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The Arrangement 19(4)

By:H.M. Ward


"How is that the same?" His eyes are laughing as he looks at me, and all I want is to keep him looking just like this.

"Well, you think that he's going to be all mean and nasty, but no--alas! The dark dude in the cape with a taste for blood is just a sugar addict who--"

"You did not just compare me to Dracula," Sean interrupts.

"Blah! I vant to suck your sveets!" I hold up my hands and point my fingers down like teeth, speaking with my best Transylvanian accent. Sean's eyes go wide, and then he actually giggles.

"You're insane."

"Holy shit! You giggled. I heard it." I grab his ultra tight shirt and yank him toward me. "Open." I tap his lips. "I need to check your teeth."

Sean watches my mouth as I speak, with the sweet grin still in place. It's so unlike him that it makes my stomach flip. He reaches for me slowly and, when our eyes meet, he holds my gaze. Sean brushes his hand against my cheek and slides his fingers around the back of my neck. His other hand finds my cheek and inch-by-inch he gets closer. My pulse is hammering in my ears, and it's all I can do to not squeal. Butterflies erupt in my stomach and move through me in waves. The fierce flutter makes it hard to breathe as Sean's beautiful mouth gets closer.

Normally he takes what he wants or tells me to, but this is different. It has me supercharged, and every inch of me is tingling. It's like I licked an electrical socket. I can't move. I want to lean into the kiss, but I want to see what he's going to do. The way he moves toward me and looks at me through those dark lashes, the way he cradles my head and cups my cheek--it's as if he's asking and it leaves me trembling.

He stops right before our lips touch, a breath away. His gaze drops to my mouth, and he pauses, not kissing, just waiting. I can't move. The magic of the moment makes the rest of the world melt away. It feels pure and perfect. I didn't know he could be like this.

Sean reveals another version of him, one long buried. I'm drawn to him, pulled to his mouth. I want his arms to hold me tight, but there's nothing harsh or hurried. His breath washes over my mouth, and my lips part slightly, wanting him, waiting for him to kiss me.

Sean's dark lashes flutter closed, and he leans in, gently brushing his lips against mine. The butterflies wiz through me as his touch sets off a shower of sparks. The smoothness of his bottom lip against mine, the way he moves surely and gently sets every inch of me on fire. I want more, but he doesn't deepen the kiss. Instead, he slowly slides his lips closed before pressing them to mine, and then pulls away.

I'm breathless. The kiss feels like it froze time, but it passes too quickly. It's an enigma I don't understand. I blink wildly, and try to fathom why that affected me so much.

Sean doesn't smile or say any of the assy things he usually does. He doesn't try to own me, make me, or command me. He just pulls away, as if he didn't know what he did to me. How can one kiss do that?

After a moment, I manage to catch his eye. The corner of his mouth pulls up, and he quickly looks away. My chest tightens as my heart beats harder. My impulse is telling me to jump him, but there's something so fragile about him that I can't.

My chest rises and falls, as I suck in way too much air. I can't hide what that did to me, how it made me feel. I finally breathe his name.

"Sean?" He glances at me from the corner of his eye.

"Yeah?"

What do I say? I want to ask him why he doesn't love me like that, but how can I? He mentions his first kiss and sugar, then gives me this orgasmically mind-blowing kiss. What the fuck? I can't say any of it though, so I just sit there gaping, my mouth hanging open. He smirks.

"So I suppose you like sweet kisses, now?"

"I like your kisses, all of them. I like how you surprise me, how there's always another side of you that I haven't seen before. You literally took my breath away. Do you know how rare that is?" I stare at him and think that he honestly doesn't know.         

     



 

"It's not something I like to do." He looks down at his hands, and I swear he's sitting like a teenager, shoulders slumped forward, his back curved, and lowers his head into his hands. "It's too--" He sucks in a shaky breath and finishes, "invasive."

That's not the word I thought he was going to say.

"How so?"

"It reveals something about you, about me," he says without looking at me. "It's vulnerability and weakness wrapped in pleasure. Pleasure has a way of stripping everything else away and making decisions we normally wouldn't make. I swore I'd never kiss someone like that again."

