It made me feel so important and special, like I’d already made it as a designer.
With the sketches done I just had to create my design. The criteria was a collection of three pieces of clothing of varying style inspired by something you found intriguing. For me that was the combo of seasons and emotions. I chose autumn for the glorious color that surrounded us and the emotion was love.
I worked day and night on them perfecting everything until I had three of the most gorgeous dresses I’d ever seen in my life.
Three gorgeous dresses I’d designed and sewed. Three gorgeous dresses that looked like they were ready for the red carpet.
You just had to look at them and you’d be able to see that I’d worked with my heart and soul.
It took me over two months to complete them.
The last Saturday of March came and I was just doing minor finishing touches.
It was bordering on eleven and I planned to treat myself to an episode of Smallville and a giant bowl of deluxe chocolate ice cream with chocolate sprinkles when I was done.
Earlier today I’d gone over the hem work and perfected everything. I was just doing my final scan of perfection. The project was due Friday. I wanted to spend the rest of this week giving my portfolio one last proof so I’d planned for today to be the deadline on the dresses.
In my over the top way I’d spent the whole evening going over each dress from bottom to top. I was doing the same again for one last check when I stopped at the first dress in the collection and mulled over the inspiration I’d thought about when I first did the designs.
It was a perfect sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline and built in bra. The length flowed down to the ground and looked like something out of a classic Hollywood film. Like something Audrey Hepburn would wear. It had just the right amount of class and sexy mixed in one.
The color was what I called wildfire and the silk fabric gave it that mysterious sass.
When I’d started designing it I’d wondered if I should give it a slit up the side. It was one of those things that crossed my mind because it looked like it suited it, but I just wasn’t sure. I thought, if anything, the last dress that was a dark blood red should have the split because it was love in full bloom.
“Is this where you live now?” Ryan’s voice pierced the silence in the room and made me jump.
I whirled around to face him and saw that he’d been standing by the door, resting against the frame. In his black leather biker jacket and white t-shirt that displayed the wealth of muscles that lined his abs he oozed that bad boy attitude like he owned it.
I wasn’t sure how this was possible but he seemed more handsome than ever. So like always the shyness returned to me and I didn’t know what to say to him.
“I’m working,” I answered.
I set down the case of pins I’d been holding on the worktable and returned my attention to him. Him with his penetrative stare.
“Can see that princess, just wondering if you’ve decided to live up here now.”
My deciphering of his words was that I hadn’t really been around at all over the last two weeks. I’d done what I needed to in the house and at school and headed straight up here when I was finished. The regimented schedule I had prevented me from seeing much of anyone. So… I actually hadn’t seen him either.
“I’m surprised you noticed. You don’t actually speak to me unless you need something.” I didn’t know where my voice came from but it was there when I needed it, probably as a result of my mind being free from the confusion and mystery of him for the last few weeks.
When he chuckled deep and low, it stirred something in the pit of my stomach.
My nerves spiked when he stepped away from the door frame and came inside the room.
It being the first time he’d been in here made me nervous as hell.
Everyone had seen my dresses, even Mrs. O’Shea. And even with her cold mannerisms, she complimented me on the work I’d done. She was a tough cookie to crack and her words encouraged me. If however, Ryan told me my dresses looked like shit I knew it would hurt me deeply.
He walked around the mannequins and surveyed each dress in silence. The silence amplified the anxiety a hundredfold and I swear I died the same amount of times as I continued to watch him.
Then I died one last time when he said nothing.
What the hell was he thinking? I didn’t know anyone who looked at something for so long and just said nothing.
“What is it called?” he asked.
“What?” My heart squeezed.
“It’s art, you must have a name for it.”
I sighed and narrowed my eyes at him. “The Prelude to a Kiss.”
It was like the 90’s movie. That was where I got the name, to me it looked and felt just like that.
“Prelude?” he asked in that taunting manner that annoyed the hell out of me.
“Prelude. You know like the buildup. The thing that comes before and you know the end result is going to be amazing, because you had a taste.” Said me the girl who’d never been kissed.
He stepped closer and slanted his head, allowing his longish locks to drift to the side.
“Is that how you kiss?” He looked at my lips which I was sure needed Chapstick. I was sure that my lips were currently as dry as my throat had become in response to his question.
Now… what was the right answer? If I said yes, he’d say something weird. If I said no, he’d say something weird. If I said something else, he’d say something weird.
“That is how I imagine a kiss should be.” I declared but the sinful smile on his face told me I’d fallen straight into his trap.
He took another step to me, straightening up this time. “So, you’re saying you don’t know, but that’s what you imagine it to be?”
I just stared at him.
Why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone when he asked me the name of the collection? Why the grilling?
