Aven's Dream (19 page)

Looking past the pool to the floor-to-ceiling windows, I saw the Pacific Ocean, its waters gray and roiling as waves crashed onto the cliffs below. The scene was incredible. I walked to the edge of the glass wall and looked out at the water. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized that the slate-gray of the surf below was the same color as Will’s eyes on Friday night.

I
stared out at the ocean as the rain and wind battered the glass, acutely aware that I had entered another world. We had left mine. This was Will’s world. There was so much I didn’t know about him, but I let myself enjoy the moment. When I finally turned to look for him, I noticed he was a few feet away, watching me again. He still looked like he was enjoying my awe.

“Why doesn’t the glass shatter in these winds?” I asked.

He tapped the clear surface.

“It’s half a foot thick and reinforced.”

“A glass fortress.”

“Yes.”

“It’s amazing,” I said, still unable to come up with a better description.

“Would you like to see the rest of the house?”

I nodded enthusiastically, feeling like I was being taken on a private tour of a museum after hours. Will gestured ahead, and I began walking the perimeter of the pool on the way to the main corridor of the house. When I got to the living room and looked back for him, I was alone. My heart took off at a panicky gallop until I heard the clatter of paws on concrete. I turned as Will reappeared from another doorway I hadn’t seen before. Darcy, who had been at Will’s heels, trotted up to me and accepted a pat on the head before making his way across the room to the fireplace.

Will joined me and held out his hand. Something about the gesture made me feel like I had just stepped into a fairy tale. The moment our hands touched, the same strange spark of electricity seemed to course between us. I couldn’t help grinning now that I was being invited down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Into Will’s world. As we started walking up one of the staircases, I reached out to touch the smooth banister.

At the top of the stairs, I could see entry points to multiple rooms in either direction, all of them guarded by towering doors. Will led me down the hall, stopping at the last door, which looked like it weighed more than I did. He swung it open effortlessly and took my hand again as we entered the room. Like the rest of the house, the far wall of the room consisted entirely of glass, giving an unbroken view of the forest beyond. The floor, I noticed, was covered in incredibly plush carpeting that looked like it had never been stepped on.

My eyes scanned the room. Along one side there was a large drafting table and a desk. Against the windows, there was a dark sofa, smaller than the ones downstairs, but still large enough to fall asleep on. Across from it was a massive onyx four-poster bed, the bedding itself an olive green satin. There were also bookshelves, dozens of them with an endless collection of hardbound books. I spun around to face Will.

“This is
your
room?” I asked, my eyes widening.

Will nodded. Somehow I was surprised he had let me into his inner sanctum, and I swallowed, feeling like I had crossed an invisible line. Then, with a sudden jolt, I remembered that today was supposed to have a purpose—that Will was supposed to be answering my questions, explaining the unexplainable. I couldn’t bring myself to shatter the moment, though. I had never seen Will quite this uninhibited, almost euphoric, and it was contagious.

“Would you like to take that swim now?” he asked teasingly.

“You know, you could have told me you had a pool,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Of course, the word
pool
didn’t do justice to the oasis downstairs.

“Then it wouldn’t have been as amusing to see your face when we got here.” His eyes shone, his smile lighthearted. “Feel free to change here. I’ll get your things.”

He left me alone in his room, and I took the opportunity to absorb as much detail as I could. Because eventually I would be cast back into the real world. I walked over and looked down at the sheets of paper on the drafting table. They looked like building plans, not that I was any kind of architecture expert. I jumped when Will touched my shoulder.

“The bathroom is beyond those doors,” he said, handing me my swimsuit. “Feel free to join me downstairs when you’re ready.”

