by Olivia Lynde
He touches his finger to the bow of my lower lip and moves it slowly in a sensual slide. Sweet mercy, I wish he would stop! He's driving me crazy, fraying the fetters of my control! My heart is slamming against my ribs like a sledgehammer, and my skin feels too hot.
My lips part and his blue eyes flash with enigmatic purpose, lids dropping to half-mast. Suddenly his head is lowering towards me, and the feverish excitement inside me spreads and surges out of bonds. Overcome, I look up into Seth's eyes, and then his lips are close, so close to mine, and for a moment the world stops breathing.
Chapter 10
"Have you finished cleaning my lip?" I rasp out, fighting free from the heated trance.
Seth raises his head with a slight frown and—oh God, thank you!—he stops touching my mouth, and just in time: I was about to spontaneously combust.
He checks my cheek below the frozen bag before answering me. "Yes. The cut's not very deep, so it'll heal in a couple of days. And the swelling in your cheek has already gone down." Then, putting the bag aside: "I want to look at your middle to make sure you're not hurt badly. Raise your hands?"
I obediently lift my hands, and in the next moment my gigantic hoodie is drawn over my head and summarily thrown aside. I'm left in a black, tattered T-shirt. Abruptly panicked, I glance down to check that my heart necklace isn't visible—and it's not; thank goodness I always wear it directly on my skin! And the neckline is high enough that it hides the chain. I don't want Seth to know that I've never taken his necklace off even after all these years; it'd make me look pathetic.
I surface from my panic to the realization that Seth has been quiet for too long. Curious, I gaze up at him and see his eyes flaring oddly, focused on my upper body.
Oh, lordy! The T-shirt I'm wearing was bought when I was fourteen, before my body went through its big change, and even then it was pretty snug. Now, it molds all my curves like a second skin and looks as if it's about to burst in the chest area. If I had thought there was even the slightest chance that I'd be removing my hoodie in company, I would never have made such a poor choice in my T-shirt.
Not that I have a lot of options regarding what to wear. All my clothes are old and scruffy. Greg told Louise to take me shopping, but of course she didn't. I could maybe buy some clothes myself since I have a little nest egg from my previous part-time jobs, but I hate spending my hard-earned money on ill-fitting clothes. So I make do with what I already own.
Seth has surfaced from his peculiar fixation, though his eyes are still glowing a bit too brightly, and he's leaning over me. "I'll raise your T-shirt a bit, okay?"
I nod, and his hands go to my waist and draw my T-shirt up slightly, then his hands touch the bare skin of my stomach. I draw in a sharp breath.
"Tell me if it hurts."
I nod again, and now his hands are gently pressing over my waist, then higher, over my ribs. His skin tone is darker than mine and the contrast of his bronze skin against my paleness fascinates me. His hands are so big they span my entire ribcage.
"Ouch!" I complain at one point when he presses over a tender spot.
Seth carefully draws my T-shirt back down. "We're lucky; you have no cracked ribs, just bruised abdominal muscles." He looks straight at me, his gaze a burning blue. "You'll be perfect again in a couple of days."
I can't stop a blush. Heavens, I have it bad!
To distract myself, I tease, "Since when did you become such an expert in cracked ribs and—" I break off, horrified at my thoughtlessness. I bite my inner cheek, hard. "I'm so sorry, Seth."
He gives me a wry look. "It's all right."
Our eyes stay locked for a minute longer. Then he cups my unhurt cheek in his palm and leans close again as he softly asks, "Tell me why you look so wan and tired all the time."
At the quietly spoken words, I close my eyes in defeat and the crushing weight of my exhaustion, somehow kept at bay until now by my distraction with Seth, overwhelms me all at once. Our bodies are touching everywhere—my legs on his lap, one of his hands at my waist, the other on my cheek, his upper body almost on top of mine—and I steal one last moment when I allow myself to simply relish the feeling of being surrounded by his comforting warmth.
Then the moment ends, and meeting his gaze again, I admit, "I haven't been sleeping very well."
