Dark Secrets (89 page)

“
Yes, I do. I uh—” He
scratched his brow. “I have a confession to make.”

“
Uh-oh.”

His shoulders dropped.
“I stole David’s number from your phone and…I called
him.”

“
What?
Why?”

His arched brow gave
half the answer. “Come on, Ara. Why do you think? I’m not stupid.
I’ve watched you pretending to be happy, but I knew there was
something up with you. I’ve known you all
your
life. I knew he was hurting
you. And I was afraid he might be one of those controlling types;
you know, who makes you feel like you need him to feel good about
yourself.”

“
Mike? He’s so not
like—”

“
I know.” He smiled
and flattened my frown with his thumb. “He’s a decent guy,
Ara.”

“
So, when you talked
to him,” I asked delicately, “like, what...what did he
say?”

“
He told me he’s
leaving—that you couldn’t be together. He told me you wanted a
family one day and a normal life, but he couldn’t give you
that.”

“
So—” his words echoed in my mind, “—he...what, he told you
to
have
me?”

“
It wasn’t like that,
Ar.” Mike rolled his head to one side. “He just said he knows I’ll
make you happy and that’s all he ever wanted for you.”

David gave me
away?

“
Please don’t be mad,
Ara.”

Mad? I wasn't mad that
he called David. I felt hurt that he knew everything—embarrassed,
but it wasn’t Mike’s fault. It was so like him to do this. He was
my protector—he always had been. My best friend. My Zorro. “I'm not
mad at you, Mike. Okay?”

“
Well, don't be mad
at David, either, baby.” His fingers tightened over my hand. “He
just wants you to have a—a normal life.”

“
And you think
you
can give me that?”

“
Ara, I’ll give you
everything. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. I’ll be a husband,
a father to our children, a provider, a protector, but most of all,
Ara, if you say you’ll marry me, I will love you—more than anyone
has ever been loved in the history of mankind, and I will devote
every breath I take to being the best husband you could ever
have.”

“
But what about what
you
want, Mike? I don’t want you to be what I want. I
want you to be happy, too. I mean, do you even want children?” We’d
never discussed that. Mike was good with kids—he always adored
Harry, but never spoke of wanting a family.

He took a breath,
lifting his shoulders as he did. “All I ever wanted was you, baby
girl—a thousand times over and every day for the rest of my
existence. I’ve never really thought about kids before.”

I nodded, looking down
at my fingers.

“
But…” His gaze
settled on my belly, lost in a smile.

“
But?” I
said.

“
If
I could place a piece of myself inside of you and—” he lifted my
top and traced little circles around my navel, “—and that would
grow, and become something so beautiful as life—a life that’s a
part of you and me, combined? I can’t
imagine
something more magical. So,
yes.” He broke eye contact for a second and reached into his
nightstand, closing the drawer with his pinkie after. “I want to
have babies—with you. I want a hundred little dark-haired,
blue-eyed babies running around, and you and me, we’ll be together.
We’ll have each other. Always.
That’s
what I
want.”

The breath I finally
released quivered its way out.

“
Please?” Mike
slipped off the bed and knelt in front of me, lifting the lid just
a fraction on a small purple box. “Make me the happiest man on the
planet, Ara. Marry me.”

Every flower that once
was dead bloomed within my heart, and the ashes of my soul circled
in on the breeze, finding breath, light among the darkness. I
looked into the small box, and a red blossom shimmered back; a ruby
rose, with two emeralds on either side. A promise in the shape of
life, disguised as the colour of blood—a colour so exquisite in the
shadowed parts of my broken past that it cast a spotlight on the
door to a future I thought was gone—a door that opened by the key
of one word.

Mike and I belonged
together; we were two souls from the same world.

But my heart…would it
always truly belong to David?

“
Yes,” I whispered so
quietly that Mike’s eyes focused on my lips.

“
Did you just say
yes?”

“
Yes. I...yeah, I
did.” I could feel the light sparkling off my tears.

“
Seriously?”

“
Yeah, seriously.” I
bit my lip.

Mike laughed, his
shaky fingers removing the ring from the box, holding it to the tip
of my nail. “I…I have a speech.”

“
A
speech?”

His cheeks and
forehead went pink. “Yeah, I uh…I kinda planned this for a
while.”

I shrugged, smiling
widely. “Let’s hear it then.”

He cleared the
awkwardness from the back of his throat, holding my fingers
firmly—almost unintentionally too tight. “I designed this for you,
because any other stone, any other ring would never have been
perfect enough to tell you how much I love you; how you’re a part
of everything I am, and how no matter what I see in the world, I
will never see anything that is quite as delicate and perfect and
sparkling as you. You’re my girl.” He pointed to the ruby stone.
“My beautiful rose.”

The ring slid
perfectly into place on my finger—fitting like the way Mike fit me,
like we were made to go together. I smoothed my fingertip around
the gold. “It’s perfect, Mike.”

“
I know.” The corners
of his eyes softened and he grinned, running his fingers along my
forearms, bringing them to rest just on the backs of my elbows. As
I parted my legs and let him kneel between them, my confident,
womanising best friend became a little rigid, jittery, I
suppose—with a kind of schoolboy awkwardness I’d never seen in him
before.

“
What’re you
thinking, Mike?”

“
Nothing,” he said,
but his eyes held the smile of poorly concealed
thoughts.

“
Liar.”

He looked away,
seemingly lost for words. “Sorry. It’s just...I’ve never felt this
way before. About anyone. Not like this. I—I just don’t know what
to do with you.”

