Strong (Kindred #1) (5 page)

“Tell me about yourself, Carmen.” he whispers into the darkness.

“What do you want to know?”

“Just… stuff. What’s your favourite food?”

“It’s going to sound really strange, but lasagne.” I grin to myself.

“Lasagne?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is about it, maybe it’s the pasta or the béchamel sauce topping, I don’t really know. But I could eat my weight in it and garlic bread, I really could.”

“I thought you would give the girl answer and say chocolate.” he laughs.

“Don’t get me wrong, I could eat my weight in that too when I’m in the mood, but the way to my heart is a huge portion of lasagne and garlic bread. What’s yours?”

“Pizza. I have to say that right? I’m from Chicago, if I said salad, my friends would never forgive me.”

“I’ve never tried pizza from Chicago, I’ve actually never even been to Chicago, so I can’t possibly comment.”

“It’s like slices of Heaven, I’m telling you.”

“Maybe I’ll get to try it one day.” I smile, hoping that one day I would.

“Come to Chicago, I’ll show you around, take you to the best pizza place there is.” he tells me, pulling me a little closer to him as we walk.

“One day…”

“Favourite band?”

“I don’t think I have one, more of a Joss Stone, Beyonce, Taylor Swift kind of girl. Yours?”

“You’ll be surprised I think,” he stops and comes to stand in front of me. “Oasis.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I told you, you’d be surprised.”

“I really am.” I smile, looking at him.

The moonlight reflected in his eyes does funny things to my stomach, those butterflies are in full flight now. He reaches for my hand and I don’t pull away, I don’t ask him to stop, because it feels right, normal even. We walk along the beach a little more before going back in the direction we came from. When we reach a small bench on the sand Carter stops.

“Are you tired?”

“No.”

I’m really not, I’m enjoying being with Carter way too much to be tired and something inside of me doesn’t want this night to end.

“It’s going to sound crazy, but how about I go get a blanket from my room and we can stay out here and chat some more?” he looks unsure, like he’s just asked something huge from me.

“I’d really like that.” I tell him, my stomach doing a big somersault.

“Do you need anything else?” he asks me.

“Nope just the blanket.” I grin, sitting down.

“I’ll be two minutes.” he tells me before turning and running back up the steps.

I wrap my arms around myself and grin, I’m smiling for what feels like the first time in a long time, I’m not going to worry about anything else except tonight right now. Tomorrow, I’ll worry about everything else, but tonight I’m going to focus on being happy.

T
here must be a blanket in here somewhere?

Hotels always have blankets in the rooms don’t they?

Turns out this one doesn’t.

Shit
.

I look at the bed and decide the decorative cover thing will have to do. I tug it off the bed and head back out. It’s only when I walk past the little tray that holds everything you need to make a coffee, I have an idea.

I fill the kettle up and empty two of the little sachets of hot chocolate into the two mugs. Using the silly little pots of milk, I mix the chocolate powder into a paste, this is the secret to the best hot chocolate every time. The kettle seems to take forever to boil and I contemplate just leaving it when it clicks off.

Slowly, so I don’t burn myself, I pour the hot water over the chocolate paste and mix it together, perfect. As a last minute thought, I pick up the two packs of chocolate chip cookies from the tray then throw the comforter over my shoulder. Carefully, I pick up the two cups and finally head out of my room and downstairs. I don’t pass anyone on the way, which is lucky, because I’m not entirely sure I should be taking this stuff outside with me. I step back into the cold night and can just make out the top of Carmen’s head, she’s still sitting on the bench I’m pleased to see. I head down to the sand and she turns her head when she hears me approach. The smile she flashes me makes my stomach clench, she is so unbelievably gorgeous and I’m not even sure she’s aware of it.

“You have more than a blanket.” she grins at me.

“I thought we could have hot chocolate and cookies, keep us warm.” I tell her, handing her one of the mugs.

She wraps her hands around it and takes a sip, her eyes practically roll into the back of her head as she swallows and the sexiest groan escapes her lips, she takes another sip then looks at me with wide, happy eyes.

“How on earth did you make this with just hot water from a kettle?” she asks, taking another sip.

“A little trick I learned from my Mom, it ensures you have the best hot chocolate time after time.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Nope. Shuffle over, I’m getting cold out here.”

