A chest carved into a marbled Roman statue. A chest worthy of lines of lyrical prose. A chest only read about in romance novels. My eyes drop down his body and land on his massive tanned legs sticking out like tree trunks from the short towel. What would it feel like to have those wrapped around my waist…?
Snap out of it, Lucy!
“No.” I bark out, then, remembering his mother and a PASTOR is downstairs, I lower my voice to a whispered hiss. “Stop flirting with me and trying to get us locked in a room together. I might fall in love with you.”There. That’ll scare him.
He blinks once, then twice, before a smile crawls slowly up his clean, handsome face. “I like it when you’re bossy. Keep that up and I’ll fall for you.”
“Ugh!” I roll my eyes and turn back around, taking a few steps to reach the room I’ll be staying in.He might fall for me? Surely he was poking fun at me saying I could fall for him…
After I enter and close the door, Stone speaks from the other side.
“I hear you, Lucy. I can’t promise you I won’t flirt with you because, let’s be honest, it’s who I am, but I do promise not to step over any line you draw with me. I will try. I don’t want to intentionally play with your emotions.” His voice is rough and serious, and I want to crack the door open to see if his light brows are pinched in deep thought. I’m curious to know if his lips are pressed into a line or if they are folded into his mouth. His voice, with the edge it carried, makes it sound like he’s battling inside his brain, but the question is, what’s he fighting? Attraction to me? The idea that though he says he doesn’t play with a woman’s emotions, he probably does? Actual feelings for me… so much so that he can’t stop wickedly flirting with me when I’m around?
Ha,I snort.That’s aharebrained thought.
Icouldn’t sleep, so I wandered downstairs and slipped out of the house.
Stone still hasn’t come back.
No, don’t focus on that.Focus on… the sounds around you.
The cicadas sing a harmonious tune with the crickets.
If I were describing the sound in a novel, I might paint it a soul-stirring sound that waxes and wanes to a tune of somber smiles. Or maybe that’s my melancholic mind twisting a golden cheerful chirp into suffocating waves of blue.
Dew sticks to my bare arms; the baby hairs that usually fly around my face and neck are tamed by the dense water in the air. My thighs stick to the wooden swing beneath me.
I open my laptop and attempt to adjust my position. The moment I move my legs, it’s as if a band-aid is ripping off my skin. Not a flimsy band-aid, but one of those heavy-duty waterproof ones. I wince, taking the pain like the southern woman I am, then cross my legs underneath me.
After pulling up my writing software, I open the story I’ve started to play around with in my head. I should apply the edits to my merman story, but something about this stoic, misunderstood vampire is beckoning my attention.
And by stoic, misunderstood vampire, I mean the centuries-old man who absolutely loves being a vampire and wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Heh. Enter: odd but beautiful human woman who will restart his cold, dead heart.I laugh maniacally to myself and then remember I am not alone in my apartment and probably shouldn’t cackle like a witch.
The thought is a bucket of cold water on the little fire of passion that was attempting to ignite within me. I’ve been sleeping in my space alone ever since Lorelei moved out mere weeks ago. The first night I cried myself to sleep and woke up way too late the next morning because Lorelei wasn’t there to make little noises around the house alerting me to the rising sun. Thank goodness I had taken off work.
The following days and nights passed in what I refer back to as a Gaussian blur. Last night, I was up into the wee hours of the morning, writing to take my mind off Loneliness sitting in the dark corner of my room. I think I forgot to eat. Or maybe I snacked on chips at one point?
It’s probably a huge red flag indicating I should seek some help, but I think it’s only an adjustment period. I’ll get over this hump. Change is hard whether it’s good change or bad change, and overall, Lorelei moving and getting engaged is a good change. It’s a good change that I am facing solitude after twenty-six years of having people in my sphere of living. I have to grow, and while I might not like these growing pains I’m faced with, I can acknowledge that, at some point, I will bloom from the dense, dark dirt I am entombed under.
“We are just fine,” I whisper to myself as I wipe a single tear from my eye. “Now, what reason does a centuries-old vampire need to fake date a beautiful human woman?”
As I brainstorm the question I’ve been ruminating over for a couple of days, I find myself drifting off, thinking of Stone and this situation we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Excuse me.
That he has dragged me into.
Kicking and screaming.
And throwing cast iron skillets.
Okay, I said yes pretty easily, but I mean, who wouldn’t? A taste of Stone Harper without the fear of attachment and then abandonment? Yes, please. But that’s why our state of affairs is mussed. My attraction to him is off the charts and the feelings are reciprocated.
It’s not an arguable point, however.
Attraction does not equal love, and I require love.
