Leaning in, he brushed my ear with his mouth, sending tingles of traitorous desire skittering through my abdomen. He said, “I forgive you, Valerie.”
I was almost too relieved to breathe.
“I just hope that, after tonight, you will forgive me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sienna and I parked in a row of eight other vehicles along the curb in front of Holden’s house. When we got out, we straightened our outfits and looked around. It was dusk, and everyone else was apparently already out in the woods.
She sighed and glanced at me. We’d barely said a word since Cade’s, but I’d figured it was because we were both allowing that conversation to soak in.
“So, he seemed like a great guy,” she finally said, sarcasm lightly floating on the air.
I scrunched my nose. “He used to be a lot nicer. I’m not exactly sure what changed.”
“Well, regardless…” She eyed me curiously as we began walking toward the end of the road. “Are you ready to forget about this and just enjoy the night?”
A smile tugged at my lips. I could read between the lines. “Yes,” I said. “I’m ready to spend the evening with your cousin.”
We wandered through the woods following a path that was wide enough to fit an ATV, and looked like maybe it had recently. The ground was all folded-over grass and soft moss, none of the muddy mess like it was behind my house. It appeared that my white flats would be spared. Hallelujah.
After a while, the music began to filter softly through the trees, beats and tones that I, surprisingly, knew well. They curled around the trees and rolled over the grass like a wave, dream pop remixed to a dubstep beat. It had never occurred to me that Holden and I might share a taste in music. I was expecting the heaviness of hard rock or the deep bass of rap and hip-hop, but this was more subtle. More sensual. More dangerous for my heart and hormones.
A fire flickered up ahead, illuminating an alcove full of people. Some were sitting in wooden chairs around the flames, some were swaying to the flowing, alluring beat, but all of them were drinking. Coolers were situated evenly around the little clearing.
“I hope Chase brought the wine coolers,” Sienna muttered under her breath. “I specifically requested it. Beer is just too bitter. Some of us actually enjoy a little sweetness on our tongues.”
I grinned. “I’m sure there’s plenty, then.”
When we entered the fringe of the fire’s glow, someone immediately shouted, “Valerie and Sienna are here!” to apparently no one in particular, but more likely to Holden and Chase, as they came jogging over almost immediately.
“There she is!” Chase growled with a grin before spinning Sienna around.
A smirk lazed on Holden’s face as he shook his head. Then he pulled me into a gentle yet smoldering embrace. “So what took you girls so long?”
Panic almost crossed my face, but Sienna picked up the slack faster than I could blink. “Don’t worry about it. A woman never reveals her beauty secrets. Besides, we’re the hottest bitches here right now. Just look at your date, Holden. She is so bangin!”
Oh my god, Sienna… If I didn’t know any better, I’d have sworn that girl was already tanked. I thought that was just her, though. Like her father, she seemed to have no filter.
Holden languidly eyed me up and down, eventually landing on my smoky eyes. A smirk hovered under his heavy lids. “Yes, I noticed.”
“Well, no complaining about her being late, then.” She winked at me and allowed Chase to lead her skipping to the coolers.
Holden took my hands and kissed my wrists. “You want to dance?” He was grinning, pulling me toward the rest of the dancers before I could reply. I giggled and bounced after him, relishing the freedom that overflowed within me when I was with him.
He slipped behind me and put his hands on my hips. I leaned back into him, trapped between the heat of his body and the blaze of the bonfire. We found a natural sort of rhythm, and delight bubbled through me like champagne. I wrapped an arm around the back of his neck, my fingers raking through his dark brown hair. In response, he spread his hands wider across my hips, pulling me closer. We swayed and creeped and grinded, as the music curled around us like a snake, pulling us tighter until we couldn’t breathe.
We danced for what felt like hours, song after song, until my legs were burning. Others joined us on the floor, then filtered off, a continuous exchange of renewed energy. We just kept on moving.
My favorite song came on, and happiness shimmered across my skin like gold dust. I felt intoxicated despite the fact that I hadn’t had a drop. The air was rampant with a buzzing verve that seemed to light my soul like a fuse.
