“I’ve never had a bath with a woman, but I think about it now when I should be out being young and stupid with Katrina or Rachel or any number of women I don’t have to care about. I should be taking advantage of what little time I have left! You did this to me!”
My mouth fell open. “Are you having a stroke or something? If you’re trying to say something to me, just say it. Don’t pick a fight with me so you don’t have to grow up.”
He cleared his throat, recalling the trail of his argument. “When you were gone with Finn… Finn!” he accused, his temper flaring. “When you were gone with Finn, nights were the worst. I’m not a full vampire. I still sleep! And I had to sleep without you. I hate that I’m getting to the point where I need you, that I need us.” He turned back to the bag of groceries that was only halfway unpacked. “The look on your face when Katrina was on my lap? I saw the same thing there. That somehow we already belonged to each other, that you’re bloody Mrs. Brady, and I’m reading the paper at the table, watching you be sexy in a housedress while our six kids play and dream up mischief! I can’t give you that, but that’s exactly where we are!”
I held up my hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Whoa. Maybe you need some of my meds. That’s what made you be so mean?”
“Obviously!”
“You realize you made all that up in your own head, right?”
Von looked over his shoulder and glowered at me. “I saw your face. You can’t deny that.”
“Okay, yes. I’ll own up to my face. I wasn’t expecting you to jump back in with Katrina so quickly.”
“You looked like I’d just shot your puppy! I don’t want that on my conscience. I’m not going to stay me forever. I have to enjoy life while I can still call it mine. I can sleep with whoever I want!”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Who’s stopping you?”
“You are!” Von shouted. “With your looks and your face that keeps asking me why I’m not at the party with you instead of Katrina. Every time I give you just a little nip of a kiss, my whole body’s screaming for more. You’re a dangerous one, and you know it. You know exactly what you do to me, and you just keep doing it!”
“Doing what?”
He waved his hand toward my form, as if he was afraid to look directly at my body. “Being all sexy and still innocent. You know you’re driving me mad! Stop drawing me in. I can sleep with Katrina or whoever I want!”
“You’re cracked. Totally gone. You can go off with Katrina or any other of my friends. What’s it to you if it makes me unhappy? I’ll get over it, which is why I didn’t say anything to you about it. You didn’t have to be so mean to me. I know you’re not really Mr. Brady.” I don’t know why my voice sounded so sad on that last note. We both knew we were just friends. I wanted a Mr. Brady who was passionate about me, who loved my scars and didn’t throw me under the bus when he had an insecure moment. Von wasn’t that guy. I wanted him to be, but he just plain wasn’t.
“Yeah? Well, apparently I don’t know that I’m not Mr. Brady!” His eyes were wild as he dipped his hand into a grocery bag and pulled out a curvy vase wrapped in tissue paper. “I don’t buy rubbish like this! But I know you deserve flowers in a real vase, not a beer stein. I’m at the store, stocking your fridge with things I know you like – almond milk instead of regular milk, whole wheat bread that’s got so many seeds and nuts, there’s hardly any bread to it – and I just put this into my cart. I put it into my cart! You know who does cracked things like that? Married men! Mr. Brady, that’s who!”
I didn’t care what kind of meltdown he was having. I arrested the vase from his hands before he dropped it by talking too animatedly. “You bought me a vase?” I took the tissue paper off and saw it was clear glass with a row of teal circles lining the bottom. It had a feminine, curvy shape to it, and I couldn’t stop staring as I turned it over in my hands. Without a word, I filled it with water and set it on the table, transferring my beautiful pink carnations from the stein to the vase in the middle of the round cream-topped kitchen table.
The whole room was transformed. I wasn’t a kid in a grownup’s house. I was a woman in her home. I turned the flowers and played with the petals, shifting them so there were no bald spots in the bouquet. “So pretty.”
Von’s voice was softer this time. “See? And I knew you would like it. There was a pink vase at the store, but I knew you’d do that face!” He pointed at my grimace.
