Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3) (5 page)

“I’d love a glass of water,
” he said, his voice sending chills racing across her skin.

She raked a hand through her hair
before moving to the kitchen area.  As if her every word since he’d gotten there had not been embarrassing enough, she was reminded that she did not have a glass on hand.  All of them were still packed in boxes.  She had to dig through one and pull a glass wrapped in newspaper from it.  She peeled the paper, rinsed it then filled it with water from a gallon jug in the refrigerator.  All the while, her hands trembled.

“Are you okay?” he asked her
and she thought the glass would slip from her hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  Never better,” she
heard herself reply without emotion as she brought him his glass of water and sat beside him on the couch.  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“For starters, you
lost your mother two weeks ago,” he said and his words hit her like a ton of bricks.

“Yeah, I know.  How could I forget?”
she snapped.

A pained expression clouded his exquisite features and she instantly regretted the harsh tone she’d used.

“Arianna, I’m so sorry.  It’s just that I saw your hands shaking when you poured my water and I got worried,” he started but she cut him off.

“Don’t.  I’m the Sola, remember?  I’m destined to be a miserable, lonely spinster according to you and
, well,
life
.  Turns out, I can’t have a mom, a friend, a boyfriend,
you.
”

The bitterness poured from her effortlessly and without warning.  A part of her that she had not yet acknowledged until the present had reared its ugly head.  She was angry, angrier than she’d ever been.  Saddled with a snappy title and responsibilities she never wanted, Arianna had a world of hurt thrust at her, the rest of which remained to be seen, though only one person was left to tak
e from her and he was likely champing at the bit to leave right now.  He’d already left once before.

“You’re not destined to be miserable.  You have a very important job,”
Desmond said with little conviction.  His sadness was palpable and she could not stand to see him hurting. 

“Yeah whatever,” she said dejectedly
and decided not to share her frustrations with him.

“
Nice place, by the way,” he tried to lighten the mood. “Where are we, anyway?” he asked.

“You don’t know where you are?” she asked incredulously. 
His innocent question, the guileless expression on his glorious face, made the annoyance she’d been feeling disperse like grains of sand in a breeze.  “Didn’t you read signs on the highway as you drove?”

“Read signs?  Uh, no.  Not exactly.  I teleported here,” he replied.

“Oh yeah, duh, I’m such an idiot today,” she said and lowered her eyes embarrassedly.  “You, I mean I, or
we
, rather, are in Hallowed Hills, Maine,” she continued slobbering all over every sentence she spoke to him.  She hated how she felt and how she was acting.  Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she either acted like a complete moron or a complete bitch.

“Can I teleport too?”
she asked and sounded more like herself.

“I don’t know.  Have you tried?”

“No.  I haven’t.  Not since my powers, you know, woke up at Kane’s church two weeks ago.”

“Maybe you should.”

“I will,” she said and took her lower lip between her teeth.

He looked at her expectantly.

“Not now,” she said and caught him staring at her.  “I’m not going to try to teleport right this minute.  I need to, I don’t know, concentrate at the very least, and I can’t concentrate when you’re around.”

She felt c
olor touch her cheeks again.  She could not believe she’d just admitted that he made her nervous.  She was Arianna Rose, for heaven’s sake!  She was never nervous around guys.  But Desmond was not like any other guy.  And there was the fact that he had told her that he loved her.  Not face to face, but he’d whispered it in the wind as faint and frothy as a thought in her mind.  Despite the lightness of its delivery though, what he had told her, his words, had carried more weight than he could possibly imagine. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Arianna?” he asked and
looked oddly vulnerable.

“Yes,” she said and lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap.

She was ruining any chance of a pleasant visit that existed for them.  She knew it.  She looked up at him through her lashes and saw that he looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach. 

Without knowing what else to d
o, Arianna stood and spread her arms out.  “What do you think of this place?” she tried to change the subject.  He’d already told her it was nice, but she was so rattled, she’d lost her train of thought.  She suddenly felt like John Jervis, minus the extra fifty pounds and general hairiness. 

“It’s nice, really nice,” he
replied uncomfortably.

“It’s different from the string of trailers I’ve lived in
, that’s for sure,” she said. 

She heard how hurt
and frazzled her voice sounded.  She had not wanted to be pathetic, had wanted to put on a braver face for him than she had been, but the mere mention of anything related to her mother pained her.  She wished he would reach out and touch her, hold her tightly and never let go. 

“It certainly is,” he agreed.  “How did you end up here?”

“You mean in Maine, or in this cabin?”

“Both.”

“Honestly, I don’t know.  I just felt pulled here, like a huge magnet was attracting me here.  So I got in my mom’s car and drove.  I stayed in a motel for a few days and looked in the paper for a more permanent place.  That’s when I found this cabin,” she said and glanced around.  “It was listed with a real estate agent, who was really annoying and pushy, by the way, and tried to make me look at apartments way out of my price range and in more crowded areas.  But I knew I wanted to be here, in this cabin.  I guess it was pulling me, too.”

“Huh,” Desmond said and rubbed his chin. 
He seemed so calm outwardly, save for the slight tremor of his hand.  She wished she felt as calm as he did.  Inside, she felt as if each of her cells was firing frantically.

“And then there’s school,” she chattered away.  “
I have to register tomorrow and start classes and all that stuff.  There’s just so much to do.”

“Wait, what?” he interrupted.  “School?  I thought we agreed school was not a good idea until you learn to better manage your emotions.”

“Yeah well, that was before,” she said and wrestled with a surge of sadness beginning to brim.  “And I promised my mom I’d get my high school diploma.  I promised her I’d graduate from high school.”