“
You could...” I
swallowed, trying to force down the rising heat in my cheeks. “You
could kiss me. That’s always a start.”

But he laughed at me
instead. “I want to...kiss you. So bad it’s actually causing pain
in my chest. But I just don’t wanna get it all wrong.”

“
Mike?” I pulled his
face toward me and closed my eyes tight. He smelled so fresh and
sexy—a vibrant, musky cologne. I just wanted to press my face into
his neck and breathe him in. “What can a kiss hurt?”

“
Everything. I’ll go
too far. I won’t be able to stop. My knees are shaking, baby—” He
laughed and looked down. “I’ve wanted this for too long. It’s
taking everything in me right now not to throw you on the bed and
tear off your clothes.” He chuckled, but stopped, a frown blending
with his smile. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“
Mike. Just shut up
and kiss me.”

He looked down into my
lap, his shoulders sinking.

“
What’s wrong?” I
made him look at me.

“
Your dad’s not
home—neither is Vicki.”

“
And?”

“
And, I…” He
scrunched my shorts up in his fist. “I'm afraid I might want more
of you than I should take.”

My lips split into a
perfect grin. “Good.”

The breath he was
obviously holding burst out of him. “Oh, baby. Don't say things
like that to a guy who’s trying not to seduce you.”

“
You just asked me to
marry you—that goes beyond seduction.”

“
No.” He shook his
head, moving out from between my legs to sit beside me. “That’s
even more of a reason I should be careful with you, Ara. You’re so
young and so full of life. I know you want this, baby. I know
you’ll ask me to…you know…” He nodded toward me, hinting the
obvious.

“
I would. So
what?”

“
So, you’re
seventeen, girl. Wait a few years, at least until we’re
married.”

“
Oh, God.” I rolled
my face into my hand. “Not you too.”

“
What?”

“
Did David put you up
to this?”

“
To what?”

“
This no sex before
marriage rule?”

Mike grinned. “He—he
refused you?”

My shoulders
dropped.

“
So, you’re—you’re
still a…?”

“
Virgin?” My neck
jutted forward with incredulity. “Yes, Mike. Oh my God. I can't
believe you asked that. And I already told you, at the airport,
that I hadn’t…you know.”

“
I'm sorry, baby, I
didn't believe you.” He shrugged, hands out, looking ultimately
innocent and sweet.

By the time my
infuriation simmered and I looked over at him, he was shaking his
head, smiling down at his lap.

“
What?” I
said.

“
I…I always wanted to
be your first.”

His glittering grin
infected my scowl, making me smile. “Well, you could…you know, you
could do it now.”

He shook his head,
sliding closer, taking my hand. “No way. You are the only girl left
on this planet that still has her innocence. There is no way I'm
taking that from you until we have officially tied the knot. We’re
gonna do this the right way, Ara.”

I huffed. “I'm human,
you know.”

“
And?”

“
And I'm—” I bounced
my feet a few times, feeling the heat rise within me. “I'm…I want
it, Mike.”

“
Oh, baby, I know,
but it’d be your first time. Why not just wait, just a bit. Wait
‘til we’re back home, in a place we both feel comfortable, so I can
take my time with you—” His imagination spilled ideas across his
face, “—enjoy the first time we get to be naked together; touch you
slowly, kiss you in places I only ever dreamed of.”

I took a quivering
breath and moved his hand closer to the apex of my thighs, keeping
my fingers twined in his so it seemed like an innocent gesture. He
caught on though, and pulled our hands back toward my
knees.

“
You’re really going
to hold firm to this, aren't you?” I said.

He nodded. “It’s not
easy. But, you’ll thank me one day, baby.”

“
Always the
upstanding citizen, never the bad boy.”

“
I’ve done the bad
boy thing, Ara, with a lot of girls,” he said; we both laughed. “I
never respected or loved any one of them, okay? But I love you, and
out of respect for you, and for your father, I am not going to have
your innocence when you're seventeen, before we get married, in
your dad’s house, while he’s at work, earning money to care for
you. Okay, so, stop breathing like that and stop moving closer.” He
grinned.

I bit my teeth
together and pulled my hand from his so I could fold my
arms.

Mike just laughed at
me. “Don't be such a baby. It’s not the end of the
world.”

“
It’s not the end of the world if we make love, either. It’s
not like you’re going to eat me alive.”
Like my last boyfriend.

“
You mean like the
last guy who put his mouth on you?” Mike laughed; I looked up at
him quickly, then touched my hand to the aged bruising on my neck
again.

“
Not funny,
Mike.”

“
No, it’s not.” But
he kept laughing anyway.

“
So, what now
then?”

“
Now?” He touched my
face and turned it toward him. “Now, I'm going to kiss
you.”

“
Oh.
Okay.”

“
Finally
.”

“
Finally.” I grinned,
so, so ready.

Inch by inch, his face
moved closer to mine, his hot breath sweeping my chin. I swallowed
and moistened my lips with my tongue—not daring to breathe, hoping
my peanut butter breakfast wasn’t still on my breath. And the smile
I gave when Mike tilted his head made him laugh just as our lips
touched. Finally touched.

He was so warm, so
solid, so real.

His stubble scratched
against my chin, while the air from his nose brushed over my upper
lip, but it was perfect—gentle, loving—not wet or sloppy, like
Emily described Spencer’s kiss.

He closed his lips
around my tender pout, held there for just a second, then pulled
slowly away, keeping his eyes closed for a second.

We looked at each
other and both broke into a smile.

“
Perfect,” he
whispered.

My body refused to
move—even as he took my rigid hand and ran his thumb over my
ring.