But that’s all changed—I’ve changed—since I met Red. I haven’t managed to screw around with half of the university’s female population, and I’ve kind of committed to one girl. The last time I did, I experienced a heartache like never before. I discreetly vowed to never fall for another girl, yet here I am with the beautiful Red at my side. I stare at her as we’re sitting at a red light, and I decide that I will break that vow.
Let her wreck me.
Let her burn me.
I will enjoy every second of torture if I get to feel what I do when I’m with her.
A loud honk behind me snaps me out of my expressive thoughts, and I push on the gas pedal.
“Everything okay?” she asks, and I smile at her, reaching for her hand. Her brows furrow in suspicion, but her lips curl into a slightly there grin.
“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking about what I have planned tonight,” I lie.
Her pierced brow cocks, and she hums. “Right.” She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t push it. “Wanna give me a hint on what it is?”
“Nope.” I shake my head affirmatively. “You’ll just have to see when we get there.”
She frowns and tugs at my hand. “That’s no fair.”
“Yes, it is.” I bring her hand to my mouth, kiss her knuckles; she intakes a large gulp of air, then stares up at me with a more-slightly-there smile. “It may not be what you usually like, but I planned it all out real nice. You’ll like it.” I hope she does.
“Fine.” She sighs and stares at the road for a moment. “This song sucks,” she murmurs before switching the pop station to an alternative station. An Arctic Monkeys song about wanting to know something. Her head bops to the beat, and she croons the lyrics under her breath. The sound is rustic yet smooth and makes me look at her a little too long when I should be paying attention to the road.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” I say.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she replies.
My gut clenches because she’s right. Tonight, I decide, I will know more about her. That’s what dates are for, right? Interrogating a person and finding out their life goals and blah, blah, blah. I wonder if she’s been on a date. But of course she has. She had to have gone out with somebody. The thought makes me sick to my stomach, but it’s my damn fault for thinking. Still, the idea of some prick taking her out on a date makes me want to punch something, maybe even his stupid fucking face. I take deep breaths, calming myself.
About fifteen minutes later, I pull up in front of the location: Wired Expressions—an art gallery.
“Art? Since when are you into art?” she asks skeptically as I help her out of the car. She narrows her eyes at me, then glances over at the gallery. Glass spans the front of the store, revealing how many people are observing art. I shut the door behind her and take her hand again.
“Since forever. But I guess there isn’t a lot you know about me,” I murmur under my breath, hoping to correct the matter by the end of the night.
Inside, the air is warm, and I take off her coat. I shrug mine off and hand them both to the male attendee, and he hangs them both with the other coats behind him.
“Where do we start?” Red asks. She’s walked off to one of the paintings in the massive, open area.
“Wherever you want. I’d say here since it’s attracted you first,” I tell her, sidling up next to her. I watch her eyes roam over the abstract painting of vibrant yellows and strong hues of orange and other sorts of colors, wondering what she’s thinking—how she’s thinking. I’ve only ever studied art by myself, never with another person. But with her, I decide I like to ponder her thoughts on art pieces such as this one.
“What are you thinking?” I finally ask after a few moments of silence. The small group of young people stalk off to another painting, leaving her and me alone. Thank God. I broaden my stance next to her and glance over to her.
“I don’t know what the hell this is,” she finally says, and I laugh. Here I thought she was going to say this genius statement that defines art itself, only for her to admit she doesn’t even know what she’s looking at it. It’s such a Red move, I can only laugh before explaining what I see.
“And you’re supposed to interpret it in your own words and views,” I instruct her, and she scoffs.
“Sounds like a load of crap and stupid.” She looks up at me, brows furrowed. “Artists get to concoct whatever bullshit they want and make people construct their own interpretations? I just call it lazy.” Her tone is stone serious.