“It’s imagination, that is what designing is. It’s not that deep.” I moved away from him, deciding to ignore him and hoped he might go away.
He didn’t though. He came right around to me and stood closer than I liked.
“There is no prelude to a kiss. It just happens,” he declared.
“Ryan… what is wrong with you?” I placed my hands on my hips and frowned at him.
“Nothing.” A slow easy smile spread across his sensual lips.
“Okay, then just leave my work alone. Like you said it’s art so I can call it whatever I want. If I think it’s a damn prelude to a kiss that is what it is. I get that you’ve done enough kissing to write a book on it but I didn’t ask for your opinion. My work is what I imagine kissing to be like, and that’s it.”
His smile widened. “There’s that word again.”
“What word?”
“Imagine.”
I gazed at him and felt the combo of fury and weakness I’d always felt around him. This conversation was perhaps the longest we’d ever had, but, previously he didn’t need to talk to me for any length of time to know how to get to me.
This guy knew me.
The more he looked at me the darker his eyes became and I got that sensation I’d felt months ago in the garage.
One step toward me, and I stepped back. Another step and when I stepped back I was against the wall.
Just like last time, he placed his hands either side of me, and just like before he leaned in close like he was going to kiss me. This time though he moved to my ear and lingered there.
“You’ve never been kissed, have you… Lana?” His voice was like a gentle caress of a languid summer breeze that beckoned you to its will.
He shifted and hovered inches away from my face, making my heartbeat speed up until it was racing.
“That’s not important,” I breathed.
“It is.”
“Why?”
“Because…” he inched closer. “When I kiss you, you’ll see there is no prelude. The kis
s simply is.”
All I heard was the first part of what he said. I experienced what I imagined people spoke of when they had an out of body experience. Like they were looking on themselves and what was happening. In my case it felt like that but it felt more like some kind of dream. Not real.
It became real though, when he leaned closer and in one smooth motion covered my lips with his. As his lips pressed to mine a blast of energy washed over me, over me and through me, consuming and raging like fire with an infernal heat.
I closed my eyes savoring the taste. The taste of him, it was nothing compared to what I thought kissing would taste like, and not what I imagined kissing him would taste like.
It was so much more.
And… he was right. The was no prelude.
The kiss simply is.
This kiss was exactly that, and it continued. When he swept his hot wet tongue into my mouth my knees gave out and the air left my lungs, leaving me weightless.
Breathless.
In response, Ryan slipped his hand behind my head, lacing his fingers through my hair, pulling me flush against the firm wall of his chest which was exactly as hard as it looked.
A soft moan left my lips and he kissed me harder, then pulled away without warning, leaving me gasping for air. For him.
My eyes widened with shock as I gazed at him, while he just gave me that cool smile. If not for the desire in his eyes and the slight hint of color to his cheek I would have thought that kiss had no effect on him.
“There… Now you know. Change the name and come and tell me. I may show you my artwork then.”
I watched him pull a cigarette from his back pocket and tuck it behind his ear, then he walked out, leaving my lips burning with fire.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath to clear my head.
Ryan O’Shea just kissed me…
Ryan O’Shea just gave me my first kiss and…
It was no mere kiss.
It was the kind a girl needed to book a week in confessional for, because of the sinful, sexual things that tarnished my mind.
Ryan O’Shea just kissed me,
And…
What was that he’d said about his artwork?
Chapter 8
Lana
Present day …
I walked over to the cupboard in the kitchen and placed a set of china plates inside with the other dinner wear.
The oil painting of the landscape on the wall next to the cupboard reminded me of Ryan’s painting. The house and surroundings reminded me too of the landscapes he liked to do.
I’d probably picked it based on that. I was just glad it was available immediately and the owners didn’t mind a rental with a flexi-stay.
I always opted for houses rather than staying in hotels because I was away over such long periods of time.
This house was a two story Georgian- style home with a front porch that overlooked the river. As it wasn’t far from The Cape Fear Coast, in the distance was a scenic view of Wrightsville Beach.
It was what I called comfortable and the period furniture inside enhanced the vibe.
Georgie and I got here early yesterday morning, unpacked and the private investigator I hired got back to me with Ryan’s details.
I may have been a mess after seeing Ryan back in L.A. but I’d decided that the first thing to do when I got here had to be to see him. I wanted to do that no matter what the outcome would be, or how his reception of me turned out. It felt right and so did the apology. That was all the things I’d planned out in the short space of time, while Georgie did everything else with the house.
The minute the P.I. came back to me I looked over the details. My stupid heart tapped into my teenaged self when I saw he was listed as divorced.
While it saddened me that he’d gone through a divorce, in the back of my mind I’d thought of how someone else had my guy.