I don't know why he reacts like this—but he draws back almost on a jolt, and his face reveals an odd mix of worry and confusion.
"But your trouble sleeping isn't because of the old nightmares," he says confidently. "You stopped having those long ago."
I did? Why would he believe that? And moreover, sound so utterly certain of it? He of all people should know better.
My mind flashes back to when it all began.
I started having the night terrors immediately after I lost my parents—every single night without fail. And so it was for more than six months. Then I was fostered to Mrs. Lewis and started to sleep in Seth's bed, in his arms. And the terrors disappeared. For a while, both Seth and I thought that they were gone forever.
But then before I started first grade, Seth and I enrolled in a week-long summer camp on the coast. The day before we were due to leave, I was diagnosed with chicken pox and ordered by the doctor to stay in. Seth didn't want to leave for the camp without me, but both Grandma and I insisted that he go. Obviously, I loathed the very idea of our separation, but he had been very excited about the camp (unlike me, who only agreed to go because of him), so I couldn't bear for Seth to make the sacrifice.
I convinced him to go by himself.
After he left, the very first night I slept alone again, my night terrors returned with a vengeance. And then they came back the next night, and the next. By the end of the week I was wan with exhaustion, my eyes puffy and rimmed with dark circles, and Grandma was sick with worry.
When Seth set eyes on me on his return from camp, he became nearly as ashen as I was. He knew instantly what had happened and practically flew to me and clasped me in such a fierce embrace that I could almost hear my bones cracking. He kept saying, "Forgive me, Sunny" and "I'll never leave you again".
And he never did leave me again of his own free will.
Until five years ago.
Back in the present, I bite my lip and glance away from Seth. "I do have nightmares." Then, in an effort to sound less pitiful, I add, "Sometimes," and hope that he won't hear the lie. There's no "sometimes" about my nightmares, only incessant recurrence.
His deep blue eyes regard me with greater sharpness while his expression wars between doubt and something almost like... dread. Neither of which makes any sense to me.
I don't understand whatever internal battle he's obviously waging, and I can't read him in his weirdly subdued mood. My shoulders slump in defeat just as another debilitating wave of tiredness breaks over me and makes me lightheaded for a moment.
Suddenly his strong hand molds around my shoulder as if to lend support, and this time when I look up, his face is soft with sympathy and tenderness. My old Seth again.
As if from far away, I hear: "You want to stay and sleep with me tonight?"
My eyes widen comically, my mouth parts on a gasp, and my already agitated heart goes into overdrive.
Yet as I look into his eyes, contentment seeps inexorably into me.
I know he now has a terrible reputation as a player, but he doesn't mean have sex with him—I see it clearly in his troubled gaze. He's anxious on my behalf. He's offering to let me sleep with him, like when we were children.
He's offering me the keys to the gates of heaven.
I give him the only possible answer. "Yes."
And he smiles at me—a full, honest-to-God smile, familiar to me from when we were children but the first he's given me since I returned to Rockford—and I can't help myself: I smile back at him so big that my cut lip and battered cheek hurt, but I don't care. I'm drunk on the smile he's giving me.
I've watched him these past few weeks, with his friends and the girls w
ho keep chasing after him. He rarely laughs, and when he does, it's restrained. When he smiles, it's always half-mocking, half-cynical, and full-on superficial.
But his smile just now—his special smile for me alone—holds nothing back.
"I'll call the Andersons at once," I murmur.
"All right. In the meantime, I'll go make us some dinner." With apparent reluctance, he disentangles himself from me and heads into the kitchen.
I raise myself into a sitting position on the couch and extract my trusty cell phone from my pocket. I tuck my legs under me and take a moment to consider. Whom to call, Greg or Louise? Who's more likely to give me the least trouble?
I dial Louise's cell. She won't care if I spend the night outside her house.
"Yes?" Her languid accent sounds in my ear.
"Hello, Louise. It's Summer."
"Yes?" She sounds totally indifferent. Perfect.
