Fading Amber (18 page)

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Authors: Jaime Reed

BOOK: Fading Amber
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His fingers sank into my hair and combed loose the wet curls. Not wanting to be idle, I let my fingers do some loosening too, starting with the buttons of his shirt. Each free button exposed more of his creamy white skin and strengthened my resolve to continue. His body tensed, his breathing sped up, straining to keep still as he studied my reaction.
I admired our color contrast of porcelain and copper, and enjoyed the texture and the pulsating energy under my hand. I kissed everywhere my mouth could reach and my lips burned from the salty heat of his skin. He smelled sweet, a heady musk of vanilla and sugar and other confections that seemed to seep out of his pores. He must have had enough because he gripped my hair and kissed me again. The kiss was a devouring of the sweetest and highest order where breathing was no longer a top priority.
I didn't notice we were moving until I felt the soft padding of the mattress. He crawled over me, leaving nips on my neck and shoulder and lower still. His hair spilled over his face and slid over my skin in satin ribbons.
“Tell me to stop,” he demanded softly, his breath hot and sweet against my neck. “Hit me. Push me away, scream out; anything to make me stop.” He began to move against me, the rough texture of his jeans creating a delicious friction.
My hands threaded through his hair, then held a chunk of it in a fist as his hands slipped under my towel. His tongue invaded my mouth and stroked in the same maddening rhythm as his fingers. Just before I went cross-eyed, he broke the kiss long enough for me to catch my breath.
“It's not too late to stop,” he pleaded then licked the seam of my mouth in a slow, languorous glide.
“Yes it is,” I said just below a whisper, which was as loud as my lung capacity would allow. It was true; it was too late—months too late—and I needed to feel something other than anguish right now. There was that conscious part of me that screamed for me to hit the brakes and consider the consequences of going farther, but all I could focus on was his hands and the fire quickly spreading in my belly.
He stopped touching me and I whimpered at the loss and reached blindly for his warmth.
I opened my eyes and found him kneeling over me, peeling off his shirt one shoulder at a time. He made a show of it, and if I had cash on hand I would've slipped it into his jeans. In that moment I would've emptied my bank account, broken into my college fund to see more. The look he gave me implied that this was a private performance, free of charge.
He tossed the shirt behind his head to the floor and I did the same with my towel without a second thought. Caleb unbuttoned his jeans then stopped to watch me. The cool air latched to my skin, but it was the feral glow in his eyes that caused the goose bumps.
I relaxed and laid back on the pillow while his hands squeezed the inside of my leg, my hip, and the doughy curve of my belly. “You have the softest skin, Samara. I'll never get over it. Never.”
He began a slow crawl up the length of my body then wrapped my legs around his waist. Not wanting to separate again, he rocked from side to side and wiggled his jeans down his hips while I helped push them off his legs with my feet.
Soft lips outlined my jaw and neck as he whispered, “I don't wanna hurt you, but you're kinda, um, new to this.” He propped his weight on his elbows and searched my face for any hesitation, any change of heart. I gave him my answer by pulling him closer.
He pinned my hands over my head, laced his fingers between mine then began to move, and only he heard the sharp gasp that followed. Caleb had covered my mouth with his own, capturing the sound, keeping my momentary pain all to himself. Trembling, he waited for me to relax, kissed the tears from my face and whispered sweet talk that made it impossible for me to keep still.
My hands traced the smooth muscles in his back and he took that as a signal to continue. The groove of his spine tightened and relaxed under each motion. The weight of his body was a foreign but welcomed discovery, the contact of bare skin against skin; the kiss of our belly buttons. I clutched on to his shoulder blade for leverage and rode out the wave that threatened to drown us both.
Our spirits met in a clash of color, the impact rattling every knot in my spine, making me arch off the bed. Emerald and amethyst melded and swirled behind my eyelids in a trippy screensaver. The past, fragmented and disjointed, filled my memory bank, inviting me to partake in his life as I assumed he was doing with mine. It took all my strength to breathe and the humidity made the air too thick to take in.
His heartbeat thrummed within my own chest, uneven at first but slowly ebbing into a strange harmony. Our energies mingled in a captivating dance before returning to its owner. Back and forth it went, heightening its pitch, building intensity until an outpour of energy left me paralyzed, speechless, and without sight.
“I love you, Samara. I . . . love . . .” The broken utterance tore from his lips and it was the last sound I heard before the world faded to black. My final thought was one of pure joy for being able to give him the perfect gift, the one thing he always wanted: for me to be his and his alone.
 
