate, that I could love someone more and more each day, and yet already be mourning his passing. As my love grew, so did the dark cancer of his illness. It was eating away at me, gnawing at my soul.
I’d begun to hate seeing lunch period come to an end. I’d found more genuine friendship and camaraderie at Savannah’s table than I’d ever known, and Bo was always there. He was relaxed and happy and I basked in his unmasked affections. It was like a sun-drenched capsule of near-perfection that I never wanted to leave.
But I was coming to realize that all good things must end. And usually they ended badly.
Bo had just left, going in the opposite direction, toward his class, and I was closing my locker when Trinity approached.
She looked better, but only in a less-sick way. She looked more like a vampire than ever. Her skin was chalky white and her eyes held a viciousness that even I had never seen there before.
“I heard about the other night in the woods,” she said without prelude.
“Trinity, I’m sorry. I know you had a thing for Lars, but—”
She laughed bitterly. “You two have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“Trinity, I—”
“Of course you don’t,” she said, leaning in close to my face. “You know what the funny thing is?”
I sighed. “What, Trinity?” Something in her eyes creeped me out and I had to look away. I stared over her shoulder, trying to assume my most bored and unconcerned expression.
“All this was to find Bo’s father’s killer. At this rate, you’ll never find her.”
Her?
My eyes snapped back to Trinity’s. “You know who was behind the attack?”
Trinity’s smile was smug and self-satisfied. She’d gotten the reaction she wanted, so, with one more laugh in my face, she turned and walked away.
“Trinity!” I called after her, but she didn’t even pause. “Trinity!”
For the rest of the day, I wrestled with when and how to tell Bo what she’d said. I decided to wait until after our double date. If I told him before, it would ruin the whole night. Besides, I was pretty sure he’d come to my room afterward and I could talk to him about it then.
********
Of all the terrible nights for my mother to stay home and get loaded, she chose that night, the night Bo came to get me. To add insult to injury, she even beat me to the door when he rang the bell.
I heard her shrill voice all the way back in my room, so I strapped on my wedge shoes, pulled the hem of my tunic down over my leggings and bolted for the door.
When I reached the foyer, Mom was already draped all over Bo. She was looking up into his face with doe eyes, smiling flirtatiously. I was mortified.
I hurried to Bo’s side and took his other arm, the one she wasn’t trying to tear off, and I tugged. “We’d better go. Savannah’s going to kill us.”
When I pulled, Bo shifted toward me and Mom stumbled drunkenly, grabbing Bo for support. She giggled, covering her lips with her fingertips.