“You bought me a vase,” I repeated, finally meeting his gaze. “Thank you. It’s so beautiful.”
After a few beats, he broke eye contact, his palm rubbing his forehead as he looked down at his feet. “I’m so sorry about last night. I was trying to push you away by bringing Katrina into your bedroom. I didn’t mean to ruin your carpet. I got the stain out by the way, but I completely broke your world last night. I shouldn’t have done that. Everyone takes away from you. I shouldn’t have been that guy.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper. “Why were you that guy?”
“I was afraid you were getting confused, but it was me. I got confused. I forgot that you’re my best friend, and I treated you dreadfully. I’m utterly sick about it.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t want to hold a grudge, but shrugging it all off seemed insincere. So I went with a nod, which as it turns out, was on the furthest reach of all I was capable of saying.
“How are you feeling?” Von asked. Before I could open my mouth to answer, he spouted, “And don’t say ‘I’m fine.’ I truly can’t take that rubbish today.”
“Well, you took my answer, so now I have to actually think about it.”
Von glowered at me. “That’s the whole point of me asking in the first place.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, now that my tried and true response had been taken from me. Ever since I’d come into the living room, I’d felt someone watching me. Some odd presence I didn’t know how to equivocate. I did my best to ignore the feeling that I was crazier than even medication could fix.
I fiddled with the carnations, pulling a few up an inch so the whole thing stood taller. “The medication messes me up, so I sorta feel like I’m outside of my skin, but it’ll wear off. I’m sorry for scaring you. I didn’t mean to let you see that. My room’s important to me. Probably more important than it should be. It’s stupid for me to love something that much.”
“No, it was stupid of me to wreck something you love that much.”
I shrugged in response.
When Von didn’t get a fight from me, he pushed on with all that had been brewing in his mind. “You went through a lot to get that room. I knew you didn’t like food or drinks in there, so I did it to make you mad. I didn’t know… But I should’ve. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I care about you, Peach. I understand you enough to know how to push your buttons. That’s all I meant to do – to push your buttons in hopes I’d push you away, not push you clear over the edge. I want you to find someone who can actually stay human long enough to give you a good life. With everything in me, I want to be Mr. Brady for you, but I don’t have that option. I’m temporary.”
I looked up at him, my voice thick with emotion that threatened to make itself known. “You called me ‘Peach’.”
Von’s hands jammed into the pockets of his worn jeans. “I always call you ‘Peach’.”
“No, you called me ‘October’ today, and you called Katrina ‘Peach’.”
“You know I only did that to push you away.”
“Well done. Worked like a charm. Broke my heart a little bit,” I admitted quietly.
“I didn’t want that.”
“Yes, you did. I liked when you called me cute names, but it’s ruined now. We’re ruined.”
“If ‘Peach’ is tarnished, let me think up a new nickname.” A hint of the smile I loved toyed with the corners of Von’s mouth, making him look handsome instead of haunted. “What if I started calling you sweet-ums?”
“I wouldn’t answer.”
“How about love muffin?”
“I’d think you were hungry. I wouldn’t even know you were talking about me.”
“What about honey lips?”
“What about shut up?” I countered, my face breaking into the sliver of a smile I’d needed. We stared at each other for a long minute before my smile fell into disrepair. “None of it matters. If you wanted to put distance between us, just spill something on my carpet. Apparently I’ll go insane, and any confusion will be cleared right up. Katrina never looked more appealing than when compared against this cold mess.” I’d meant to play it off as a joke to make light of the situation, but the truth of it all hit me over the head harder than I was ready for. “She’s the peach now. I’ve got to… See you in there,” I said as I made to leave the kitchen for the living room. I wanted to lose myself in a good screamfest where the problems were simple. “Who’s going to cut my arm off with a chainsaw?” is a far sight smaller problem than the too many issues Von and I had stacking up between us.
Bruce Campbell can fix this. Bruce Campbell can fix anything.