I was hyperaware of every element of that moment: Holden’s hands on my skin, the music pulsing through the shifting space between bodies, other people writhing around me, couples kissing behind the heat-shimmer of the bonfire, people silently drinking and laughing, the sweat that dampened the darkest corners, the merciful breeze as it tickled sensitive skin.
The song reached its bridge and time decelerated to a standstill. He slowly spun me around. Our eyes locked like lodestones, and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I stared longingly at his parting lips because I knew that this was it. Our kiss lingered in the air, close enough to touch, but I couldn’t move. My whole body crawled with the tingling sensation of anticipation, and my heart banged mercilessly against my chest like a captive.
He ran his fingers though my hair until he gripped the back of my neck. With the other hand, he tucked a silky strand behind my ear, his thumb caressing my cheek before gliding down to lift my chin. I took a quick breath as I smoldered, the dizziness from the lack of oxygen further stimulating my buzzing nerves.
Holden leaned closer, our lips barely brushing, as we hovered on the ledge of the drop. Then the chorus of the song kicked in, time kicked in, and finally we were falling. Our mouths met with a frenetic recklessness, tongues tangling in a rush to soothe the scorching burn of desire, but never quite quenching.
I was suffocating again, but Holden was like the air. I pulled his face down harder to mine and breathed him in as fiercely as possible, pushing my lungs to the bursting point. His hands tightened in my hair, sending sharp pinpricks of pleasure across my scalp. The more intense the kiss got, the more the world around me slipped away, until it was only us on the inside.
We kissed almost desperately until the end of the song, when the momentary break in the music allowed me to hear the rowdy cheers of the crowd. With their animalistic howls and feral cries of excitement, apparently everyone was enjoying the show.
Holden glided his tongue across my bottom lip, sucking on it gently before pulling away. I lowered my shaking hands to his heaving chest, staring like I’d never quite seen him before.
He kissed my swollen lips again, then whispered, “I told you.”
That allusion didn’t require any explanation; I knew exactly what he meant. Yes, I most definitely needed to be coherent for that first kiss. It would be forever burned into my memory.
He laced our fingers, then drug me playfully off the makeshift dancefloor to an embarrassing round of applause.
I had to watch myself like a hawk. There honestly might not have been any hope of coming back from a kiss like that. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to. It took an exorbitant amount of concentration to keep myself from leaping headfirst into dangerous waters. I wanted to. I wanted to dip my toes in that water so badly…
We found Sienna and Chase sitting with Jay and Charlene around the fire.
Everyone was smiling knowingly, but Jay was grinning like a demon. “God, Holden, what’d you do to her? I thought the clothes were gonna start flying!”
Holden grinned mischievously, and I blushed up a fever. “They might have if you assholes hadn’t started barking like dogs.”
I smacked him. “Holden!”
“What? I didn’t say they’d be your clothes coming off. I know how you like me shirtless…” Holden pulled over a chair and sat
, then reached for me. I snuggled up in his lap, purring contentedly.
“You’re supposed to make out in a quiet corner, you guys,” Charlene reminded us with a cheeky grin. “Otherwise, people won’t leave you the hell alone.”
Holden nodded to Chase and Sienna. “What, you mean like them?”
Charlene glanced over. Sienna was straddling Chase in the chair, kissing him like he deserved it. Then Charlene turned back to us, grinning amusedly. “Something like that.”
They chose that moment to come up for air, and Sienna smiled at me. “Why aren’t you drunk?”
“Because I haven’t been drinking,” I said humorously.
“We should remedy that right now,” she said as she stumbled out of the chair. “Chase brought tequila! You’re gonna do shots! Charlene, too.”
“What!” Charlene sort of protested, but Sienna’s giggling cut her off. She nodded enthusiastically, then grabbed two glasses from a bag. “One for Valerie,” she sang as she poured, not as sloppily as I expected. “One for Charlene…” She reached back into the bag. “And! We even have lime slices, because this guy, right here, is amazing!” She blew Chase a kiss.
