Blind Faith

by Kimberley Reeves

  "I know," he said softly, "but you don't have to be afraid of me, Serena. I would never try to pressure you into anything you weren't ready for. You set the pace, take all the time you need...just promise me one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Promise you'll let me know the second you're ready to take our relationship to the next level because I have to tell you…I really, really want to kiss you." Color bloomed in Serena's cheeks and when she spoke, there was the same, sweet shyness Will remembered from their youth.

  "I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for the type of relationship you're hoping for, Will. But if you're sure you want to give this a try then I have to tell you...I really, really want to kiss you too."

  That was the last thing he expected her to say, and for a few moments he was too stunned to even breathe. Will slowly leaned forward, his heart hammering so hard in his chest he could almost hear his ribs cracking. Serena must have sensed how close he was because she tilted her head, arching a questioning brow.

  “Will? Are you ever going to kiss me?”

  “Oh yeah,” he murmured as he gently pressed his lips to hers.

  Chapter 7

  Kingda Ka. At 456 feet, it was the tallest steel roller coaster in the world. With a hydraulic mechanism, it launches the train from zero to one hundred and twenty eight miles per hour in three and a half seconds. Serena knew this because McKinley had goaded her into riding it the summer she turned fourteen and she’d studied the brochure while they waited in line.

  She’d pretended to be intrigued with the statistics because her insides were shaking and it was the only way she could keep her sister from knowing just how terrified she was. Once they were seated, the fear still lingered but there was also a sense of excitement and anticipation. She remembered the wild fluttering of butterflies in her stomach, the adrenalin rush just as they reached the summit of the track, and the way her heart leapt into her throat when the rollercoaster took its first plunge.

  That’s what it felt like to be kissed by Will.

  It was exciting and scary at the same time; her heart jack hammering at such a furious pace, she felt dizzy from the sudden rush of blood to her head. It was more exhilarating than anything she had ever experienced in her life; even the ride on Kingda Ka couldn’t compare. The spicy scent of his cologne, the warmth of his lips, the taste of him in her mouth and on her tongue; they all mingled together in a jumbled mass of confusing thoughts and wildly exciting emotions.

  Will made no attempt to draw her closer. Only their mouths touched, and it was obvious to Serena that he was purposely keeping the kiss slow and tender, although she sensed the passion rippling beneath the surface. Technically, he wasn’t doing anything that could be construed as physically threatening; it was the turbulence of her own emotions that was wreaking such havoc on her. While her heart was pounding with increasing vigor, her limbs had taken on the consistency of half melted butter, and any coherent thoughts she had were whisked away before they had completely formed.

  Even more unsettling was the strange tingling sensation that seemed to emanate from deep in her abdomen and pulse outward like a low electrical current. It wasn’t unpleasant by any means, but she also had the sensation of free falling with no way to stop herself, and that was a little bit scary. Was it normal to have such an intense reaction to a kiss? If Will was the man doing the kissing, then she imagined it probably was. Switching off the fear of intimacy she’d harbored for so many years was impossible, of course, but Will was making it easier to forget, easier to believe it would eventually stop haunting her.

  “I knew it would be like this,” Will murmured against her lips.

  Serena’s reply was a breathless whisper. “You did?”

  He kissed her again, a brief melding of mouths that sent a shiver up her spine, before drawing his head back.

  “Yes, and I also knew that once I started kissing you, I wouldn’t want to stop.”

  That brought both a blush and a smile to her face. “It was pretty spectacular, but…”

  “But it’s late and we need to get some sleep.”

  “So you keep saying,” her smile broadened.

  Will hesitated for a moment before giving her hand a gentle squeeze and standing up. “Goodnight, Serena. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Goodnight, Will.”

  After he’d gone, she heard Rufus plop down beside the bed to settle in for the night, but she was too wound up to follow suit. She lay back down, the fluttering in her stomach kicking up every time she recalled that breathless moment when Will’s lips first touched hers. Eventually, small snippets of their conversation sifted through her mind but she couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing for very long. It didn’t bother her though. She didn’t want to deliberate over all the things they’d talked about, at least not yet.

  Tonight, the only thing she wanted to do was bask in the knowledge that the feelings Will had for her went beyond friendship. Was he in love with her? Serena smiled to herself. He must love her, why else would he have kept in touch with Rose all these years and contrived with her aunt to move into the house with her? She didn’t have to dissect her own feelings to know she was falling in love with him too. It was a scary thing, but it was a good kind of scary, like taking that first plunge on the tallest roller coaster in the world.

  ***

  Will was in trouble. Big trouble. He stood under the shower, letting the cold water sluice over his decidedly heated skin. He’d known kissing Serena would bring his emotions to the surface, emotions he had carefully guarded for years and even more so since he’d moved in with her. He’d been prepared for it, or at least he thought he was, but the instant he felt the warmth of her lips…savored their sweetness, the quiet love he’d held inside for Serena had been unleashed in full force. And along with it had come desire. It was a potent combination, and he was having a great deal of difficulty regaining control.