"I'm calling to tell you that I won't be in for dinner. I'm with a friend, we're working on a school project, and I'm staying overnight at her place. I hope that's all right with you?" I cross my fingers.
"A school project. Indeed." Her voice resonates with sarcasm. "Of course it's fine with me, sweetie. Have a nice sleepover!" She laughs.
"Then—" I hear a ping signaling that she hung up. Well, that was interesting.
Seth returns soon after with a giant plate stacked with lots of sandwiches. He sits beside me with the plate on his lap, not leaving a single millimeter of distance between us, and casually puts his left arm around my shoulders, tugging me into him. My heart skips a beat. Or two.
With his right hand, he helps himself to a sandwich. "How was your phone call?"
I love the weight of his arm around me. I subtly press myself closer to him and notice with satisfaction that I fit perfectly in the space below his arm. I reach for a sandwich and start to munch on it.
"It went fine. I called Louise and told her I was working with a friend on a school project, then staying to sleep at her house. She didn't believe a word I said; judging by her tone, she thought I was staying out to have sex with a random stranger in the park." Really, I'm so peeved at her narrow-mindedness! "Anyway, she didn't care. She laughed and told me to have a nice sleepover.
"Wow, this sandwich is good! I had no idea I was so hungry." I take a bigger bite out of the sandwich.
But then, alerted by Seth's unnatural stillness, I look up at him. He's staring at me, not eating anymore, and he's angry.
"She thought you were staying out to have sex with some random guy, and all she had to say was have a nice time?" His voice is that scary kind of precise which means he's not just angry but fuming mad. "What kind of foster parent is she? You're a sixteen-year-old, beautiful girl entrusted to her care—and that's how much interest she takes in your well-being?"
Beautiful?
I give a light shrug. "She's not the worst foster I've ever had." Then, when I realize by the unholy light in his eyes that I've made matters worse, I add quickly, "It's fine. This actually works to our advantage, right? If she had said I couldn't sleep elsewhere, that would've been bad, right? Right?" I use my most convincing tone, and some of the tension seeps out of him.
"Come on, Seth, let's eat! These sandwiches are good. You've turned into quite the master cook for someone who, five years ago, used to burn even water." I nudge him teasingly with my shoulder and smile at him, then take another bite out of my sandwich.
His expression wavers between irritation at Louise's callousness and amusement at my distracting tactics. Amusement wins. He looks up in a "heaven help me" gesture and returns to his food.
In retrospect, I can't believe my appetite: I managed to eat two of those huge sandwiches! I haven't felt so full in a long time.
Seth finished all the other sandwiches, though, numbering at least seven. At my slightly horrified expression, he laughed and told me he was a growing boy, so he had to eat a lot. Growing boy, my butt! He's a 6'3'' giant! Still, he's an athlete and has a lot of muscle mass to maintain—gosh, does he ever!—so I guess I understand from where he's coming.
I'm in the bathroom now, standing in front of the mirror. God, I look a mess! Huge dark eyes sunken with exhaustion, pale cheeks except for a small red area on the right side, where Josh hit me. Cheekbones that cut too sharp and lips that look too full for my face after the couple of pounds I lost.
Also, the contrast between my skin-tight T-shirt clinging to my upper body and my baggy pants bunched around my waist is hilarious. And not in a good way.
I open the door a crack and call out, "Seth, do you have an extra toothbrush I can use?"
Silence, then I hear: "You can use mine if you don't mind."
It seems such an intimate act, to share his toothbrush. Behind the door, I smile hugely. "I don't mind. Thanks!"
After brushing my teeth, then washing and drying my face, I free what hair is still caught in my bun and leave it flowing down my back. When I head back into the living room, Seth's eyes fly to my hair in seeming fascination.
"I had no idea your hair was so long."
I shrug. "You couldn't have known. I usually wear it up."
"Yes, I noticed the bun." He grimaces. I grin.
Seth comes closer, reaches for my hair... "May I?"
I nod faintly, then hold my breath.
