Lightning Kissed (5 page)

After almost giving up, I spotted the
biggest umbrella advertising some bottled beer with a Spanish name.
I pressed my fingertips to the glass, trying to touch her. Though I
could only see her legs, I knew them by heart. She was ingrained in
me—intermingled with the cells in my skin. I would know her in a
sea of people. I could recognize her form in an ocean of
clones.

Just because she denied it, didn’t mean she
wasn’t mine.

She scissored her legs using one to scrape
sand off the opposite foot. She liked the warmth of the sand as it
cradled her body while she lay in it. There was something, she
always cooed, about how the sand was so close to the ocean, yet so
far away, that called to her. She loved the beach. No matter what
country, ocean or time zone, she had an equal opportunity beach
obsession.

I’d once imagined our sealing to be held on
a beach of her choice. With her in a simple white dress, her hair
caught in the torrent of the ocean’s gust.

Colby shot up to a seated position and
looked directly at the hotel. There was no way she could ever see
me all the way in the Penthouse, but I ducked behind the cover of
the wall anyhow. I knocked my head against the hotel wall,
completely dumbstruck again by her beauty. I peeked back out to see
that she’d relented and relaxed once more under her protective
shade.

The first time I ever saw Colby was in
Kindergarten. She was wearing rain boots on the sunniest first day
of school with lime green leggings and a hot pink dress with black
polka dots. My first thought was to ask her why she was dressed
like a slice of watermelon. The teacher made us all introduce
ourselves by standing at our desks. We had to state our name and
then our favorite thing to do. I said my name was Theo and that I
loved to play checkers. She stood and said her name was Colby,
pointing her glare in my direction and declaring, “My favorite
thing to do is not play checkers.”

She earned my heart with her checker-hating,
watermelon-outfit-wearing spunk. Even at that tender age, all I
wanted to do was jump up and kiss her pink lips.

Those days seemed like ages ago.

And there I was, no longer in love with
checkers, but still in love with her.

I dressed for dinner in dark-washed jeans
and a button-down white shirt. It was a beach, after all, so I
passed on the Chucks and went for the flip-flops. I stepped in
front of the mirror and took a deep breath. This appearance tonight
was going to give it all away—the secret of my newest gift. Best
bet: she would think I was amazing and throw her arms around me,
accepting me and my ever-growing bag of tricks. Worst case
scenario, and the one I most expected, all of this would make
things worse and our only communication, my unanswered e-mails,
would be trashed instead of read.

These were the stupid things I did—taking
wild chances to get her back.

***

Arriving a little late had been my plan all
along. I wanted to see her face. Her expression told me everything.
I knew every crease, every dimple, every twitch of her eye and the
definitions that went along with them.

So when I walked in and saw surprise,
followed by concern, mark her face—it made me more worried than
ever.

I placed the customary kisses on the temples
of my mother, Ari, and Sable. Such was our custom. I never even
knew why until Colby explained it to me when we were little. She
told me the story with bright eyes and a bold smile—she loved the
story of Xoana—a woman who, I imagined, had much of the same spirit
as Colby. When Xoana had cursed her father to the heavens and was
struck by the bolt of lightning, she was struck on her temple. So
her father would kiss her temple daily as a symbol of his
acceptance and awe of his greatly gifted daughter.

And so we greet our females with a kiss to
the temple—honoring their gift.

“Theo,” Colby whispered with a pained
expression before I kissed her.

“I will explain later.”

She nodded. I felt the motion against my
hovering lips. Her smell was incredible—the perfect mix of woman
and ocean. She always smelled of the ocean, no matter where she
was. She could be hidden in Siberia and her hair would carry the
memory of ocean to me through her scent.

I took my seat next to my mother. Colby and
I did an excellent job of pretending everything was okay. The
conversation centered on banal things, as nothing about what we
were could ever be discussed in public.

“So, where have you been… doing business,
Colby?” My father could make traveling sound like an exciting
business trip.

I stabbed my chicken, pretending not to be
hovering on the edge as I waited for her reply. I knew every place
she’d been. But when the answer didn’t come immediately, I glanced
up to find her gaze stuck on me. My face heated under her stare. To
have her look at me again was priceless. I would travel in any
condition, to any place, just to see her look at me.

“Colby.” Sable saved her daughter.

“Oh,” she said, breaking free from whatever
she was thinking about. “I’ve been to Japan, lately.”

“And Finland,” I added.

She cocked her head at me with a squint.
“Yes, and Finland. I love Olavinlinna in the fall. I sit on the top
and pretend to be a Viking princess.”

That caused people at the table to chuckle
as a whole. Colby had been reprimanded more times than I could
count for traveling to Scandinavia with her craving for all things
Viking. During her pre-teen years, she was obsessed with them. She
read out-of-her-league Viking romances and studied their history
with more gusto than she did our own. We’d go in her backyard and
pretend to be Frey and Freya—or whatever couple she wanted to be at
the time.

Our parents had always been privy to Colby
and me and the love we shared. They’d encouraged our friendship
when we were children with sleepovers and play dates. Then later,
they’d done their damnedest to stop our sleepovers and knew that
our dates were nothing even close to play.

She blushed at the attention and turned it
on me.

“So, Theo, how is New Zealand?”

“It’s beautiful. It’s been interesting. I’ve
learned a lot.”

She looked shocked. “But you’re not in
school.”

I met her gaze with my own. “You don’t have
to be in school to learn things, Colby.”