Von caught my arm as I passed him. He pulled me closer and moved his hands to my hips, surprising me when he lifted me up to sit on the counter so we were eye to eye. Only I couldn’t look at him. I could barely look at myself.
Von tapped his finger under my chin until I had no choice but to soak in the concern on his face. “There’s no comparison. You know I’m madly in love with you. You’re always my peach, soft and sweet. I should never have called her that.”
My words choked out of me in a whisper that made my eyes fog over. “You hurt me on purpose. Your love hurt me. It wasn’t supposed to do that.”
Von tangled our fingers together, holding them between us as he leaned his forehead to mine. “Don’t let me push you away,” he begged in a whisper so quiet, I had to press my cheek to his so I could hear him. “It’s you. It’s only ever been you. Give me time to get there.”
I hesitated, and then nodded, knowing that he would have to be far more patient with me in the long run. My issues ran deep, and I knew that even though he’d been childish, Von was worth being patient for. He smelled like mint with a hint of cologne and cigars.
“You’re wearing cologne,” I observed quietly. “That’s new. It smells nice.”
Von swallowed hard, meeting my eyes with an uncharacteristic note of insecurity. “I thought it was the Mr. Brady thing to do. You’re the kind of woman who should be with a man who wears cologne.”
“I am?” I brushed my nose to the side of his neck to inhale the scent I’d been worried I’d have to live off the memory of. The smell of Von’s skin was there beneath the faintly sweet note of his cologne, and the mixture was utterly bewitching.
“You’re confusing me again,” he admitted. His eyes closed as he tilted his chin back, inviting me to be a perfect glutton and smell him as much as I wanted. His arms snaked around my hips, my legs parting as he drew us closer. He was standing in my body space, taking up residence in a place I didn’t allow trespassers. He looped my legs around his waist. “I need you, Peach.” His eyes closed, his eyebrows knitted together as if being so close to me was physically painful.
I knew the feeling well.
His words came out a pained whisper. “Don’t let me do this. Don’t let me kiss you.”
My eyes widened, taking in his desperation with confusion. “Von?”
He reached up and thumbed my lower lip, studying it with a longing that drove a man to do dangerous things. “Don’t let me wreck us.”
Von’s perfect lips were soft, insistent and everything I hadn’t been expecting in that moment when they closed the breath of a gap between us and caressed mine. I squeaked my surprise and then lost myself in the kiss that took my senses and set them on hyper drive.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood as the colors in the room began to melt like dripping candles. The pink of the carnations blurred into a brush of paint across my closed eyelids as my lips parted to finally let Von in.
38
First Kiss, Wedding and Honeymoon
It was stupid, and I knew it from the first time I’d labeled my feelings for Von as a crush. He would crush me with his roguish smile and blasé attitude about relationships. He would steal my heart, step on it and then somehow get me to apologize.
I tried to hold onto the kitchen as the room started tilting at Von’s sensual gasp into my mouth. He had one arm around me, pressing me tight to him, and the other cupping the underside of my thigh that was hooked around his hip.
“Oh, what is this?” he groaned.
I tugged on his hair, anchoring myself to him as my house started lifting into the air. We were spinning at odd angles, tilting and shifting through space as our kiss grew frantic, our tongues tangling and our teeth nipping while we lost our hold on reality. That familiar carbonation feeling toppled over me, starting from my lips and working its way down to my toes. Part of me was afraid I might give Von a heart attack when his head pulled back to let out a quiet bleat of distress, as Finn had done before he collapsed, but like a magnet, Von’s lips found mine again. The carbonation faded, but the kiss did not.
Though my eyes were closed, I could see us. I could see myself kissing Von, wrapped around him like he was a stripper pole between my eager thighs. I glanced down and realized I wasn’t wearing my pajamas anymore. The kitchen blurred with brushes of blue and glittery gold, and suddenly I was wearing a white dress with too many layers of decadence. There were folds of satin with pearls sewn into the stitching. It was strapless, but when Von caressed my shoulder, I could still feel the material of my regular shirt I was wearing in real life.
