Ravens (24 page)

“So what now?”

“I want to be with you.”

“Are you going to come here?”

“And leave Julie?”

“She can come. My parents, our parents
would love that.”

“The ones who think you’re crazy?”

“Because they haven’t seen you two. If
you came—”

“And explain where we were? No one there
will believe us. We don’t belong there. You don’t belong there.”

There was a pause.

“They’re going to hurt you.”

“They wouldn’t.”

“They don’t believe you.”

“I sound crazy. I get it.”

Another pause. He had something else on
his mind.

She sighed and asked, “Liam?”

He straightened up and twisted to face
her. His expression was neither playful nor serious, but was blank and
somnolent, almost swarthy. She felt his gaze scorch across her flesh as he
appraised her. He then dragged his eyes back to her face. 

“Haven’t seen you in a while, thought
you forgot about me,” she said, her voice scratchy from sleep.

Kendra smirked, but kept her surprise
hidden, not wanting Liam to know how excited she was to see him.

He groaned, lowering his focus to her
lips. “I missed the sound of your voice.”

“Isn’t that the lyrics to a song?” She
crinkled her brows.

“Yeah, a song you had stuck in your head
a couple years back. I liked it, too. How does the rest go?” He looked back
into her eyes.

“And I miss the taste of your lips,” she
recited.

“Do you?” He crawled toward her.

She truly missed the sound of his voice,
the way the sound made her heart flutter and awoke the hibernating butterflies.
She missed the taste of his lips and the touch of his skin.

Liam glanced back at the indentation in
her belly. He lifted his hand and spread his fingers over her flat stomach. She
felt as though she were with him. She welcomed the warm and rough fingers as he
moved his hand lower to the border of her shorts. Kendra watched him as he
watched her enjoying his touch, their eyes locked. He moved his fingers back up
beneath her shirt, which he dragged up with his hand, stopping just above her
ribs where he held her with one wide palm.

His touch was numbing, pulsating, and
somewhere between a wild fire and an excruciating need. He slid his hand down
her left side and traced back on the tail of her dragon tattoo until it met its
body. He traced along the body back toward him and kept going until he stroked
its head and then the fire that burst from its nostrils. She twitched and
tightened, anticipating his touch but he didn’t dare to surrender to his
desires.

Liam clenched his jaw. He leaned over
Kendra. She neither budged, nor fell back. Liam stopped just short of pressing
her back into the bed with his own weight. She felt the pressure of the shift
in weight as the mattress compressed.

Kendra glanced at his mouth. His lips
parted. She looked back up into his eyes. They never left her. The black sclera
and white pupils, so terrifying and strange before, were now sensual and
powerful. The Raven in her craved the superhuman features. He was Liam, and she
desired him, but he was also a Raven, and that made him even more enticing.

“Do you,” he repeated the unanswered
question, “miss the taste of my lips?”

His cool and refreshing breath crashed
against her lips, parting them like a gentle force.

Liam leaned toward her, lowering his
torso so that it brushed against her chest. She gasped, arching herself further
against his torso. Butterflies cramped in her belly as he tenderly kissed her.

She no longer cared if his skills were
at all in play. She would have never admitted this until now, but she missed
the manipulative brute. He did the wrong thing for the right reason. How could
she not forgive him?

Liam shifted his weight and nudged her
knees apart with his right leg, in a stealthy movement. He cupped her left
cheek with his right hand. She felt the tingle of energy seep into her skin,
making her warm then hot. The heat trailed down her throat and chest and
radiated outward, leaving a trail of fire, taking her beyond ecstasy, beyond
self-control. His power drove her insane and she wanted more. She wanted him.
She wanted all of him and every last drop of his energy inside of her,
pulsating through every vein and encompassing her like a cocoon.

Liam kissed her, stole her breath. When
the feel of her tongue piercing grabbed his attention, throwing him into a
whirlwind of thoughts, he suddenly moved away, leaving her gasping and dazed
for more.

Reaching behind him, he wrapped his
massive hands around her knees, pushing them up to a tight bend. Then he moved
up her legs to her thighs just beneath her buttocks and yanked her to him,
almost fusing their bodies together. And in another swift move, he brought his
hands out and pulled her arms just above the elbows, so that she collided onto
the bed.

Liam fell over her, his hands spreading
on the pillow on either side of her head. He dropped onto her. They intertwined
from the hips up, his stomach pressed into hers, and then their bodies parted.
Her breasts brushed against his pectorals. He trapped her beneath his massive
body, and she very much liked it. Liam didn’t complain either.

The diabolical grin curved his lips
again.

“You need to be a Raven, and you want
me. You’ll go crazy without me,” he declared.

“Really?” She smiled. “Or is it the
other way around?” 

“You can always come back, darling,” he
whispered into her ear. “Please come back.”

“What?”

Kendra shifted onto her back in the dark
and empty loft. She sat up and searched the area, but couldn’t find anyone.

Moaning, she fell back onto her pillows.
A wonderful illusion heated up her night more than the summer season itself.
Boy, oh, boy, he was back.

No, no, no!
He wasn’t
supposed to come back, and she wasn’t supposed to welcome him. What aggravating
torture. She wanted him, and at the same time, she wanted to be free of him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kendra sat up in bed, exhausted from the
relentless night. She reviewed the conversation with her parents, running their
reaction through her head. Bringing her knees to her chest, she hugged her
legs, and rocked herself back and forth. Tears formed, but did not fall. She
had to face the truth. Kendra knew she hadn’t gone insane. Her experience in
the parallel world wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. She felt the fear, the
wind, the scratches, and the pain. She even felt Liam’s lips and his touch, but
no more.

