Dark Secrets (35 page)

“
You’ll want to take
those off.”

I looked down at my
shoes. “No. Not until you tell me where we’re going.”

“
Fine, leave them
on.” He shrugged, then reached behind him and lifted his shirt,
tugging it past the sharply cut V of muscles diving just below the
waistline of his jeans.

I looked back down at
my feet before it came off completely.

“
It’s okay, Ara,”
David said, a hint of laughter in his tone. “You don’t have to look
away.”

“
I wasn’t looking
away.”

“
No, course you
weren’t.” He came to stand in front of me, the rim of his Calvin
Klein’s showing just under the rise of his dark jeans; his tan skin
covering every inch of him I wanted to see. And I could look, if I
wanted to.

He held my hand
firmly, like he was asking me to look, and when I finally braved
it, a body like I’d never seen before, except on TV, gobbled up my
heart, destroying me in the end with that cheeky grin.

“
Something wrong,
Ara?”

“
I’m not blushing
‘cause I think you’re hot.” I reached down and slipped off my
shoes, then dumped them by a rock. “You don’t affect me, David
Knight.”

“
I know. You’re too
sensible to be knocked off your feet by a guy without a shirt.” He
grinned, reaching his hand out. I stared at it. “Come
on.”

Reluctantly, I walked
the five-pace gap and touched his fingertips. “I don’t see why you
need to take your shirt off; it’s not that hot.”

“
Didn’t want it to
get wet.”

“
Wet?”

He nodded and led me
to the cold, crisp water of the lake. “Do you see where we’re going
now?”

I followed the
direction of his nod. “The island?”

“
Yes. There’s a small
sandbar that extends all the way across. It’s only as deep as—” he
considered my height for a second, “—probably your upper
thigh.”

My breath caught in my
throat as the cold water reached my knees, and my fingers
involuntarily tightened around David’s. “How did you find this
sandbar?” I asked. It was only wide enough for David and I to walk
on, side-by-side, disappearing into the depth of the lake after
that.

“
Well,” he chuckled
as he spoke, “let’s just say I kinda stumbled over it one day. It’s
the only way out to the island unless you swim—or fly.”

“
Is the water deep
outside the sandbar?”

He nodded
once.

Above us, fingers of
clouds blotted out the sun, and a cool breeze dragged the shivers
in my body to the surface. David’s jeans were soaked—the water
seeping all the way up to his pockets, but not anywhere on those
golden ribs, or arms, did I see so much as a goosebump. “How come
you’re not cold?”

He looked down at me,
then let go of my hand and wrapped his arm over my shoulder. “You
are?”

I nodded.

“
It’s okay, I can
think of a few ways to get warm.”

I bit my lip to stop
from giggling, already feeling warmer.

Under the crystal
clear water, I saw David’s feet for the first time, and smiled.
It’s kinda funny how seeing someone’s feet can make them seem less
mysterious; how it can make it easier to imagine them beside yours
in a bed or in the kitchen while you make breakfast. But seeing his
feet would only make it harder for me to cope when the winter
came.

David’s toes kicked up
a swirl of sand, which spread out like a brown cloud—hiding our
feet completely. My fingers tightened around his again.

“
Are you afraid?” he
asked, looking at my hand.

“
A little,” I
said.

“
Please, don’t be. I
won’t hurt you,” he said softly.

“
I know. That’s not
what I’m afraid of.” I laughed.

“
Then, what is
it?”

“
I’m just afraid of
what it’s going to feel like when I can’t hold your hand
anymore.”

He sighed, and a hint
of a smile angled the corners of his mouth. “Well, it’s not
goodbye, Ara. Not yet.”

I moved my head in a
nod—feeling detached and outside reality.

“
Are you gonna let
that get wet?” He motioned to the edges of my dress, slightly
touching the water. “I won’t look if you want to lift it up a
little.”

“
I’ll be fine,” I
said, regretting it as soon as the water soaked in.

Ahead of us, a thick
moss blanket smothered the lake at the base of the island. We waded
through, parting it with our fingers, like cheese on a pizza, until
the steep, muddy slopes of the banks halted us with warding trees,
leaning out like diagonal spears. David curled his palm around a
branch and hoisted himself onto it. I waited in the water,
imagining all the slimy things that might be lurking under the
green, sludgy moss.

“
Don’t worry.” David
reached down from his perch, grinning. “The worst thing out here is
me.”

“
Well, in that case—” I took his hand, “—maybe I should be
worrying about my
heart
instead of my toes.”

“
You just let me
worry about your heart, mon amour.” He yanked me from the lake in
one fluid movement, swinging me onto the sloped shore; the soil
sunk and shifted into a small mound between my toes; I scrunched
them together, looking up at the knitted crown of yellow and green
leaves. I felt so closed in, with low-lying shrubs and ferns at my
feet and flowering vines covering nearly every other surface from
floor to canopy.

“
It’s amazing under
here.”

“
I know.” David
tucked his bunched-up shirt into the waistband of his
jeans.

“
I feel like I’m in
my own little cubby hole.”

“
Yes. It’s very
hidden here. No one can see us, not even if they were flying
over.”

“
Hm.
Comforting.”

He laughed. “Come on,
I’ll take you to my favourite spot.”

As we walked, my toes
tangled in the carpet of loose-leafed clover. I lifted my feet a
little higher with each step and placed them flat over the
creepers, stabilising myself with my hand on the mossy tree trunks.
It all smelled so moist, in a hot but dry kind of way.

“
Just watch out for
these little terrors—they’ll give you a nasty scratch.” David
reached forward to shift the furry, silvery arm of a fern from our
path.

“
Speak from
experience, do we?” I said playfully.

“
Yes.” He held it in
place, dropping it softly back against the hip of the tree after I
passed. “My brother and I used to play here as
children.”

