Tainted Legacy (YA Paranormal Romance) (14 page)

“Yes, that one,” she whispered. She lowered their hands to her waist, where his other hand was firmly nestled. She let herself melt back into his chest, tilting her head back against his shoulder, his body contouring perfectly with hers as he looped both arms firmly around her. His breathing, which had become heavier, was now perfectly in sync with hers. She felt his cheek lean into hers slightly and then neither of them dared to move as the electricity between them continued to spike and spiral around them.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, Ava turned her head subtly to the side and upwards, her lips nearly brushing his. “Would you
please
just kiss me already?” she sighed.

***

I am so screwed,
Gabe thought to himself as he stripped down to his boxers. He had realized this the minute she’d slid onto his bike behind him. He’d never given anyone a ride before,
though they had asked. The feel of Ava behind him had set his body on fire. Every time he felt her fingers slide under his jacket he had to fight to keep his concentration on the road. He had never doubted, or questioned in any way, how Ava felt about him. But if he had, that single gesture would have cleared things up. When she began flirting, he knew he was in a knee deep pile of trouble.

He cursed himself for his lapse in judgment.

Rafe had gone to great lengths to tear the cross from her neck. Gabe didn’t know why. What he did know, was that Rafe never did anything that didn’t directly benefit himself. He talked as though he’d done Gabe a favor. But doing favors was not something within Rafe’s realm of capabilities.

So, aside from the obvious protection it had afforded him, Gabe had wanted to replace the pendant for the sheer purpose of thwarting whatever it was that Rafe had planned. Or, more likely, what their father had planned as Rafe’s actions were typically a direct result of their father’s requests.

However, since Rafe refused to admit anything to him, Gabe had decided to do the only logical thing. He was going to replace it. Therefore, correcting the problem.

He had gone into the jewelry store with every intention of buying Ava a pendant similar to her old one. But the moment he’d walked through the door it was as though he’d fallen off a cliff into an ocean of foolishness.

His jarred thoughts twisted into a jumbled mess. What if the cross didn’t have the same effect? The other one had belonged to her Congs Newgrandfather, a man of God. Certainly it was more potent than just any gold cross from inside of the glass cabinets. That was his first step off of the path of sanity. His second was thinking that if it wasn’t as strong, it wouldn’t work. It would only make him uncomfortable as opposed to the power of the first one making him miserable. To Gabe, discomfort was nothing. His third step toward ruination was realizing that he could live with the discomfort. And that he would be willing to pay that price after having kept Ava at a distance for so long. That thought led to the last step in his fateful mental journey. If he was willing to pay the price, why even bother replacing her original cross for one less powerful? Why put himself through it? Why not just skip it altogether? And then he’d spotted the infinity pendant and something about it had struck him so strongly that he had decided to buy
it
, instead. A light pearl and a dark pearl; opposite, separate, yet infinitely fused together. Like he and Ava.

He realized, not for the first time, how wrong Rafe had been about her. Either assuming she’d be a stuck up prude or completely wild. Instead, she was somewhere right down the middle.  A perfect combination of innocence and excitement that he had not wanted to find himself attracted to.

But he was.

Oh, was he ever.

He tossed himself down on his bed, knowing sleep was not likely.

He’d barely been able to move when she’d leaned back into him. She was tall enough to fit comfortably against him. As if the feel of her body against his wasn’t already enticing enough, her luscious scent of peaches and cinnamon nearly overwhelmed his senses.

When she’d whispered,
Would you please just kiss me already?
her lips were already so close to his all it had taken was a slight tilt of his head. Then Ava had twisted around in his grasp, sliding her arms around his neck so she could pull him closer, deepening the kiss. Her mouth and her tongue were warm and insistent in the otherwise chilly evening. She had held on to him like she never intended to let go. He was surprised to find himself doing the same as he slowly slid his hands all over the delectable parts of her body that he could reach. The only thing that kept him from getting too carried away was their precarious position at the end of the dock.

So now what
? he wondered.

He had a feeling that now that he had crossed that line, he was simply one step closer to ruining everything. An unwanted thought occurred to him. He wasn’t nearly as concerned about ruining his father’s plans as he was about ruining things with Ava for his own sake. It was a startling realization. His father needed to be kept happy at all costs.

But for tonight, he was going to forget about his father.

For once, it wasn’t hard to do. Having Ava so near him all day, it C allign="justwas hard to get her out of his head.

Now that he had kissed her tonight there was no going back. All he could think about was how long he would have to wait until he could kiss her again.

Chapter10

“You’re quite happy today,” Grier noted from her perch on Ava’s bed. As always, her long blond hair was in a low pony tail. She was twirling the ends of it around her fingers.

“I am,” Ava admitted. She adjusted the necklace from Gabe so it rested against the neckline of her ivory peasant shirt just right. She grabbed her brown suede boots and sat on the bed next to Grier while she put them on. She had gotten out of work late and was rushing to get ready on time.