He catches a few strands of my hair, curls them around his fingers. "Your hair's darkened quite a bit. I remember the first time I ever saw you it was platinum blond. Five years ago it was ash blond, and now it's this warm honey blond color."
I shiver at his nearness, at the sensual way he's touching my hair. "It's been like this for at least three years now. I don't think it'll change anymore." Heart in my throat, I ask, "Which way did you like it best?"
He looks me straight in the eye. "I like it all ways. It's still you." And on that leveling admission, he lets go of my hair strands and goes into the bathroom.
Bereft of his energizing presence, I realize that I can barely stand upright. Dragging my feet with utter exhaustion, I go and lay down on the couch. I roll my body into a small ball, close my eyes, and think back on my day.
I've had such a horrifying experience earlier, yet since the moment Seth took me away from school, I've been so focused on him that I haven't thought even once of Josh. Seth has managed, in just a couple of hours—by taking care of me, talking to me, and smiling at me—to give me complete peace of mind. That's how much power he has over me, over my feelings. And his gentle touch has erased the memory of the scumbag's violence.
I owe Seth so much.
I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't come for me today; I don't even want to think about what could've happened. Even if he had saved me from the attack but then left me to deal alone with its aftermath, I'd probably be a traumatized mess right now.
Instead here I am: content and relaxed, basking in the light of Seth's attention. My body tingling all over whenever he's looking at me or touching me—so in other words, all the time! My lips curl in a small grin, then dip down again.
Of course, the wounds he inflicted on me five years ago pulse just below the fragile surface of my current contentment. But I don't want to think about them now; I don't want to let the past ruin this perfect evening. Who knows, maybe it'll be the last one I'll ever have with Seth, so I won't sacrifice it, not for any price. Not on account of my old hurts.
I know I'll eventually have to find the courage to have it out with him, ask him why he didn't contact me after I left town, why he stopped being my friend. But not now.
"Sunny?" He's suddenly whispering near my ear, brushing his nose over my hair.
When did he get back? I didn't hear him. I keep my eyes closed; I'm too lethargic to make the effort of opening them. "Hmm?"
"You want to go to bed now?"
"Isn't it too early?" I mumble a bit incoherently, and he chuckles into my hair.
"Yes, it's still early—only about 08:30 P.M.—but it doesn't matter. You look about read
y to crash. Come on, lazy pants!"
He picks me up carefully, and I barely have the energy to circle my hands behind his neck. I love it when he's carrying me; he makes it seem so effortless, as if my weight was insignificant.
"Aren't I too heavy?"
He laughs. "I could lift three of you without breaking a sweat, moppet."
"I'm not little!" I protest, my eyes flying open in indignation.
He gives me an incredulous stare but wisely decides not to contradict me—I always knew he was a smart guy. But still, he's a guy and thus constitutionally incapable of completely forfeiting a battle, it seems.
So, "You are little compared to me," he points out slyly, and though I'd dearly like to contradict him some more, I don't this time; he's too obviously right.
Next thing I know, I'm landing on a soft bed.
"Now let's get you comfortable." He casually starts to unbutton my pants, and lightning-quick, my right hand flies to press over the fastening, trapping his fingers. Our gazes collide in a tempest of exploding emotion, and his face is suddenly so pale and still it seems hewn out of marble. His eyes burn with anxiety and remorse.
Oh God, I realize on a flash of understanding, he thinks I stopped him because I'm afraid; because I'm remembering Josh! But I would never in a million years confuse Seth's touch with that scumbag's, and I could never, ever be afraid of Seth physically hurting me.
I'm not frightened because Seth is helping me take my pants off—or because of any other reason! What I actually am, all of a sudden, is nervous and hesitant: because being with Seth feels so different now, and we haven't shared the same bed in over five years, and we're not children anymore. And—I can't believe I'm even thinking this!—but I'm wearing plain cotton panties and I wish that they were sexy lace panties instead, the only kind that Seth is probably used to seeing on girls.