Indigo (27 page)

Her head jerks up at the sound of my voice, and when we meet eyes, hers go slack. Whether from embarrassment or fatigue, I can’t tell. She doesn’t respond, so I decide to take a chance and go to her. The same look from earlier is in her eyes, a manic wild look that puts me on edge. 

The lights are dim, and not a sound can be heard except my footsteps padding their way across the carpet. I stop within three feet of her, and crouch down so I’m on her level. Her body is relaxed, but her fingers around the knife are white, and my heart breaks for how scared she seems to be.

“I know today was hard,” I begin, my voice low. “I know you’re worried about the hearing, and your mom, but I want you to know that nothing is going to happen to you. You’ll figure it all out this weekend with the detective, and it will be okay, you’ll see.”

She doesn’t move or respond to my words, and I take a chance by reaching out and putting my hand over hers. “Let’s put the knife down.” I don’t just grab it from her this time, not wanting to make her feel as if she’s cornered.

Her forehead comes off her knees to look at me once again and I see shadows in her eyes. “It’s not just today.”

“I know. But you’re more than what happened to you,” I explain, leaning into her. “You can’t change the past, but you are in control of your own life every day. I want you to remember that. And I want you to remember that nothing is going to happen to you, especially not when I’m around.”

She doesn’t respond to my words, she just leans her head against the wall, looking at me. I decide again to try and get the knife out of her hand, and this time she loosens her fingers enough for me to grab it.

I place it to the side, making a note to remember it in the morning, and bring my hands down to her. She lets me slide my fingers through her own, and for a few seconds we just sit there. I can hear my own breathing, but all I can see is her, her beauty, her fear. Her long black hair, wild around her face. Her eyes numb, her body tired from the burdens it bears. Her composure seemingly as delicate as her features.  

For a few beats of silence, I start to really understand what I’ve gotten myself into. Her life is different, darker, and what started as a mere curiosity and interest for me, is morphing into a role I never thought I’d have with anyone. And as I reach out slowly, putting my arms around her back and lifting her into my arms, one thing keeps blaring in my mind…She needs me. She needs me.

Her face takes cover in my neck as I walk with her back over to her bed. After I place her gently on the sheets, I bring the blanket up around her and start to tuck her in. She’s looking at me through hooded eyes, and it takes all my willpower to not reach out and touch her. I spend a little more time than necessary getting her comfortable, and finally, when I can’t stall anymore, I lean down and press a chaste kiss on her brow. “I’ll be right here. Let me know if you need anything.”

I start to turn around back toward my makeshift bed on the floor when I hear her. “Wait.” When I turn around, she’s holding the blanket up, as if to invite me in. “Don’t go.”

I hesitate for a second, not really sure of her mental state and if that is really what she wants, but in the end, I can’t deny myself the pleasure and quietly slip into the sheets next to her. I’m surprised to find that even underneath the covers, it’s cool in her bed, as if she hasn’t been there for a long while. Once I settle in, I turn on my side, facing her, and she does the same.

The night seems to encapsulate us with its stillness and I feel as if I’m in some sort of hazy dream. We just stare at each other, taking each other in, which might seem odd in the daylight hours, but in the restful darkness it feels okay. I study her scar, and I know she knows it, and I’m emboldened to see that’s she’s letting me get this close to her.

With painful slowness, I reach my hand out to her face and begin to trace her features with my thumb. I start the top of forehead, and slide down past her temple, to the soft skin underneath her eyes. She closes them at my touch, and I brush against her eyelashes before making a path down her cheek. With careful movements, I graze over her scar, once, twice, before finally running my fingers the full length of it. The roughened skin is in stark contrast to the softness of the rest of her, and every groove and bump under my fingers hurts my heart. The pain she must have suffered makes my head spin, and makes me want to kill the bastard who did this to her.

She lets me have my way for a few long minutes, but when I whisper to her how incredibly beautiful I think she is, she grabs my wrist.

My hand drops down on the bed, and our eyes meet. Hers are filled with tears. I’m just about to see if she’ll let me take her into my arms when she maneuvers herself in closer to me and puts her hand on my chest.

“Can you kiss me?”

Holy shit. I still at her words, and move my head back to look at her. The way she’s close to me, the expression in her eyes tell me she wants me to really kiss her, but I have to be sure. “Where?”

She takes a short breath, and then before I know what’s going on, she places a quick soft peck on my lips. “Here.”

There’s no mistaking her meaning now and adrenaline goes from 0 to 60. “Are you sure? I want your first kiss to be one you always remember. I want it to be special.”

She moves in even closer and cranes her head back to look at me. “It will be. Please Kennedy.”

The gently given plea snaps the last of my control, and I lean up on my elbow. “Turn over, on your back,” I tell her. She turns to follow my direction, and as I look down at her, splayed out and nervous, but trusting me, I suddenly feel like the luckiest man in the world.

I grab both her hands and thread them through mine before placing them above her head against the mattress. I shift towards her, careful not to cover her with my full weight, not knowing how she’ll feel about that and wanting the moment to be about her first kiss and not anything else.

I’m shocked to realize I’m a little bit nervous myself. I’ve kissed dozens of girls without second thought or much regard, but this feels different because it actually means something. To me and to her, and I’m feeling the pressure. But instead of making me balk, it makes me so damn eager to get my lips on hers I can barely stand it.