“Because of that boy? What is he like?” Grier asked.

Ava sighed happily. “He’s polite and sweet and just really…I guess charming is the word I’m looking for.”

Grier had always asked about Ava’s boyfriends. Perhaps because she had no interest in dating herself, she liked to hear about Ava’s dating experiences. What Ava found comical was that Grier always seemed far more disapproving than her parents ever were.

“Have you met his family yet?” Grier wondered with a frown.

Ava’s heart squeezed a bit in her chest. Leave it to Grier to bring up the one thing that could pull a cloud over her sunny mood. “Not yet,” she told her with forced cheer. “His dad is out of town and he doesn’t get along with his brother.”

“Why?” Grier asked.

She was assessing Ava with a sour look. Ava tried not to take offense. Grier never wore a drop of make-up. Her entire wardrobe consisted of one style of jeans, long and short sleeve t-shirts in every bland color imaginable and a pair of battered brown hiking boots. Ava had pleaded endlessly over the years to take Grier shopping but she insisted she was happy with the simple clothes she wore.

Ava, however, was not. She enjoyed dressing up. She appraised herself in the mirror, adding a little eye shadow as she thought of how to respond. “He doesn’t talk about him much but it sounds like he and his brother disagree on almost everything.” She turned to face Grier again. “You know, he’ll be here any minute. You could come down and meet him.”

“No thank you,” she replied as she rose from the bed. Ava tried not to be annoyed. She knew Grier was in a grumpy mood. She had asked if she could come with Ava and Gabe. Over the years Ava had never been successful at convincing Grier that she would feel uncomfortable tagging along on a date. Of course, this could be because Grier
wouldn’t
feel uncomfortable. But it was Ava’s first real date with Gabe and as much as she adored Grier, sisterly love only went so far.

“You know, Molly and I talked about a double date pretty soon. Maybe we could change it to a group thing. Then you and Julia could come along?” The moment she said it out loud she realized how terrible the idea sounded.

But Grier smiled, making Ava feel bad all over again. “I would like that.”

She sighed as Grier left the room. She grabbed her purse and skipped down the stairs as Gabe rang the doorbell.

Instead of being met by Gabe, she was met with the most enormous bouquet of flowers she’d ever personally seen.

“What is this?!” she asked as she carefully pushed the flowers aside so she could find Gabe behind them.

“This is a date, right? It’s proper to bring flowers.” Gabe said this as though it were a fact he’d read somewhere, which caused Ava to laugh.

“These are incredible,” she said as she finally Ks s

Gabe crinkled his brow. “Why?”

“Because I’m just happy to spend time with you,” Ava explained. “I don’t need anything from you.” She left to put the flowers on the counter, knowing her mom would likely fall over when she got home and spotted them.

When they got into the car Ava leaned across the armrest and pressed her lips to Gabe’s. After the kiss on the dock and the kiss they’d shared after he’d brought her home last night, they were up to kiss number three. Ava didn’t want to take the chance of them reverting back to their old ways so she made quite the production of kiss number three. It was a little bit silly and a little bit sloppy and a whole lot sexy all in one.

“Mmmm, you smell amazing,” Gabe told Ava as she finally pulled away. “Like a chocolate covered cherry.”

“Raspberries,” Ava muttered as she buckled her seat belt.

Keeping his eyes on the road and not on Ava and her long, long legs Gabe said, “Cherries are more fitting. They’re sexier.”

“No. It’s really raspberries. I worked this afternoon. My friends always joke that I smell like a box of assorted candy. I guess I must be used to it because I never notice. Anyhow, a special order came in for ten pounds of raspberry fudge. Not only did I have the honor of making all ten pounds,” she said with the slightest bit of sarcasm, “I then got to spend the next hour boxing it up all nice and pretty. I wasn’t sure I was going to have enough time to finish. But I did. Ribbons and all.”

She interrupted herself to ask, “You think I’m sexy?”

Gabe spared a hazardous glance in her direction. “Ava,
any male between the ages of ten and a hundred and fifty would find you sexy. I don’t suppose you would know that. You probably don’t think that way.”

“What way?” Ava wondered. 

“You know. I’m sure you don’t think about that kind of stuff. Being a good little church girl and all.” His voice was just polite enough to take the edge out of words that could have been cutting.

“What? You think I’m this paragon of virtue that blew in from the Puritan Era? Is that why you never got around to kissing me until I was practically begging you for it?” Ava teased. Her mind drifted to the kiss, that first kiss that had been
so
worth the wait.

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” she admitted with a small shake of her head. “Not any more or any less than almost any other girl I know.”

“You’re always so good at doing the right thing,” Gabe told her, sparing her another glance. “I find that hard to believe.”