I laugh. “Again, whatever you think is up to you. But the point of art is to express yourself, your thoughts, and let others view it and understand you a bit better. It’s an outlet to escape the world and jump into colors and the feeling of infinity in just a stroke of a brush.” I pause and find myself blushing. I sound like a total art buff, or more like I have a few brushes wedged up my pretentious ass. I turn to her curious gaze. “I’m sorry, just my opinion.”
“Your opinion is…” She trails off and squints. “Do you paint for that reason? To get away, or whatever?”
“Yes,” I answer and look at the painting. “That and I couldn’t get the muse in my head to shut up.” She tugs on my hand, dragging me to a photograph of a naked woman, but it’s her side profile, and she’s sitting in the forest. The shot is warm, and there’s a streak of black down her flushed pink cheeks.
“This is better.” She reaches out, but I touch her elbow.
“Can’t touch it, babe,” I warn her.
“Fuck that rule.” Her fingertips touch the girl’s unruly black hair. Her eyes are glancing at us in her peripheral vision. It sends a shudder of grief through my body. This artist did an excellent job. I study the sunlight hitting her thighs and eyes and the little rustle of leaves in the air, while Red glides her fingertips down her back.
“Excuse me, miss? You can’t touch the art,” a security guard warns as he rounds the corner. He shoots us an annoyed glare.
“Oh, sorry,” Red surprises me by saying, batting her eyelashes submissively. I cock an eyebrow, watching the guard nod satisfactorily before walking away. When I look back at Red, her sweet smile drops, and she’s glaring at his back. She pops her index finger in her mouth, then presses it onto the framed photo, then shoves her middle finger in the air, drawing quite a few onlookers’ attention. “Asshole!” she shouts, and he whips around, and she pokes at the photo.
“Hey! Hands off the art!” He rushes toward us, gripping what I think is a taser in his belt. Why does he even have a taser? And is touching an art piece enough to get tased?
“Oh, Red,” I groan. Why didn’t I see this coming? I mean, this is Red I’m talking about. Nevertheless, I grab her hand and tug, grabbing her frenzied, excited expression. “Follow me,” I instruct firmly.
I pull her out of the photography section of the gallery. Clusters of people standing in our way curse as we brush past them roughly. I drop many apologies over Red’s explosive curses. My eyes dart around and my shiny loafers slide on the heated wooden floors. I drag her through a throng of people admiring a newly arrived painting of a couple. We weave through crowds and pass exhibits and colorful judging eyes.
I get a text message buzzing in my pants, but I’m a little too busy at the moment to check. My heartbeat’s risen in the past few minutes of running and dodging and hiding. Red laughs maniacally and skips a few times, and all I can do is laugh and dodge the husky security guard. How she finds this entertaining is beyond me. But I have to admit, she seems to be having fun, and it’s all I wanted for tonight. Even if she kind of looks like a crazy person in the process.
She’s my crazy person.
I dare a look over my shoulder and spot the guard standing still, eyes probing around like a hawk on the search for food. I skid us to a stop, and we press against the brick wall. Who would have guessed touching photos in an art gallery would create such a frantic, bloodthirsty security guard to chase after us?
“What now,
genius?” she asks, barely out of breath.
I look around, and the crowd is thinning out, as we are at the back of the gallery. An idea forms in my head, and I look around to see if we’re clear. “Through there.” I nod at a metal door with a sign above it that reads ‘EXIT ONLY,’ and she pauses, lifting her pierced brow at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Trust me,” I whisper, tugging on her hand. I know what’s up there, and it isn’t just a roof.
She nibbles consciously on her lip ring, then nods. “I trust you.” She says the three little words that melt my heart. They sound simple but mean so much to me.
“Then come on.” I cast short looks over my shoulder as we jog over to the door. I quickly pull out a set of keys in my pocket and unlock it. She side-eyes me hard, skeptically, as I pull it open and usher her in. Nonetheless, she rushes in, and I shut the door after us.
“Are you gonna, like, murder me now?” she asks from two steps up.