But I let the moment build, leaning over her and pressing light kisses to her cheek, her forehead, her scar. I can feel the pulse in her wrist beating wildly underneath my palm, and the beat drives me forward. Barely moving my lips from her cheek, I drag them up towards the side of her mouth, and kiss the edge softly, getting my first amazing taste of her lips.

That was for me. For the weeks I’ve been dying to get this close to her, to feel her in this way. My lust kicks into high gear, but I fight to tamp it down, if only to make sure to keep the rest of the kiss about her.

INDIGO

My heart knocks out a rapid tempo with each dropped kiss on my face. His breath is warm, his lips surprisingly soft. And although I trust him, when he ventures near my scar, I do everything in my power not to scream and push him off me. I’m glad I didn’t, because when he finally, fully, puts his lips on mine for the first time, the forgetting begins.

All the sudden, all I can think about him. His lips press gently into mine once, and then a second later, he leans back in to do it again. The second time, I lightly press back, unsure of what to do, and uncaring that he knows it. He lets his bottom lip drag on mine before capturing my top lip between the two of his. The pressure of the kiss increases, and my hands squeeze his fingers of their own accord, as if they are looking for somewhere to go.

He moves his lips across mine for what seems like endless minutes. It’s a slow caress, a thorough buildup for what I realize is coming next. I’m nearly melted in the mattress when I first feel the sweep of his tongue inside the edge of my bottom lip. I’m shocked, and before I can process the sensation, I feel his tongue again, moving a little more intrusively. My first instinct is to move away, to stop, because it feels like he’s taking me over. But the third time he does it, and the tip of my tongue touches his, I’m too lost to put up a fight.

He’s still hovering over me as the kiss grows in intensity. What had been slow and gentle is quickly turning into something desperate, needy. I know instinctively that he’s an incredibly skilled kisser, because the rhythm of our mouths, and every move we make together seems synced, as if in a practiced dance.

When he takes my lip between his teeth, and runs his tongue in between them, I hear a small whimper escape my throat. He must have heard it too because I can feel his energy spike, spurring mine, and just like that, the already desperate kiss turns furious.

My eyes are closed, but I picture him, laying above me, his mouth on mine, moving what seems to be perfectly against my lips, and I realize I’m turned on and I don’t know what to do with myself. My body seems to know though, because I feel my hips move up off the bed, as if searching for his.

I feel him groan into my mouth, and as if he can’t help it either, his hips grind into mine, the force behind the action driving home how strong and big he is. When I feel through his jeans how much he wants me, I gasp, the experience of what I’m actually doing finally catching up to me. He’s consuming me, invading my mind. His kiss doesn’t remind me of anything that happened to me, it’s more a heady spilling into my brain that chases out the darkness. I never want the kiss to end.

So I’m confused when I feel his mouth rip away from mine, his body moving to the side so we’re barely touching. “I’m sorry,” he says in a strangled whisper. I watch as he shifts over to lie on his back, and throws an arm over his eyes so his face is hidden in his elbow.

We’re both breathing hard, and for a few seconds, we both just catch our breath.

“Why did you stop?” I whisper, wondering if I was so bad at kissing he couldn’t take it anymore. But a small feminine part of me knows that what I just experienced, was in no way awkward. It was an amazing kiss.

Our chemistry, just like on the dance floor, was on point. I want to kiss him again, and I think of what to say next to get him to do it, when he doesn’t answer me at first.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “Are you okay?”

I lay there, still confused. “Yes, I am.” Then, “Are
you
okay?”

He sighs, and uncovers his face, but just stares at the ceiling. “I will be.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

That gets his attention. “Of course not. It was me, I let things get too carried away. I’m sorry, I wanted your first kiss to be special.”

“It was,” I argue. “I liked it.”

“Me too. A little too much.”

I finally start to get his meaning, and realize when he grinded into me, he saw that as him taking it further than he should have. I’m definitely not ready for the next step, but as my heart rate continues to settle, I know that I want him to do it again. I want him to chase the darkness away until I forget. He’s like my light, and I want more of it.

“Were you uncomfortable at all? Nervous?” He asks as he turns towards me. “Be honest, I need to know in case there’s a next time.”

I hope there will be a next time. But instead I say, “It was better than I thought. I was okay. More than okay. That’s the truth Kennedy.”

When he sighs loudly again, it seems like he doesn’t believe me and I feel a small twinge of annoyance.

“I’d like to do it again, once you...” I wave my hand in his general vicinity. “Pull yourself together.”

His lips quirk up at the corners, and I wonder what he can find so amusing. “This is ironic,” he says.

“What is?”

He turns his body to face mine until we’re mere inches apart. “That was
your
first kiss, but I seem to be the one who can’t catch my breath.”

His words make us both grin, but I also can’t ignore the way my heart beats a stampede in my chest. I touch his cheek, and without any fanfare or warning, he leans in and presses his lips to mine again.

I don’t know how long we kiss this time. It feels like an eternity as the kiss naturally alternates between hard and soft. I’m exploring him, and he’s letting me. Only our lips are touching, and my fists are clenched, fighting the urge to reach out to him. When we finally pull a part, I feel like I have just been given the best gift imaginable.