“I see.  But why can’t you finish high school through distance learning, take online classes.  You’ll still graduate with a high school diploma.”

“That would have been an option at the beginning of the school year maybe.  But now, I have, what, like six months of school left?”

“Seven, but who’s counting,” Desmond added and smiled.

Arianna blushed again.  She wondered for a split-second whether he was flirting with her then silently scolded herself for even thinking something so absurd.  After the way she’d behaved thus far, there was no way in hell he was flirting.  She’d behaved weirdly at best, unpleasant at worst.  He did not want her.  Perhaps she’d dreamed that he’d whispered in her head that he loved her.  Maybe her traumatized brain had invented it.  And then there was the kiss.  She guessed the kiss meant far more to her than it had to him.  He’d been around for almost a hundred years, or so he’d said.  In that time, he’d probably kissed more women than he could count.  To him, it was undoubtedly the equivalent of a raindrop in a vast ocean.  To her, it had been a deluge in a desert.  She understood now, and the longer he stayed, the more obvious it was becoming that he did not feel for her as she felt for him. 

She felt foolish and wished she could be more aloof about the whole situation. 

When Desmond stood suddenly and said, “Arianna, I’m sorry for coming.  It’s obvious I am no longer needed in your life.  It was a mistake for me to come,” she felt the air squeeze from her lungs.  She was about to ask him why, why he had come in the first place, why he had kissed her, but he spoke before the words ever fell from her lips.  “But before I leave, I have one question I’d like to ask you.  It may seem like an odd one, but, when you killed Kane and his men, how did you feel?”

The moment seemed surreal, his question
was ridiculous.

“Wait, first you tell me you’re leaving after being here for all of like, fifteen minutes then you ask me how I felt when I killed Kane and his men!  Are you out of your freaking mind
, Desmond?” she lashed out.  She had not felt like herself earlier, but she certainly did now.  The dulled, frilly edges of a mind swamped by girlie delusions came sharply back into focus. 
Oh I’m out of here, Arianna, but first, I just wanted to drop this asinine question in your lap
she imitated his words in her mind with the squeaky voice of a cartoon character.  Was he for real? She wondered.

“No, not that I know of,” he replied calmly.

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.  “It was a
rhetorical
question, Desmond,” she said snippily.  “Why do you want to leave?”

“I don’t want to leave.  It seems like
you
want me to leave,” he said and looked as confused as she felt.

“Oh
, so now you’re an expert on what I want, too,” she argued.  “It’s not enough that you know more about my powers, my destiny and what I am, than I do.  No, no.  Now you’re a freaking mind reader, too!”

“Clearly
, I’ve upset you,” he said levelly.  “I did not come here to upset you.” 

Arianna felt her blood begin to boil.  She w
as not some high-strung, overly sensitive girl prone to fits and tantrums.  She was not overreacting. 

“Then why the hell
did
you come, Desmond, to ask me if I liked killing those men?” she yelled and began pacing.  “Well then, don’t let me waste another moment of your time.  Yes!  Yes I did enjoy killing those bastards!  They would have killed me first if they could have, just like they killed my mother and Luke!  I enjoyed killing them and I’m glad they’re dead! And I’d do it again if I had to!  There, does that answer your question?  That
is
what you came for, right?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said flatly.

“Then why
did
you come?” she shouted at him as she stalked from one end of the living room to the next.

“I came because I love you,
” he said softly.

His words stilled every sound, every movement in the cabin.  The
y stilled everything except the wild beat of Arianna’s heart.  She froze where she’d railed just seconds ago.  Hands that had gestured animatedly fell to her sides and the furious, wild-eyed expression she’d tried desperately to conceal relaxed completely.  He loved her.  He’d said it himself.  She wasn’t sure what to say or do, so she did nothing for a moment.  Then she took several steps toward him and stopped just inches before him, her chest rising and falling faster the closer she got to him. She raised her hand to touch him and he recoiled just a bit.  She nearly laughed aloud seeing his reaction to her.  Did he think she was going to hit him or something? She wondered. 

“I’ll leave,” he said
and sidestepped her.

“Shh,” she whispered.  “I don’t want you to leave.”

“You don’t?  Then what was all,” he started to ask, but never finished his question.  She silenced him by pressing her lips to his.

With her mouth on his, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed her
body to his.  She could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his hard chest, feel his warmth.  He wrapped his arms around her waist and scooped her up so that her feet no longer touched the ground.  A soft sigh escaped her and she parted her lips and swept her tongue into his mouth.  The sensation was exhilarating, the taste of him delicious.  She forced herself to exercise every bit of restraint she had to keep from trailing her tongue down the length of his neck and tasting more of him.  And she did not want to rush what was happening, rush the inebriating thrill she was feeling. 

Her hands raced up into his hair and she tangled her fingers in the short curls at his nape before sliding her body down his, not missing
the firmness below his belt, to her feet.  She heard him groan in delight, the sound rousing every part of her body and continued teasing his tongue with hers.

H
er fingers danced up under the back of his shirt then trailed down slowly, tracing every muscle as it descended lower and lower, to the waistband of his jeans.  His skin was hot to the touch.  She wanted to feel his hot skin close to her, around her, on her, inside of her.  Need twisted feverishly within her and, as if sensing her intense desire, his hand moved up her side and under her shirt until it reached her breast.  With deliberateness that nearly buckled her knees, he kneaded it over the silky material of her bra and she felt her nipple harden.  He gently squeezed a stiff peak between his index and middle fingers as he rubbed, and the feverish, twisting need coiled so tightly, she thought she would shatter into a million euphoric pieces.  She moaned and began to rub the part of him that had hardened.  He covered her mouth with his and lapped at her lips sensuously.