Will was already halfway out the door, leaving it ajar so that I could escape—seeing as I probably couldn’t move it an inch on my own. I made my way into the bathroom, stopping as soft overhead lights clicked on. The shower alone, which had multiple heads jutting from the marble walls, was as big as the entire bathroom I shared at home with my dad. There was a soaking tub in the center of the room and a vanity with two sinks. Every surface was pristine, like nothing had been touched before today. I shed my clothes quickly, folding and setting them on the countertop, before slipping on my swimsuit. I looked in the mirror as I wound up my hair into a bun.

This felt like such a strange dream, and right now I never wanted to wake from it.

Wrapping the towel around my shoulders like a cloak, I tiptoed barefoot into Will’s room. When I reached the hallway, I was relieved to find the glossy concrete didn’t feel as cold as I had expected. Actually, the entire house had warmed with surprising speed. Making my way toward the pool, I couldn’t help thinking—again—of Alice after she tumbled down the rabbit hole. This was a place I was never supposed to see. I could feel it in my bones.

The glass doors to the pool stood open, and I could see Darcy lying on his side on the marble floor. As my eyes traveled to the pool, I saw Will’s form cutting smoothly through the still water, his precise movements barely creating a ripple. He reached the edge and pulled himself effortlessly from the water. As still as a statue, he stood watching me as I studied him.

Goose bumps broke out across my skin as he continued to watch me. If I had thought he was perfect before, my mind couldn’t possibly register the full extent of his beauty now. The contours of his muscles looked as though they had been etched from stone. The surface of his skin was flawless, like the Italian marble stone surrounding the room—only a warm, golden color. In his presence, I felt soft, malleable. And even with the towel wrapped protectively around me, I was acutely aware of my own exposure. Like a deer in the clearing that has just seen the wolf emerge from the shadows of the forest, I couldn’t move.

Something in Will’s demeanor shifted, his posture changing subtly. I couldn’t understand why, but the sudden difference was chilling. I tensed, and without understanding why, I took a tentative step back.

Before I could move any farther, Darcy, who had been lying perfectly still a moment before, burst past me, skidding to a stop and crouching in front of me to snarl and snap in Will’s direction. Like he was noticing Darcy from a great distance, Will shook his head and his stance shifted again. Darcy instantly relaxed and trotted back to where he had been, and as I inhaled, it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a breath for several seconds. I looked down. My towel lay on the floor, dropped in a moment of terror that I couldn’t understand now.

Will walked toward me, his movements just as graceful as they had always been, but his speed was a quarter of what it usually was. There was an exaggerated hesitation to his approach, like someone approaching a wounded or startled animal. He stopped several feet from me, and when he spoke I could barely hear him.

“My overconfidence is putting you at risk.”

I shook my head.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.

“Perhaps my true nature is exposing itself,” Will said grimly.

“
Your true nature
? Oh my god! What the hell are you talking about? You don’t make a damn bit of sense, you know that?” I huffed.

“Aven, I will answer your questions, as I promised I would, and then you can decide if you still want to be here. Near me. It’s your choice. It’s always your choice.”

He shook his head like he could already guess my decision.

“Hey, if you’re going to tell me that you’re an ax murderer, then can it wait? Because, first, I’d like to go for a swim in this awesome pool.”

I waited for him to smile. He didn’t. Very slowly, I stepped toward him, cautiously reaching for his hand. He didn’t pull away, and I felt a thrill feeling his skin against mine, aware I had a secret of my own—that I was completely, utterly, and hopelessly in love with him, whether he was completely crazy, utterly mysterious, or hopelessly inconceivable.

The thought startled me: it didn’t matter what Will’s secret was, because I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with him. It had already happened, and I couldn’t undo it, even if I wanted to.

Will grinned suddenly before picking me up with remarkable speed and leaping toward the water. I had less than a second to fear the inevitable chill, but as we crashed into the water below, I was surprised to discover the temperature was like bathwater. And unlike ordinary pools, my eyes didn’t burn from chlorine. The water was salty, like seawater.