  How the hell was he supposed to rein it in now? How could he be anywhere near Serena without pulling her into his arms and kissing her? He wanted to make love to her, to erase whatever traces of memory still existed about that night. But he couldn’t do it. Even if Serena was ready for the intimacy of sex, which she certainly wasn’t, Will knew he couldn’t take their relationship any further until he told her everything. She would forgive him and they would work through it together, he had to believe that.

  Long after he’d tumbled into bed, Will’s restless mind kept him from falling asleep. It was a relief to have talked to Serena about finding her that night, but there was so much more to the story and he was afraid of her reaction once she heard the rest of it. No matter what happened tomorrow, he was determined to make her see they belonged together and had something real and solid to build upon. They’d overcome a major hurdle tonight when Serena admitted she wanted him to kiss her, and he’d been ecstatic when she hadn’t shied away from him. Yes, there were more hurdles to get past, more than he cared to think about right now, but Serena was everything to him and he was not going to lose her.

  Of course, even he couldn’t fill in some of the blank spots about that night, but he suspected McKinley could. He’d cornered her at the hospital and tried to question her but she was too upset to give him anything except a few incoherent answers. Will had no doubt she was distraught about what happened, but he’d also gotten the impression she was overdoing it to keep anyone from delving too deeply. He made several more attempts to speak to her during the remainder of the school year, but somehow she always managed to avoid being alone with him. Considering how often she’d contrived to lure him into the nearest dark corner before, Will found her behavior extremely odd.

  He wasn’t sure what McKinley was hiding, but he’d bet his life it was something she knew would be exposed if Serena ever regained her memory. That's why she wanted him out of house. But whatever leverage McKinley thought she had would be lost after his talk with Serena tomorrow night, which was sure to make her mad as a hornet. Oh, she would still
try to discredit him to Serena, but she would be sneaky about it and catch Serena when she was all alone. Somehow she would manage to bring up that kiss in the woods again and probably drive the stake in deeper by pointing out it had happened at the same time Serena was being attacked.

  Will let out a grunt of disgust. How could he have been so stupid as to fall for one of McKinley’s tricks? Instinct had warned him not to follow her into the woods. But when she insisted it was a private gathering that included her brothers and her boyfriend, Rick, he’d felt obligated to go. Will had followed her reluctantly. He was concerned about Serena wandering around alone with so many of the other kids drinking and getting overly boisterous. That’s when he’d asked if Serena was with Anthony and Sawyer.

  “She’s coming with a group of her track friends,” McKinley informed him, “but she said they were going to grab a bite to eat first so she won’t be here for at least another hour.”

  He was disappointed but refrained from saying anything. Even so, McKinley must have picked up on it because she stopped walking and panned the flashlight across his face.

  “Don’t tell me you’re interested in that little plain Jane,” she laughed. “Good lord, Will, she won’t even be fifteen for two more days. Even if she was old enough to date, she’s so pitifully dull you would slip into a coma before the evening was over.”

  The smartest thing Will could have done was to keep his mouth shut and not jump to Serena’s defense, but of course he didn’t. “Serena is not dull. She’s just a little shy, but it’s no wonder when she has a sister who demands all the attention for herself.”

  “Shame on you, Will,” she said with a coy smile. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me jealous of my own sister so I’ll admit I want you for myself.”

  “What? Have you lost your…”

  “It’s ridiculous to even think I could be jealous of Serena, but I’m flattered that you made the effort.” She slipped her arms around his neck, plastering herself along the length of his body. “I would throw Rick Porter over for you in a New York minute if I thought you wanted me. We would be so good together, Will,” she cooed. “We could even slip away right now…find a nice quiet place where we could be alone and get to know one another a little more…intimately.”

  “McKinley, I don’t think…”

  That’s when she’d kissed him. He’d never had any desire to kiss McKinley, but he wasn’t entirely immune to the eagerness of her lips or the way her tongue swirled around his. The less than subtle pressure of her hips against his thighs proved she was more than willing to follow through with her suggestion to get know each other more intimately, but for all her efforts to entice him, Will wasn’t even tempted. He could have ticked off the names of at least half a dozen guys she had slept with, and though he idly wondered if she was as good as they said she was, his budding emotions for Serena would have kept him from having sex with McKinley even if his self-respect had not.

  Rick Porter was another good reason he shouldn’t have allowed the kiss happen, or go on as long as it did. He’d been friends with Rick since grade school and they were both on the football team, but none of that would make any difference if Rick found out. Kissing someone else’s girl was bad enough, but it was doubly contemptible to betray a friend. At the time, Will believed it was just a stroke of bad luck when Rick chose that particular moment to come trampling through the woods with a few other couples. Now he realized Rick hadn’t accidentally stumbled across them; McKinley had arranged for him to meet her there.