It was so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Seventeen years. A lot had happened. At least he got married, even if it didn’t work out. Me on the other hand had serial dated. That was child’s play, worse when he was my benchmark that no one had managed to reach.
Nobody at all.
Ryan was the guy, and a century could have passed and he’d still be the only guy to reach me the way he had.
I’d thought about him non-stop since I’d left his house yesterday.
Memories of us and what used to be filled my head. For some reason I had
the memory of our first kiss stuck there.
That first kiss.
My first kiss, and the first of many with Ryan.
Maybe it was the first time that I’d felt my heart awaken and it changed my creative spark.
I had an hour before I had to go to the station to meet with Detective Gracen.
I was ready to go and ready to see what had instigated the need to reinvestigate my mother’s death.
At the same time, here I was thinking about where Ryan and I began, as if I could do something about it.
When people said you could be more effective in your pursuits if you’d experienced something they weren’t joking. He kissed me and somehow I knew more than I had prior to the kiss.
It made me change the name of my collection within seconds after. From ‘The Prelude to a Kiss’ to ‘The Kiss’.
And as I explained in the portfolio summary what the collection was about the words had poured from me.
I submitted my work the Friday of that week and I’d expected to hear back from the course administrator at Parsons within six weeks. When I heard from her three days later offering me a placement in the summer school I didn’t know what to do with myself. The offer was accompanied by a personal message expressing how impressed she was with my work, and the artistic value of how I described a kiss.
It was the first time in my life that I’d experienced true happiness.
Happiness that stemmed from a kiss a boy gave me that set off a chain reaction of everything.
I went to summer school at Parsons that year and it was the best experience of my life. I’d ended up getting the scholarship too for the following year. I landed it hands down with another collection I designed. By then I was so wrapped up in Ryan the inspiration flowed from me like a river. It came easier than before the kiss. My talent was natural of course but when he was in my life the inspiration poured from my soul.
I knew my visit yesterday had probably achieved nothing.
No answers or anything solid I could give him. I knew that and I was hoping I could say something that would carry enough weight to be a sufficient answer.
But… there was no answer that was more acceptable than the truth.
And, I couldn’t lie and say that I didn’t feel more hurt than I already was when he never gave me a response when I asked if we could be friends.
Again, that was something I should have expected. It was a foolish thing to say given the circumstances. Very foolish and me pushing the limit on something I shouldn’t.
I most likely would have been the same as him, and honestly he’d shown more compassion than I would have if the tables were turned. What he wanted was the truth.
He never knew what happened to me.
Never knew how I fell off the path of life.
I never went to Parsons. When I left home I was so lost and broken.
I headed to L.A., and got a job waitressing. It wasn’t until six months after that I found some resemblance of myself as I skimmed through a fashion mag.
It made me sign up to The University of South California to start the following year. That was where I’d met Georgie and later got a bigger opportunity in my senior year to do a year’s placement in Milan at Dior.
That was how my story went. How it all happened and things just sort of took off. All good, but it was like that night when I got my first kiss.
Everything I’d done at the time on my collection was good then he kissed me and it became better. That line was the difference between being good an
d being the best. Being good and being great.
Georgie came into the kitchen, pulling me from my thoughts.
She gave me a warm smile when she saw me by the window and lowered to sit on one of the high stools behind the counter.
“Hey, you okay?” she asked resting perfectly manicured fingers on the countertop. Her nails were the same pewter color as the granite surface.
“Yeah, just sorting out the rest of stuff.” I waved my hand over to the little box of cleaning supplies the custodian had left us.
“I can do that later. You sure you don’t want me to go to the station with you.”
That concern filled her eyes again. She’d asked the same question earlier when I got the appointment with Detective Gracen.
“I’m sure. I’ll just go check things out and come back.” Maybe it was stupid to go by myself. I just wanted to see what I was up against first before I involved her. I couldn’t explain it other than the fact that it had stirred up all the emotions I’d felt from back when Mama died. The same thing was happening now.
“Lana, I’m here to support you. This feels like something I should be going to. Please don’t stop me from helping you.”
I sighed and moved to join her around the counter.
“We’ve never spoken about your mom too much. I know it’s hard for you and I’ve tried my best to respect that. But… what if it is something serious? This is why I’m here and I’ll be here as much as I can during this time. I don’t want to alarm you but the thought of you getting some news that’s difficult to hear worries me.”
I sighed and nodded. “Okay… I see what you mean. And yes, I think maybe I could do with the support.”
She was going to be here until Sunday so I had her for the next few days. Truth be told I needed her support for so many things.
“Good.”
“I just wish I knew what it could be. I’m eager to find out what’s going on but I’m scared of the unknown.”
“I know. It’s all so odd. My thoughts are that it’s gonna be something to do with her death itself.”
Back To You Page 7