Will still held me in his arms, and as I looked down at the pool floor, I realized I couldn’t possibly touch the bottom where Will stood. He moved with me in his arms until we reached shallower water. When he released me, I looked around at the blue lights shimmering under the water. This entire place was beautiful, surreal.

Taking advantage of my freedom, I floated up on my back, staring through the glass ceiling to the rain, which was still coming down in sheets. Flipping over, I swam away from Will, stretching my arms out in front of me. I hadn’t been in the water since the summer right before our move, and I had missed the weightlessness of swimming. I popped up as Will burst past me like a torpedo tearing through the water. As I continued to swim lazily toward the other end of the pool, he reached the far end before I had covered a quarter of the length of the pool. He turned back, skimming toward me and stopping only inches from me. Before I had time to think, he reached out and drew me toward him slowly, the look in his eyes dissolving any ability I had to think rationally.

Again, I forgot to breathe, but it wasn’t from fear this time.

We were so close, and for once, I was at eye level with him as he held me above the water. His eyes burned with the same intensity as they had the other night, only rather than being drained of color, his irises were a startling sapphire color.

Will’s expression made my stomach clench as he continued to hold me suspended with one arm as his other hand came up between us, his fingers gently brushing my lips. I shivered and closed my eyes as he traced my cheekbone. I opened my eyes finally and watched, mesmerized, as his face moved toward mine. The moment our lips touched, electricity shocked me. I could barely breathe as he pressed his lips gently against mine, his hand moving to the curve of my neck.

My eyes closed again, and my lips parted as a jolt of pleasure coursed through me, even more overwhelming than it had been Friday night. Will’s body tensed, the arm that held me tightening and bringing me closer against his chest. Warning bells began going off in my head a second before his lips broke free of mine, and I gasped for breath as he held me perfectly still in his arms, his breathing ragged, but not as uneven as mine.

“
That
was supposed to be your first kiss,” Will whispered, his voice strained, but also strangely triumphant.

I stared at him, suddenly incapable of forming a coherent sentence. Carrying me to the pool’s edge, he lifted me until I was sitting on the stone ledge. The effect of Will’s touch had slowed my thoughts, and it seemed like less than a second before Will was standing above me on the smooth tile with his hand outstretched. Pulling me up beside him, he held out the towel I had abandoned earlier. I took it gratefully and looked up at him, still trying to recover the ability to think straight, which wasn’t working. With his blond hair slicked back, he looked even less human and more godlike than before.

“Now do you know what I feel for you, Aven?”

I blushed. His eyes were soft as he looked down at me, but his tone had held a challenge. I shook my head slowly to clear it, not sure if I would ever regain the power of speech. I was afraid of the feelings Will had uncovered. They were so new, so overwhelming. They felt dangerous, like they had the ability to swallow me whole.

Will smiled, his expression euphoric. But I knew that nothing could match what I felt in this moment. My entire body was humming with energy as he grasped my hand and led me around the pool toward the interior of the house. Darcy trotted happily behind us, apparently having forgotten his strange spat with Will. As we passed through the downstairs, my dog broke away and settled in front of the fireplace again, watching us as we moved to the stairs. When we reached his room, Will moved swiftly to the closet where he took out a sweater and soft-looking pair of pants with a drawstring. He handed them to me, and I looked down at them skeptically.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t exactly wear the same size,” I laughed as he pointed toward the bathroom. “Is it all right if I rinse off?”

My question was hesitant—I didn’t want to disturb anything in that colossal bathroom.

“What’s mine is yours,” he said.

Blushing again, I smiled and hurried into the bathroom. I desperately wanted to believe that a few minutes out of Will’s presence would allow my brain to reboot itself. Stripping quickly out of my bathing suit, I stepped into shower, which was so big that it didn’t even have doors, much less a shower curtain. There was brand new soap, as well as shampoo and conditioner with exotic names. I studied the keypad before touching a button. Suddenly water shot from all directions, already steaming hot. With a sigh, I let the water beat down on me.