She shrugged. It was a habit of hers.
Whenever she was perplexed about something or I’d bested her in an
argument, she would shift into an attitude of ambiguity.

But I knew better.

“I need to go swimming,” Ari proclaimed.

“And we should get to bed early,” my parents
followed.

They left the table one by one. I paid the
bill after my father gestured in my direction before his
departure.

Colby opened her mouth, leaned over the
table to whisper something to me. “Not here,” I stopped her in her
tracks.

“Okay.”

She made me wait that night. I didn’t grow
impatient. I knew she’d come in her own time.

LUCENT HISTORIES MUST BE
PRESERVED BY THE SYNOD.

How could it be? I’d felt him in New
Zealand. He was there, but it was fuzzy, like static on an old
television set. It had felt that way since early afternoon. I
didn’t question it. In fact, I reveled in it. Maybe it meant my
power was waning. I welcomed less power.

I was about to find out what the hell was
going on.

I flashed straight into his room after
asking the people at the front desk which one he was in. His
parents always seemed to get adjoining rooms or cabins, no matter
how old Theo was, but I asked anyway. He stood on the balcony in
jeans—his shirt flapping in the ocean wind. I could no longer
differentiate between habit and desire with him—my feelings were
blurry. I swayed in his direction involuntarily, but stopped
myself. We were no longer together—I’d made sure that I’d stayed
away from him so the Resin, the Synod, and the government were all
kept at a distance.

Because they were constantly on my
trail.

“Took you long enough,” he remarked, still
facing the beach.

I blew out an emotionally loaded breath. “I
needed time to think.”

“And to what conclusion did you come?”

Leave it to Theo to sound cavalier at a time
like this.

He turned around and my breath caught in my
throat. His dark brown hair was gelled in a completely clean-cut
style out of another time. Even as a child, he emitted an air of
vintage class. He wore suspenders at the age of ten. In high
school, he wore button-down shirts and slacks, the exact opposite
of the other boys with their sports jerseys and ragged jeans. He
was James Dean meets David Gandy, but with glassy gray eyes. He was
my every desire and it pained me not to run to him, bury myself in
the security of his embrace, and let him tell me it was all going
to be okay. It was not going to be okay. So many suspicions and
insinuations were flitting through my mind. And none of them ended
well.

“I don’t even know, Theo.” My voice cracked
as I said his name. It showed my weakness for him.

I hated my weakness.

“Come here.” He motioned with open arms.

I screamed in response. He wasn’t just going
to hug me and think all of this would go away. “No. I’m pissed off
at you. How are you doing this? You’re gonna get caught. And then
what will I do?”

I hadn’t meant to confess that. How was it
that my weakness took center stage when he was around? Why couldn’t
I be the strong-willed person everyone else knew me to be when I
was with him?

He didn’t listen to me. Forging toward me,
he grabbed my arms and slammed me into his chest. I fought against
him, trying to push him away. He remained steady, holding me until
I broke, relenting to what I really wanted. I let it all go, crying
into the nook of his neck, letting his steady breaths and heartbeat
calm me. I knew the implications of what he was doing. I knew he
would be an even more attractive target now.

“Let it out,
Querida.
It’s a lot to
comprehend.”

I cried for a half an hour, holding him as
tightly as I could manage.

“Cry, my love, cry all night if you must,”
he said, his mouth next to my ear. I could feel his chin bobbing up
and down as the syllables rolled from his mouth.

“I won’t lose you,” I murmured, still in his
hold. My palms meant to be the barrier between his body and mine
but instead they relented to the feel of his solid pecs. I let out
a sound that Theo took as an invitation. He moved in closer, his
foot between mine, making his knee rub against my upper thigh. I
gave in and looked into his eyes, so gray they were nearly
translucent. He leaned in, the tip of his nose ghosted down the
bridge of mine and when he began to speak, our chins were connected
as his mouth moved.

“
Amada
, talk to me. One day you deny
my existence and now you’re here, in my room, telling me you won’t
lose me. And you can’t ignore the heat between us. Why? Why do you
deprive us of what we need?”

Amada
—he called me beloved. Theo and his damned Portuguese. Why
must he speak the sexiest language known to man? He’d eaten some
kind of banana caramel cake for dessert and the sweet smell flowed
with his words.
He knew what it did to me when he spoke to
me in Portuguese—the language of our ancestors calmed me with just
a few choice words.

And I did need him. I needed his bottom lip
between my teeth. I needed his warm, rough tongue in my mouth,
searching for more contact. And his hips, cut in a shape made for
my hands, rocking against mine for the sheer pleasure of the
movement—even clad in jeans, it was thrilling.

But those desires were squelched in an
instant as I remembered the real reason for my visit.

The piece of my heart I’d tried my damnedest
to ignore was in danger that far surpassed his traveling
abilities.

He thought I left him that day after his
admission of his abilities. But the truth was I’d left him long
before that. My father’s death made an immediate and profound
impact. He was so much more than a father. He was my friend. My
mother never stopped mourning him, not for one single second.

That was my problem—I didn’t want to mourn
Theo.

I thought that if I left him, he’d find a
good human girl and spend his life with someone who might actually
be in his bed in the morning.

Not like me—I might be in Greece.

So when he told me that he could flash—it
doubled our trouble. Instead of worrying about mourning him chasing
me, like my father chased my mother—now I worried about the Resin,
the government, and maybe even the Synod going after him.

Was it too much to ask my love to stay out
of trouble?