“No.” I laugh and jog up, slipping the keys back in my pocket. “I have something planned up here. It’s a little too early, but you can never plan for a security guard to hunt us down,” I tease lightly, and she rolls her eyes, but a smile is on her lips. “Now come on. It’s just up a flight or two.”
She groans but climbs the stairs with me. My heart pounds like crazy when we get closer and closer to the door of the roof exit. I had this set up earlier, and it’s now hitting me that it’s possibly not even set up altogether. We were supposed to roam around for about an hour before everything would be all good for us to come up here. I sneak a peek at my phone and breathe in relief. The text from the owner of the gallery let me know everything is put together. If it weren’t, I was gonna have something short of a heart attack.
After a few minutes of climbing, we finally break through the door, and she gasps in awe. There’s a cube-like wall surrounding the small balcony, encasing us from the outside. But that isn’t what drew the breath from her; it’s what’s projected on the walls: images of several, if not all, of the paintings and photographs downstairs on a loop. There’s a fire heater in two of the corners, and in front of us is a bistro table filled with food from a famous restaurant in the city. The enticing, heavy aroma of the hot food wafts into my nose, making me groan in appreciation.
When I look over at her, she’s staring around, cheeks flushed, mouth agape.
“I thought we would eat first, talk a bit. Admire the paintings on a more visual aspect for a while. Then finally…” I glance at the empty canvas on an easel, a plush white couch in front of it. Her gaze is intense yet warm. “I could create the most enthralling painting in this gallery using you as my ultimate muse.” My voice is low, and I stare at the slight tug of her red lips.
She doesn’t say anything for a long while, just returns her eyes to the walls, and then the food, then the easel, and then back to me, and then anywhere else that appeases her. I stare at her glowing presence, allowing this to sink in. God. She is so beautiful it physically hurts to look at her. So why am I staring so intently, drinking in her essence? Why am I gently pulling her into my chest? And why am I brushing a lock of her hair behind her small ears, looking into her eyes as if they hold the answers to everything, like, why can’t I breathe right now?
“Say something,” I urge her, looping an arm around her lower back. I raise my hand and brush my knuckles against her flushed cheek.
She leans on her toes and pulls me to her. Her lips press into mine, and I bring her closer. Our bodies flush against each other. Sparks fly under my tongue as it glides against hers. The kiss is unnaturally slow and so passionate my stomach twists and the world tilts us to the side. I hold her hips and breathe into her mouth. We pull back slightly, quickly catch our breaths, then continue to tease the fire between our skin that seem to be doused in gasoline. I run my hands along her sides, causing her to moan in my mouth, before I cup her face and hold our lips together in a long, sweet position.
I would deliver my heart, body, and soul to this girl if it meant I could kiss these lips, hold her beautiful face, even if it’s just for a moment longer than breathing. I want to kiss her everywhere, and still, I won’t satisfy the craving for more that cries in the pit of my stomach. This girl will be the absolute death of me. Funny thing is, I don’t mind one damn bit.
“This is perfect,” she whispers against my mouth.
“No.” I shake my head, smiling softly. I kiss her gently, then whisper, “You are perfect.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The obnoxious sound of Ty snoring wakes me from my slumber. I thought after almost two months of sleeping in the same room as him I would get used to it, but no such luck. I grab the pillow beneath my head and toss it at his thick head. It does nothing but bounce onto the floor, on top of his pile of clothes. On top of his inability to sleep without sounding like a dying walrus. He’s a total slob.
“I should get my own place,” I murmur and rub my face, a heavy sigh leaving my lips. The green numbers on the clock on my nightstand read 5:03 a.m.
The sheets shuffle and so does the bed slightly. I look over my shoulder and turn around fully. A grin instantly makes its way onto my face. Red’s mumbling something softly in her sleep. She looks so much like an angel, with her mouth parted and eyelashes falling gracefully on top of her cheeks. Her facial expression is soft and relaxed, free of her usual scowl.