The sun was rising outside when I forced myself awake. Caleb was somewhere behind me—I could feel his warmth on my back—and I tried my best not to wake him as I got up. Even in lethargy, I couldn't block out what had happened between us. It was too surreal and it would be branded in my brain forever.
I studied the walls around the room with embarrassment. The things these walls had seen. Cold air filled the room, likely due to the opened window, and I immediately wanted to crawl back under the covers. The pillows called me to come back and I teetered toward them, but snapped back up, remembering my mission. With one eye open, I padded to the bathroom, which was a challenge as my brain was in what I call astral-potty.
astral-potty [as-tral-pä-t
] ~noun
The half-conscious state where the need to urinate is incorporated in one's dream due to the refusal to disrupt sleep. The individual falls under a false belief of wakefulness and performs bathroom functions while still in bed. The dreamer is known to awake at the last minute, but results may vary. Side effects include: bedwetting, disorientation, humiliation, soiling of clothing, and falling asleep while still on the toilet.
Whether it was sleep, or the lack thereof, I felt a little out of sorts. I felt taller, heavier, with a deep craving for pancakes. I clicked on the light and was instantly blinded by the hot bulb burning my sockets. I waded blindly to the toilet, and out of habit, lifted the seat and . . . wait, why did I do that?
My eyes still tried to adjust to the lights when I looked down to find nothing but white skin, long hairy legs, a flat chest, a toned stomach and a thin line of hair beneath the navel leading to . . .
whoa!
I was pretty sure everyone in the hotel could hear my scream. It was a good thing I was standing over the toilet, because panic didn't really help a heavy bladder.
“Omigod, omigod, omigod!” I had no other response, nothing articulate anyway. I was still partially asleep and my brain was pretty much oatmeal right now, so this could very well be a dream. I could still be in the astral-potty phase; because there was no way on God's green earth that I was standing half a foot taller over a toilet while sporting guy junk.
“Sam?” I knew that voice, and it sounded foreign coming through the door. It was mine.
“Sam, you all right?” The door opened and there I was, standing in the doorway, naked as the day I was born. Arms, legs, belly, hair, eyes—all of it stood across the room. I screamed again, which made the other me follow suit.
“What the hell?” the other me asked, all wide-eyed and hysterical.
“I don't know!” I answered, jumping up and down.
“Aim in the bowl!” The other me pointed to where I was spraying.
I held my hands up in the air. I didn't want to touch anything. Freaking out was not the right term for what I was going through, and in all honesty, I didn't know what to freak out about. All the events rammed into each other, fighting for top billing.
“Stop screaming!” the other me said.
“Then why are
you
screaming?” I asked.
“I don't know!” the doppelganger said before lowering her voice. “It's me, it's Caleb. Sam, just—”
“Get out!”
“Why? That's my body.” She pointed at me or rather to the fire hose still going off on its own.
“Get out!” I pointed to the door.
“Fine.” The other me, or, Caleb, closed the door.
Alone, I took a breath to calm down, then I saw that I was still peeing. What was he, a camel? Before I marked my territory on everything in the bathroom, I managed to angle directly into the bowl.
I'd had strange moments as a Cambion, I've had demons impersonate me, but I've never had a full body swap before. I
was
Caleb. I was inside him. His arms and legs were mine, his hair and teeth were mine, and after I flushed the toilet and went to the mirror, I realized that his eyes were also mine.
This sort of thing was written nowhere in Angie's Cambion handbook for dummies. But as my vision began to clear and I could register the cold tiles under my feet, I knew that it was a journal entry in the making.
I tried to concentrate, sensing Capone wiggling around inside. It was a strange fit. Instead of zings up my back, there was a sensation more like rolling surf beginning at the pit of my stomach and rising all the way to the base of my skull. A funny tickle traced my torso and I knew it was him. He seemed friendly, frisky even, like an eager puppy wanting to be petted.
Feeling adventurous, I took my time examining these new body parts. From a scientific standpoint; it fascinated me to see how the other half lived. His skin was so smooth.
“Samara! Cut that out!” Caleb yelled from outside.
I jumped, startled to have been caught with my hands in the cookie jar. “What?”
“I can feel that,” he said in my voice.
“You can?”
“Yup, just like you can feel this,” he said and I felt a sharp pinch on my butt.
I yelped then stared at the door and the unseen horrors that stood behind it.
“Can you come out here now? I'll explain what happened.”
There was no way to prolong this, but I gave it my best shot. I took a towel and wiped up the mess I made, washed my hands, then grabbed another towel to wrap around my waist. It was distracting having his guy parts waving in the breeze.
I stepped out of the bathroom and found him—me—sitting on the bed wearing Caleb's buttoned shirt.
I stood there for a minute, staring at myself, not a mirror image or demonic duplicate, but my real body. But the posture and sly curl to the lips was all Caleb.
“Uh, hey,” was all I could say.
“Hey. You all right?”
“Well, I don't know. Let's see, I go to sleep for a few hours and wake up a tall white dude. You tell me.”
“How do you think I feel? I'm a short black chick with perky breasts now.” He pulled open his collar and peeked inside his shirt. Licking his lips, he crooned, “Hmm.
Hello
ladies!”
“Stop that!” I slapped his hand. “How do we go back to normal? I can't go to school like this.”
“The same way we got into this mess. This is part of the Cambion bonding. This is why a mated pair can't live without each other, because we
are
each other. We're one.”
“So, you're saying the only way to go back is . . .”
He patted the bed. “Ready for round two?”
“Oh, hell no!” I leaped back. “Okay, Caleb, there is weird, there's really weird, and then there's this. I'm looking at myself right now.”
He slipped off the bed and stepped forward. As he did so, he let the hem of the button down shirt fall to the knees. My hair was a wild tumbleweed of curls, my lips were swollen and I had to admit, I had a charming, childlike appeal. However, the look Caleb was giving me was far from innocent. Those jade green eyes looked at me like I was prime rib. What was worse, I was having a reaction to this sight, on account of the heavy, delightful ache that was creating a tent in my towel. My heart was racing and I was growing dizzy from a sudden blood rush. I couldn't believe it. I was actually getting turned on by looking at my own body.

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