She moves over and I sit down next to her, pulling her close to my side and wrapping the comforter around the both of us, from my pocket I pull out the two packets of cookies and hand her one, she takes it and opens it before taking a bite out of one.

“You know,” she says, dunking her cookie into her hot chocolate. “Disregard what I said before… the way to my heart is your hot chocolate and cookies.”

“Is it now?” I grin.

We sit huddled together, drinking our hot chocolate and laughing about silly stuff for ages. It’s so easy being with her, it feels like I’ve known her forever. I’ve learned so much about her too; her favourite colour is red, she loves to take long walks in the winter wearing her big fluffy hat and scarf and she hates being cold. I don’t remember ever smiling so much in my life before and by the time the sun starts to come up, my cheeks and stomach hurt from laughing so much.

“I think we better get some sleep.” she yawns, stretching her arms above her head.

“Is there any point? It will be time to get up soon.” I tell her, not wanting to end what has been the best night of my life.

“We should at least go and shower, if we turn up for breakfast in yesterday’s clothes, together, people are going to get the wrong idea.”

“Would that be such a bad thing? Is the thought of them thinking we spent the night together really so bad?”

“We did spend the night together, Carter. But not how they’ll think we did.”

“We know that, does it matter what they think?” I ask, raising my hand to trace the frown on her face.

“No…” she meets my eyes and leans into my hand a little, closing her eyes. “I still need to go take a shower though.” she pulls back and smiles before standing up.

I stand too and gather up all the things from my room, we climb the stairs to the hotel in silence, making our way into the hotel and to the big staircase that leads to the bedrooms. I fish out my room key from my pants and dangle it in front of her face.

“I’m room 206.” I tell her.

She reaches into her bag and holds her key out.

“207.” she grins.

We climb the stairs together until we’re outside our rooms. Carmen stands and turns to face me and I notice she looks different to how she did last night. Gone is the carefree smile, she suddenly looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and I don’t understand why.

“Thank you for the most wonderful night, Carter.” she whispers leaning forward and placing a kiss on my cheek.

“I can’t remember having a better night in my life.” I tell her.

I turn my head to kiss her cheek too but she turns her head and my lips make contact with the corner of her mouth instead. In the second my lips make contact with hers, I want to pull her to me and kiss her properly, I want to know how she tastes and what it would feel like to be close to her like that.

I don’t though.

Instead I’m the perfect gentleman.

“I’ll always remember it, Carter.” she smiles when she pulls back.

“Can I have your number? Maybe we can have coffee before you leave?”

“Sure. I’d like that,” she takes her phone out of her bag and hands it to me to input my number, I hand her mine and she does the same. “I’ll see you soon then?” she asks, looking hopeful.

“I really hope so.” I smile back.

I stand there and watch as she unlocks her door and steps inside, when I think she’s going to close it, her head peeks around it and she smiles at me, my heart is hammering in my chest and I feel all kinds of happy and it’s all because of her.

“Goodnight Carter, thank you for making me forget when I so desperately needed to.”

She closes the door leaving me standing in the hallway.

I helped her forget when she desperately needed to?

What does she need to forget?

I
close the door and lean back against it. My heart is hammering in my chest, my hands are shaking and I feel like I might faint any minute. I take a few deep breaths and try and calm down, I can try and blame the lack of sleep all I want, but the fact is, the reaction my body seems to have to Carter Manning is one I’ve never had before. I close my eyes and think back over last night; the chatting, the hot chocolate, the laughing, the snuggling. It was everything I could ever want from a first date with an unbelievably handsome man and yet, it wasn’t a first date at all.

I drop my heels on the floor and reach around to unzip the dress, not even bothering to hang it up, I step out of my underwear and head straight into the bathroom. I turn on the shower and while I wait for it to heat up, I look at myself in the mirror. My long hair is a little windswept, my make up from the day before is smudged yet I don’t remember ever feeling more beautiful. My eyes are alive and sparkling and as I look at myself, I realise why.

I’m grinning like an idiot.

I press my hands to my cheeks and my grin grows even more as I look at myself standing completely naked in the bathroom with steam surrounding me.

“You’re going to do it, Carmen,” I tell myself. “You’re going to kick arse.”

I step into the shower and under the spray, letting the heat from the water sink into my tired muscles. I might have had the best night of my life with Carter, but my muscles are tense and cold and the heat is helping relax them. As I wash my hair I remember what Carter and I talked about last night and I grin again.