Another of my favorite songs came on right then, like fate or something, and I suddenly felt amped up. “Jack this song up,” I bartered, “and I’ll shoot.”
Sienna cried out excitedly as Chase ran over to the sound system. The music abruptly blared like a solid wall of sound, plowing through anything in its path. I could feel it infiltrating my pores and coloring my bloodstream like a dye.
I jumped up and ran over, grabbing my shot glass with my thumb and forefinger. Charlene came over, too; I didn’t think she would have let Sienna pressure her if I hadn’t agreed to it. We clinked our glasses, then they went bottoms up.
Fire drug its nails down my throat and threatened to stay there, but the acidity of the lime chased it the rest of the way. I shook my head and exhaled like a fire-breathing dragon.
“Again!” Sienna cried, refilling our glasses.
“Again,” I agreed, just shy of uncertainly.
Charlene raised an eyebrow. “Okay…”
I tipped the glass. The after-burn was still hot as hell and it fought hard to not go down, but another lime did the trick. I exhaled the fumes and took a few deep gulps of air. It had been a while since I’d drank like this.
Having a sailor for a father had its perks.
Dad didn’t throw parties or condone me drinking, but he had incidentally exposed me to the lifestyle. Younger sailors drank alcohol like water, and they all loved partying with me, because I was the master chief’s daughter. I knew there had been bets going around about who would sleep with me first, and therefore every sailor in the division had invited me to their parties.
“Again,” I said determinedly.
Charlene frowned. “One more.”
The third shot went down a little smoother, but still begged for a lime at the end. I shook my head as the alcohol slowly spread through my veins. I was shooting fast, so it hadn’t hit me like a brick wall just yet.
“Again.”
Charlene whipped around to Holden, who was drinking a bottle of beer. “Aren’t you going to cut her off? This is her fourth shot of tequila.”
Holden grinned and shrugged. “I think she knows her own limits.”
“Ugh!” Charlene turned to me. “Valerie, I think you’ve had enough for now. Just let those first three sink in while you drink a cooler or something, okay?”
I rolled my eyes. I knew she was trying to be helpful, but I wasn’t a child. “I’ll drink a cooler,” I said, placating, “after this shot.”
Sienna giggled and filled my glass for round four. This time, she poured herself a shot, too. “To happy reunions!” she shouted as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
I intertwined my own arm with hers, then raised my glass. “To happy reunions!”
We downed our glasses, but I refused the lime this time. I didn’t seem to need it.
Charlene handed me a pink cooler, and I walked back to the chair I shared with Holden. He eyed me approvingly as I sauntered over and dropped into his lap. I raised the fruity drink to my lips and took a few big swigs. The alcohol was finally kicking in.
I leaned into Holden’s lips and kissed him. Our lips parted automatically, tongues tasting and exploring, stirring the glowing embers of desire until they flamed high. With the alcohol coursing through my blood, I had no hesitations.
Holden pulled us tighter together, and the heat of our kiss jumped by a hundred degrees.
Chase said, “You know, I noticed that you were pretty sweet on this girl last night, Holden, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so hooked before…”
Holden broke our kiss, then smiled at his friend. “I haven’t been.”
Just then, Jay leapt from his chair. He froze and cocked an ear toward the tree line. “Did you hear that?” he asked us. “Turn the music off.”
Chase bolted to the speakers, and just as he killed the music, the impossible happened. Suddenly, the entire bonfire snuffed out all at once. No warning, no smoke. Just poof, total darkness.
“Chase!” Holden yelled.
“On it!” he shouted back quickly as the fire rose back up out of the ashes, brighter than before, casting light back through the alcove.
“Sienna, get her out of here,” Holden demanded as he lifted us out of the chair. He kissed me, then pulled me out of the way of a falling tree limb. “Go! I’ll meet you back at my house as soon as I can.”