I could actually
picture that, too; little David, with a companion of exact
look-alike, popping up above the bushes, pretending to shoot each
other. “I bet you were a cute little boy.”

“
Stunning,” he said,
then pointed ahead. “Look up there.”

My eyes followed the
vertical columns of maples to a deliciously colourful display of
twisting climbers, shrouded with palm-sized purple and white
flowers. “Wow. They look like purple cherry blossoms.”

“
Want
one?”

“
Oh, no. It’s okay.
They’re too high u—”

David grinned, then
ran to the base of a tree trunk, took a small leap, wedging his
foot against the bark, and plucked a flower from a vine six or
seven feet off the ground. “For you,” he said, landing back beside
me.

“
Thank you.” I
sniffed its sour, grassy fragrance. And it was only as I tucked my
hair back, placing the flower behind my ear, that I really noticed
the vibrant songs of possibly thousands of different birds and
small animals, chiming through the treetops like a symphony. “It’s
kinda noisy here, isn’t it?”

“
It’s a kind of noise
I can handle.”

“
And what, my talking
isn’t?

He looked sideways at
me; I turned my face to the front and kept walking—well, shuffling,
through the thick undergrowth.

“
Would you like me to
carry you?”

“
I’m fine.” I
straightened the flower behind my ear. “But, how much further do we
have to walk?”

“
Just to
right…over…there.” He pointed to a small circle of long grass,
centre to a ring of tightly packed trees, with a single beam of
sunlight making the busy movements of tiny insects look like
sparkles. “Come on.” He took my hand.

“
Do you come here
often?” I asked.

“
Not so much
anymore.”

“
Why?”

“
I used to come here
to reflect on the miseries of my life.” He kicked a few stones away
from the grass and plonked down on his side. “Last few weeks I
haven’t needed to.”

I sat down, too,
hugging my knees to keep the moist, tickly grass off the backs of
my thighs. “This would be a great spot to bring a book.” I could
imagine that warm beam of sunlight overhead lighting the pages for
me, just enough that I wouldn’t need to squint. It made me wish I’d
brought one with me, but it was great just sitting here—with
David.

“
I have a box here,
buried, where I keep books for when I visit
unexpectedly.”

“
Really?”

He nodded. “But, right
now, it’s great just sitting here.” He sat up, resting his arms
over his knees, leaning a little closer. “With you.”

“
I was just thinking
that.” I looked away from his ultra-cheeky grin. “Sometimes I feel
like you steal my thoughts.”

“
How do you know I
don’t?”

I shook my head,
smiling. “That’s just the thing, I’m starting to wonder
if—”

“
Wait!” He held up a
finger, his secret smile spreading across his face. “I have a
surprise for you.”

“
A surprise,
but—”

“
Come on.” David offered me his hand, suddenly standing, when
a second ago he
so
was not.

“
Hey, how did
you…?”

“
Come on.” He reached
down and grasped my fingers, hoisting me off the ground. All
protest stopped instantly with the feel of his smooth skin on the
side of my face, my collarbones, and the back of my forearms as he
directed them around his bare waist. Little bumps rose over my
cheeks and across my shoulders, making me shiver, but not from
cold, though. I’d never felt them from touch, but I was
sure—

“
Shh,” David
said.

“
I didn’t say
anything.” I rolled my face upward to smile at him, but the second
I saw his tightly closed eyes and the ultra-still mask of
concentration, it slipped away. “David, what’s wrong?”

“
Shh.” He opened his
eyes for a second, winking at me before closing them
again.

I exhaled a laugh,
burying my face against the small hollow at the centre of his
chest, where that sweet, kind of chocolaty smell dominated the
powdery cologne under his arms. And my cheek felt moist suddenly,
the heat of the day slipping past the canopy, making the air damp
and almost hard to breathe. “Wow, it just got really hot,” I said,
looking up to see the rainfall I could hear all around us. But
there was no rain, only the soft pattering sound.

“
Stay calm, okay.” David pressed one hand to my lower back,
rolling my hips toward his, and the other to the base of my neck,
forcing my face against his chest. My cheek squished up into my
eye, making my lip jut out. I really hoped he didn’t look down—this
was
so
not my
sexy face.

“
Why do I need to
stay calm?”

He didn’t answer; he
just held me close, his eyes shut tight, his beautiful dark-pink
lips, set perfectly into his golden brown skin, twitching. The
pattering sound around us became louder then, drowned out for a
second by a flock of birds bursting through the canopy above
us—colouring the sky in reds and greens. When silence fell over the
island again as the birds disappeared, I saw something move from
the corner of my eye, yanking my arm back when a light feathery
touch brushed my skin.

“
It’s okay,” David
said in a low voice. “You’re safe here.”

“
I know,” I said, “I
just thought I felt a spider on my arm.”

“
My love.” He gently
kissed the top of my head, tangling his fingers in my hair. “Look
up.”

It took a second for
my eyes to adjust, but as the blurry cloud of yellow and pale blue
became the fluttering of hundreds of tiny wings, my mouth dropped.
“Oh, my God.” I watched in amazement, the cloud filling the space
around us like pastel snow. “How is this possible?”

“
Anything is
possible.” David smiled.

I smiled back and
reached out as the glowing sun filtered down through the leaves,
lighting the winged creatures in a soft, misty glow. They flitted
across my skin with tiny silk kisses, forming a circle around us,
like we were in some magical orb of nature. But the gem-like green
of David’s eyes stood out among the pale colours, as if he was
backlit by the brightest star in the sky. His head turned,
unlocking the hold of his gaze, and he nodded to the tip of my
finger, held way up into the magic. I laughed, staying ultra still
so as not to scare the blue and black butterfly there; it fluttered
its wings for a single moment, before flying away.