My hair was stunning in my vision, no doubt fixed up by someone who actually knew how hair should be pinned on the most special day of your life. My naked leg that wrapped around him revealed that I was barefoot. Beneath his tux that was half on him and half off, he was barefoot too. His hair was a mess of black spikes that I would never dream of taming. I didn’t want to tame Von. I wanted him to be young and bold. I just didn’t want him to hurt me in the process.
“So beautiful,” he murmured as he gripped my back, pressing into me so we could get our fill of each other. Only we both knew we’d never be full. There would always be that desire for more that would turn into a desperate need if we were parted for too long.
Streaks of blue were paired with the glitter of gold as Von kissed me. I heard bells – chiming, tinkling bells, each one adding to the magic that felt blessed by fairies or garden gnomes or whatever else Terraway had up its sleeve.
I saw too many things while we made out on my counter. I saw us in bed, my white dress a pile of expensive material on the floor next to his tux. I gazed up at him as he caged me in with his toned body, his expectant and modestly diffident smirk shining down on me. He warmed my cold spots and made me soft and pliable where I’d been unyielding. I saw him in all of his glory and captured his lips again, relishing his intense moans that tasted like gold. I’d never tasted gold before, but in bed in that moment, I knew gold had the flavor of Von to it. We tangled in the sheets, eventually kicking them off to add to the growing pile of discarded material on the floor.
Von had been eager, but then he was hesitant, silently asking if I was ready. If he could be my first, and if I would please, please be his last. “Please?” I heard him whisper, and I couldn’t tell if he was speaking in my vision, or if we were in the kitchen.
“Please,” I answered, accepting everything he was, and all the things he was not. I welcomed everything he gave me, shouting to the ceiling when I couldn’t bite my lip through the ecstasy any longer.
39
It Meant Nothing
Von’s lips left mine in a blur, and seconds later, the house stopped rotating and planted itself firmly on the grass on Lenoy Avenue. I was panting as I came down from… whatever that was. Von ripped himself away, lust flaring in his eyes as he looked at me like I had three heads.
&
nbsp; “What the crap was that?! Why… Huh?” I asked as I came out of my haze. My hand found my forehead as the room made one final tilt.
Von was in similar disarray, his shirt pulled up at the edge, his hair sticking out more stubbornly than usual, and his lips slightly swollen with the best kiss of my life. I was grateful we both had clothes on. We stared at each other as shock gave way to revelation. If I was seeing visions when we kissed, that would mean I was… that I was in love with Von. “I didn’t see anything!” we both shouted in unison.
Von backed toward the door with the same look of chilling fear that painted my face as I hopped down from the counter. My legs weren’t quite as sturdy as I’d been counting on, and I collapsed like a newborn deer testing out its ability to walk unsuccessfully. “Oh!” I cried as my knees smacked to the floor.
Von darted to my side, helping me to the chair at the kitchen table with shaky hands. “You alright? You okay?” His voice lowered as his eyes darted guiltily down my form. “Did I… Did I hurt you?”
I wasn’t sure if he meant our fight, the fall, or the fake honeymoon. “It was only a little painful,” I admitted, and then shook my head as the deepest blush in the universe took over my body, turning me nearly purple. “Was it real? Are we real?”
Von stared at my mouth, biting his lower lip until the separation of a few inches proved too much a temptation to resist. He cupped my face and brought me in for another kiss, dipping me back into the hallucination as if we hadn’t missed a beat. His tongue danced with mine as we rolled around in the metaphysical sheets that served as our only clothing. We wore passion. We wore unfettered love. We wore blue.
We were gold.
Carbonation popped and fizzed on my lips again, jolting from my tongue to his the second they started to dance together. I wanted to stay with Von like this forever. No fighting. No confusion. No running.
Tempt (Terraway Book 4) Page 22