More branches fell all around me as I sprinted after Sienna. The world was sloshing around like a drink as I ran. I felt heavy and weightless at the same time, and the ground seemed to latch and loosen around my feet, as if it couldn’t quite decide whether to trip me or not. I nearly fell at least a dozen times, but a sudden gust of wind consistently kept me upright. I might’ve been drunk, but this was the strangest weather pattern I’d ever seen…
There was an explosion. I stumbled to a halt on my hands and knees and glanced back. Half of the woods were on fire, fueled by a vengeful wind that pushed it wildly through the trees. Holden! I turned to run back, but Sienna grabbed my arm.
“He’s fine, Valerie, I promise! Let’s go!”
“No one is fine, Sienna! The whole damn forest is burning!” The panic overtaking my system was fueled by adrenaline, but it burned through the alcohol in my blood as well. I needed to get to Holden. It was the only thing I knew through the chaos.
Then suddenly, the flames doused out. Hot steam rising from the bark was the only reminder that they were ever alight.
What. The. Hell!?
I had never been more terrified in my entire life. I had no idea how to explain the shit that I’d just seen, except for ‘erratic weather’, or ‘being drunk’, or worst of all, ‘supernatural’. And what the hell kind of explanation was that?
“Valerie! Run!” Sienna cried as it began to rain.
No, it was pouring, and I could sense that it was freezing cold, even if I couldn’t feel it. In fact, it was freezing. Balls of hail soared to the earth like rockets, as if they weighed more than they should, or like gravity had been multiplied.
Finally, my feet kicked into action. I righted myself and ran once more toward Holden’s house.
When I shot from the woods, I wanted to drop to the pavement and cry, or puke, or scream, but I was too afraid a tree might lean over and pummel me, so I ran until I burst through the front door.
Sienna grabbed my hand and led me upstairs; she didn’t know where Holden’s room was any more than I did, but she kept looking until she found it. Once inside, she shut the door and locked it behind us.
The feel of the room seemed very Holden, like a blustery day at an elegant beach. The carpeting was a sandy tan color and the walls were a pale windy gray. Everything was accented with a crisp white. His bed was intricate and huge, maybe Victorian, and looked soft enough to swallow you up. I wanted to curl up in his sheets, get lost in his cologne
, and pretend that everything was normal and fine.
But it wasn’t, and Holden was still out there. The fear churning in my gut was making me nauseous, so I started pacing. “What the hell just happened, Sienna?”
She had slunk to the floor and was now leaning with her back against the white bedroom door. She thoughtfully pursed her lips as she looked away. “I’m not exactly sure.”
“Not ‘exactly’?” I repeated with narrowed eyes. “So you do, at least, have an idea?”
She grimaced, but glanced at me softly. “Yes.”
I threw my hands in the air as I wore a path into the carpet. “Then please explain this shit! The bonfire went out like a light, then flipped back on just as easily. The trees were on fire, and then they just suddenly weren’t! Tree limbs were falling everywhere. Rain turned into hail—in September! I mean, what the hell!?”
Her mouth opened, then closed, and she shook her head. “I…can’t.”
“You sound just like Cade!” I shouted angrily.
“I’m sure I do!” She stood and plopped down in Holden’s desk chair. “I don’t want to make a case for the guy, but you have to understand, Valerie. Some things, inexplicable things, are forbidden to be revealed or explained.”
“Well I guess somebody screwed up on the ‘revealed’ part, huh?”
“Yeah, your boy Cade.”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about; Cade was nowhere to be seen!”
Sienna pointed a finger. “Seen being the operative word.”
“Besides,” I continued in a rush, “how do you and Cade and whoever else get off knowing all these forbidden things and I don’t? I just don’t understand how you literally moved up here today, and you already know more about everything that’s going on than I do.”
She leaned away from my accusations, but took them with a grace that made me feel a little ashamed. The anger finally drained enough for me to give in and curl up in Holden’s bed. It was comforting to envelop myself in his scent, to almost feel him all around me.
The Essential Elements: Boxed Set Page 14