It was time to forget that world, to
forget Liam. She lived in this realm, and she had to face the accusing and
treacherous hearts of this world. This wouldn’t be easy. Kendra thought she was
strong enough to keep her chin up and stand by the truth, but when the people
she loved changed into condemning strangers, she knew she’d made a mistake. She
should not have told them. She should have kept it a secret.

Kendra pushed back her tears. She slid
out of bed. The floorboards creaked beneath her weight as she marched across
the loft and down the stairs. She went to the bathroom and criticized herself
in the mirror. She was a wretched mess.

After two months of peace, of bringing
closure to Julie and Liam’s mystery, freedom from Liam, and revealing the truth
to someone, everything came crashing back. 

She stared at her reflection. Her eyes
were bloodshot as though she had been crying. She really wanted to cry. She
built a wall around herself, an impenetrable barrier, but she tore it down in
hopes that she could share her life with others. She was mistaken.

In one conversation, everything reverted
back to the past even worse. She stood alone in a world filled with passing
shadows. They went right through her, but never solidified long enough to take
a stand with her.

She liked it this way, didn’t she? She
liked being alone, was used to it.

After so long, she thought of him. She
missed him.
Him?
She couldn’t even think of his name, but she wanted to.
She wanted to push the word off her lips, knowing it felt so good, so right.

She spoke before thinking, and
whispered, “Liam.”

She couldn’t believe that she said his
name, as if she summoned him. She shook her head. It wasn’t as if he sat around
waiting for her to think of him so that he could race back to her.

She had been so mad at him, wanting
nothing more than to get away and go home. Now that she was home and things
appeared to be worse than how she left them, she wanted to be back in his arms.

“Agh!” she groaned. “Snap out of it!”

He wasn’t good for her! Why did she
still want to be with him?

Her chest heaved, and she clutched the
edge of the counter. She didn’t even get to say goodbye to her little sister:
Not ten years ago and not two months ago. She left in a fury, her thoughts
clouded by her anger.

She behaved like some pathetic girl,
falling for the guy who hurt her and probably would hurt her again if she gave
him the chance.

Kendra opened the drawer, pulled out a
pair of metal scissors, and set them on the counter. She glimpsed her
reflection in the mirror and examined the thick, billowing locks that fell over
her shoulders. The natural black glimmered beneath the light, adding contrast
to the pink tips. She ran her petite fingers through the tresses.

Her bangs had grown out. Two months ago,
they fell at her brows, tickling her lashes, but now they’d grown an inch
longer and whisked against her face.
He
liked her hair. In fact,
his
voice prompted it, and
his
body art inspired her ink. She couldn’t
afford to get rid of the tattoos, at least not yet, but she could get rid of
the hair.

Kendra swallowed and focused on the
gleam of the metal. She paused, contemplating.

“Don’t do that, darling.” How could she
forget his voice?

Kendra blinked. Liam stood behind her
with a heavy, sad face.

Knock it off!
She told
herself.
Don’t torture yourself. Save your dignity and stop acting like a
pitiful, little girl.
Was she so malleable, truly nothing more than clay in
the form of flesh?

She spoke to him from the reflection in
the mirror, afraid to face him. At this point, she couldn’t quite tell what
frightened her. Would she melt into his arms and become his pawn so
effortlessly? Would she spin around to face empty space? Was he there because
she willed him to be there?

“Why not?” She managed to hide the
trembling in her voice.

“I love your hair, sweetheart, long,
thick and black. And, the pink is rockin’. It’s a good look on you. Please
don’t cut it,” he pleaded in a soft voice.

“I know you like it, which is why it
reminds me of you, and I don’t want to be reminded of you.”

Kendra grabbed the scissors. She took
her outgrown bangs between two fingers and opened the scissors around them. It
would take one quick move to sever the pink tips from the black locks.

“Ah, you still hate me.”

“No,” she replied calmly. “I don’t hate
you. I never did, Liam. I just want to forget about you.”

She saw the pain spark n his face.
Kendra froze when he approached and lightly pressed his chest to her back. It
took every amount of control not to melt.

Liam drew his left hand to hers,
lowering it as her bangs swept her face. She blinked. He moved his hand to her
waist. He lifted his right hand to hers and moved her hand. Her hand quivered
as the scissors dropped onto the counter with a flat chime.

He brushed the tresses from her
shoulders, exposing her throat, as she watched him through the mirror. Lowering
his chin to her neck, he rubbed the stubble against her shoulder. She missed
the frisson of his stubble. She wanted to spin around and attack him with
kisses, but she fought it.

Liam wrapped his arms around her waist,
nuzzled her neck, then kissed it. Kendra tugged at her lower lip with her
teeth. How could a guy so bad for her feel so good? She wasn’t crazy or
imprudent, but in love.

He watched her expressions through the
mirror. He must have known that she could never really hate him, at least, not
for long.

A writhing feeling dropped into her
belly. It was a moot effort to try to fight her feelings, and she forfeited the
battle. She clutched the hair at the nape of his neck.

Liam drew his right hand across her
breast, cupping her left cheek, and turned her face toward his lips. He pressed
his mouth against hers. He grinned against her lips.

Liam spun Kendra around, pushed her
against the counter, and pressed himself aggressively against her. He peered
into her dark brown eyes and lifted her chin up toward him as he pulled away
just enough to speak.

“Did you miss me?”