Unlike what most people would assume, she and I didn’t fuck last night. She just drank one too many flutes of expensive champagne to drive back home. Thinking about our date brings a herd of butterflies in my chest, and I don’t know how to feel about it. No girl has ever made me feel this way before. Then again, no girl I know skips joyfully while being chased by a security guard.
The memory of us gazing up at the art splayed on the walls fills my head. So does her and I talking about anything and everything over a top-notch dinner. I found out so much about her, I could write a mini essay. She told me about how rough her childhood was after her mother was murdered and how she mostly rebelled through her life because of it. I felt so bad, but she pressed for me not to, and we changed topics. So I told her about my obsession with horror movies, which she revealed that she also adored the genre, thus encouraging me to set up a movie date with just horror movies.
It feels like a dream to know more about the badass girl everyone’s either afraid of or wary of. Knowing more shapes her out to be more real than I’ve ever seen her before, and I appreciate it. And even though I learned little things that supposedly don’t matter that much in relationships these days, like how her favorite color is black and how she strongly despises chick flicks, I find myself growing more and more in…in like with her. If that makes sense. But with her, it just does.
“Noah,” I hear her groan. She shifts around and slings her arm around my mid-section. I smile at her instinct to get closer to me, even in sleep, and watch her snuggle her face in the crook of my neck.
“Red,” I reply, toying with a blonde curl of hers.
“Move, I have to pee,” she surprises me in saying.
When I look over at her, she’s groggily peeling one eye open. The crinkle in her forehead and the scrunching in her face returns, and I nod. “Sorry.” I begin to get up so she can go to the bathroom.
“No. It’s fine, don’t move,” she grumbles and pushes to her arms. I watch her climb over me. I look down, then up at the ceiling to be respectful. She isn’t wearing her dress, only her black underwear that looks too sexy on her. My eyes are glued to the ceiling when she appears over my face like a pissed-off angel. “I have work soon, but you should come to Lava Springs later.”
“Lava Springs?”
“A hot spring or whatever.” She pauses. “Some friends and I are having a party there. You in?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’d love that.” I nod, and her lips tip upward in a smile.
“Great.” She moves to go to the bathroom when she pauses and leans down again to whisper, “And last night was great.” Then, with rosy-colored ch
eeks, she pads to the bathroom, leaving me with an embarrassingly large grin that I try to cover with a pillow.
***
A few hours later, Red and I are in her car driving through back roads, massive trees on either side of the road. Nirvana is blasting through the radio, but it’s no louder than the silence between us. I keep expecting her to make fun of my beanie or something in the mean but sexy way she does so often, but she just drives. Worry floods through me, and I move to ask her if something’s wrong. Everything was fine between us a few hours ago. What could have changed in such a short time?
“Red, is everything okay?” I reach to take her hand that’s resting on the clutch, but she moves it to the steering wheel. I frown, and she glances at me. “Red?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Everything is fine,” she says, short and clipped.
Raising my brows, I warn, “Red. You can tell me things, you know. It doesn’t matter what it is. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”
She doesn’t say anything, and Kurt Cobain and the engine purring fills the void of silence. I feel myself shrivel up a little because she still isn’t letting me in. It is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced. She is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced. Just when I think we’ve taken a hundred steps backward, she pipes up.
“My friends are just a bit…fucked up.” I sense worry in her voice, and I take her hand she forced onto the wheel and kiss the back of her hand. She looks at me with wide, terrified eyes, then softens and looks back onto the road. Seriously, her friends can’t be that bad…unless they’re like a pack of mongrel serial killers. Then there will be a problem.
“Who’s aren’t? Ty screws around with half the campus, and Mike hasn’t dated anyone since a bad breakup years ago.” I pause. “And there’s this guy named Noah. He’s a real sucker for Red. Though he never thought he’d find…” Love. “Someone to call his own after he had his heart stomped on by a girl who has comically tiny feet.”
Red: Burning Desire (Spectrum Series Book 7) Page 21