I don't know what to say. It feels like he just told me a big secret--I can feel the weight of it--but I can't see how he got there. I touch his knee.

"We can't change who we are, Sean. Kisses like that are rare. It lasted forever, but not long enough. Sean, I've had sweet kisses before. That's not it. It's not that I'm a candy fang banger, either." He smiles and looks over at me. "It's you. It's when you let yourself be seen--that's the difference."

His lips part like he wants to say something, but he closes his eyes and looks away. Tipping his head against the wall, he opens those dark eyes and looks at the starry sky.

"I have trouble with that. I know that's an understatement, but it's hard to give someone a piece of your heart willingly only to have it torn away. A person can only do that so many times."

"Yeah, but you still have a heart to give." I bump his knees with mine. "Even after everything you've experienced. Sean, you're not normal, and I think that's great." I smile at him.

He swallows hard and looks over at me. "Another piece of me died today. When I saw my mother's hand on the teacup, I thought she was dead. Then we found her. Avery, I thought we could pull her out. I thought... I wanted her to be somehow still alive."

I press my lips together and drape my arm over his shoulder.

"So did I."

"I know you did." Sean smiles weakly at me and takes a deep breath. His chest fills and slowly rises before he lets it out. "I keep making the mistake of thinking everything will work out, that I have time to fix my mistakes."

"She can still hear you. I'm pretty sure you know that, otherwise I wouldn't have seen you talking to a headstone. Unless crazy is contagious because I do it all the time." I smile at him for a brief moment. "It's never too late." He looks over at me, surprised.

"And you really believe this?"

"Yeah, I do." I nod, secretly shocked by my sudden certainty. "I guess that's why I didn't get sucked down an emotional black hole when they died, or with any of the shit that happened after. No matter what, I'm not totally alone. They hear me, even if I can't hear them anymore. If I did, I think I'd pee myself." I laugh and squirm thinking about it.

"Thank you for not questioning me about my mother or our relationship. You took it as a given that she loved me and that I returned the affection in my way."

I do believe he loved her, but I'm not as sure about Constance. I study the old boards and wonder about the younger version of the Ice Queen, the version who worried her son would fall from a tree. I wonder how she turned into the cold, conniving woman who sat in the solarium each morning, the woman who wanted me gone.

I don't want people to wonder about me. I don't want to go down that road.

"Hey," I say to Sean, bumping his shoulder with mine. When he looks over at me with those blue eyes, I say, "Promise me something."

"Anything."

"Promise me that we'll have one more sweet kiss. Not right now, but at some time when things are normal and ninjas aren't hunting us down." I look toward the window, glad no one tended to this part of the woods. If they had, there'd be nowhere to hide.

"They aren't ninjas or we'd be dead already. Our saving grace is that Vic cheaply surrounded himself with bargain basement thugs instead of trained assassins." He turns and boops my nose. "Miss Smith, I think you might be a candy fang banger after all, but I'll grant your request. Reserved for you is one completely vulnerable kiss with no walls up, no distance, and no hidden heart. Just promise me you'll use it for good and not evil."

I smile so hard my face hurts.

"You know I'm going to refer to this place from now on as the Batcave, right?"

"It's because you want to say,"
         

     



 
We say it together, and laugh, "To the Batcave!"





CHAPTER 5





My eyes flutter open, and I blink the sleep from my eyes. It takes me a moment to remember where I am. There's a wooden board beneath my head and an arm draped over my waist; I smile as I realize it's Sean.

I roll towards him and my stomach rumbles. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. There are dark circles under his eyes. He's awake and watching me.

"Good morning, beautiful."

I smile at him, taking in his messy hair, scruffy face, and a tiny t-shirt. I look at it again, finally realizing what it is. Across the chest of the rust colored shirt, written in a burnt coffee color are the words CROSS COUNTRY. The rest is too faded to read.

"Was this yours?"

"A million years ago," he says nodding.

"You were a runner?"

Sean sits up and stretches, the tiny shirt revealing his hard stomach as he moves. He leans back against the wall and tugs the hem down.