  Rick was livid, and he had every right to be. “What the hell is going on here?”

  McKinley made a small sound of protest when Will griped her arms and pried her off of him, but not two seconds later she was cozying up to Rick. She tried to laugh it off, insisting that Will was like family and had only been giving her a brotherly kiss, but Rick wasn’t buying it. Even in the dim light afforded by the small flashlight McKinley was holding, he could see the glaring accusation in Rick’s eyes. Obviously he felt Will was to blame so it would have been useless to point out that McKinley had instigated the kiss.

  “Come on, Rick,” McKinley was all wide-eyed innocence, “it was one harmless little kiss. Honestly, it didn’t mean a thing, did it, Will?”

  “No, it didn’t,” he replied, and meant it. “It was a mistake…”

  “You got that right, Duncan,” Rick growled. “What the hell is your problem anyway? You don’t have enough girls panting after you so you have to go after mine?”

  “Hardly. Look, I’m not interested in McKinley so let’s just chalk this whole thing up to really poor judgment on my part and call it square, okay?”

  McKinley instantly bristled. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here. And don’t tell me you weren’t interested. You seemed pretty damn interested when your tongue was halfway down my throat and your hands were all over my ass.”

  Rick clenched his fists but to Will’s surprise, his anger was directed at McKinley. “You let him do that to you?”

  “No, I didn’t let him,” she lied through her pearly white teeth. “I was just so shocked he would kiss me like that, it took me a minute to recover.”

  Will had only been mildly irritated by the situation she’d put him in up until then, but his temper flared at such a bold face lie. Admittedly, he could have put a halt to the kiss as soon as it happened, so he wasn’t completely blameless. By the same token, if McKinley hadn’t contrived to get him out there alone, he would have been hanging around with Anthony and Sawyer and enjoying himself at that moment instead of defending himself to an irate boyfriend.

  Rick’s narrowed eyes turned to Will, his voice shaking with anger. “Are you saying Duncan forced you?”

  “I didn’t force her to do anything,” Will denied heatedly.

  “No, I…I wouldn’t exactly call it that either,” McKinley said in a convincingly tremulous voice.

  Will snorted in disgust. Just what the hell was she playing at? “Oh, for God’s sake, stop acting like the innocent victim. The minute I mentioned Serena’s name, you were all over me.”

  McKinley’s face twisted into an unattractive scowl, but Rick interjected before she could come back with another ridiculous insinuation.

  “Serena? What does she…ah, I get it now,” he said with a derisive smile. “Little sister is off limits so you go after McKinley.”

  “That will be the day,” McKinley’s scowl deepened. “Serena couldn’t compete with me in her wildest dreams.”

  “Well, she must have something Duncan wants,” Rick shot back. “Obviously he prefers the shy, virginal type or he would have his eyes on you all of the time instead of your sister.”

  Will couldn’t believe he was still standing there listening to such ludicrous accusations. “You are so far off the mark it’s not even worth arguing about.”

  A malicious smirk tipped one corner of Rick’s mouth. “If that’s true then it shouldn’t bother you to know I saw Serena slip into one of the make-out caves with my brother, Randy, and a few of his friends. Tough luck, Duncan. Looks like someone else will be giving your girlfriend a bit of hands on instructions in making out tonight.”

  Rick and his buddies laughed as Will stomped off, although he’d heard McKinley harping at them for doing so. He was fuming because of the lies that had flowed so easily from her lips and the uncomfortable situation she’d put him in. He was also embarrassed to discover that Rick had noticed how he watched Serena because it undoubtedly meant all their friends knew too, including Anthony and Sawyer. They probably thought he was some kind of cradle robber who preyed on young, innocent girls, and that didn’t sit too well with him. But even worse than the anger and embarrassment was the unexpected jealousy that sliced through him when Rick told him about Serena and Randy.

  He tried to shrug it off. So she was making out with a boy her own age, there was nothing wrong with that. He’d been making out with girls since he was twelve years old and certainly hadn’t wonder
ed if any of his partners were too young to be French kissing or getting their bodies felt up by his roving hands. It shouldn’t have bothered him that Serena was doing the same thing half of the other girls there were doing tonight. Except it did; it bothered him a lot.

  It was unreasonable to be jealous, and beyond unreasonable to feel as if Serena had somehow betrayed him. Maybe it was because he’d always felt there was a silent agreement between them; a secret attraction she was too shy to act upon and he was too honorable to pursue until she was a little older. Now he realized it was all in his mind, and that made him feel foolish, which in turn stoked his simmering anger.

  He started to wonder if he had been wrong about Serena, and if maybe she was more like McKinley than he thought. After all, he’d never seen her hanging around with Randy Porter or any of his friends before so she couldn’t possibly know him very well. At least not well enough to duck into one of those caves and make out with him. As he emerged from the woods, Will had only one thing on his mind; finding the first available female to cuddle up with so he could drive the image of Serena kissing Randy out of his head.