Tempted by Evil (9 page)

Stepping back from the mirror, I ran my fingers through my long, loosely curled hair and glanced up to look at my reflection. I was astounded by the person I saw standing before me. My lips were full, my cheeks rosy, and my eyes popping a vibrant green. Perhaps my petition for divine intervention had been heard after all. To complete my look, I pulled my new jacket out of the closet. Just as I was about to deliberate over the appropriateness of a scarf with my outfit, I heard a knock at my door.

My breath caught in my throat in when I opened the door to see the god-like Julian leaning lightly against the doorframe before me. His blue and white button-down shirt hung nicely over a pair of designer jeans, although, as always, his clothes were the least noticeable part of his appearance. He wore the boyish grin I adored, and his sparkling azure eyes appraised me from head to toe, a satisfied expression resting on his flawless face.

“I’d say wow, but that implies surprise,” he said, his playful smirk causing my already chaotic heart to bound inside my chest.

My face warmed at the charm behind his words and the weight of his stare. I soon found myself biting my lower lip as I looked down and practically whispered, “Um, thank you.”

Chuckling a little, he extended his arm to me.

“Ready?” I snatched my key off the nightstand and took hold of his hand a bit too eagerly.

“
Ready.
”

A flashy black car was parked by the curb when we exited my building.

Julian opened the door for me, and I climbed into the passenger seat. Although I knew Julian had money, I was still surprised to see him driving such an ostentatious vehicle.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he slid into the driver’s seat beside me.

“School,” he replied with that sideways smile of his, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Someone is a little behind on her lessons in fun.”

“I blame my tutor,” I countered, returning his smile.

He arched an amused eyebrow and laughed a throaty laugh that had my stomach turning circles.

“Well, then,” he crooned, leaning in closer to me, “your tutor assumes full responsibility for correcting his egregious error.”

After a short ride, the car pulled to a stop at the harbor. Julian quickly got out of the car and came around to open my door for me, extending a hand. He led me down to the furthest slip on the dock and opened his arms in a pseudo-grandiose gesture. A large, beautiful boat stood before me, looking eager to be taken out to sea.

“The Queen of Denial? That’s quite an unusual name for a boat,” I observed as we boarded the small, stately white ship.

“Dad got her for me when I turned sixteen,” Julian responded, helping me down the stairs. “I was livid.”

“Why?”

“I wanted a car,” he explained. “Every sixteen year old guy wants a car. But the son of Maine’s largest shipping tycoon had to have a boat. I christened her the Queen of Denial—Mom said we made quite the royal couple.”

I giggled a little at the thought of the King and Queen of Denial—a boy and his boat.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” I said sincerely.

“Well, this is hardly part of your education,” he scoffed.

“I never doubted for a second you’d get back to that,” I countered, tucking my hair behind my ears. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Julian said, the force of his smile nearly enough to launch me overboard.

“I would, actually.” I played along with my best attempt at flirtation, even batting my eyelashes a little for fun.

“Is that so?” His voice was low and smooth as silk as he leaned in close to me.

“Um, uh huh,” I stammered, his breath on my face causing me to forget our conversation. He reached behind me to shut the door and gave a light laugh before taking my hand to usher me all the way onto the Queen of Denial. Once I walked onto the deck of the boat, I was in total awe―she was magnificent. Julian had set up a table with black linens and white candles. A romantic dinner for two.

Looking up at him, I blushed as I considered that this perfect creature had gone to all that trouble for someone like me.

“Part one,” he purred, arching a perfect brow at me while the corners of his lips hovered in their constantly upturned position.

“Part one?” I queried.

“Now you’re catching on.” He winked at me, leading me over to the small table with his hand on the small of my back.

Pulling out my chair for me, he waited until I was seated before seating himself—a sign of a properly raised gentleman, according to Constance.

Immediately, a man pushing a small cart appeared with two plates full of food. Chicken, vegetables, rice, and bread all crowded the gleaming metal surface. He also had two glasses of water with lemon slices. My stomach was in such a tangle that I wasn’t certain I was going to be able to eat a single morsel, but I was going to try, seeing as how Julian had made all of this happen just for me.

We sat across from one another, he looking completely flawless and relaxed, while I, on the other hand, probably looked as though there was a hair in my food.

I gathered he must have picked up on this when he asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s perfect,” I replied, looking down at my plate, around at the boat, then finally into Julian’s crystal blue eyes. “It’s so perfect, I’m afraid of saying or doing anything that might spoil it.”

Shrugging off my words, he just laughed a little as he took my hands in his. “That’s not possible, Aspen, because you’re perfect. For
me
.”

We finished our meal with easy conversation about our respective childhoods—mine with the sisters at the convent and his with the King of the Seas. We discovered that we weren’t really as different as we thought after all. About that time, Julian’s mouth widened into an impossibly wide grin as Joseph, our server for the evening, wheeled out the cart once again.

“Part two,” Julian announced proudly as Joseph removed the silver lids from the serving dishes, revealing the most decadent looking dessert I’d ever seen. “Better-than-sex chocolate cake.”

My eyes widened in surprise at the name of the sweet course, and my face turned a thousand shades of red. Julian laughed as he took in my response and Joseph set the cake in front of me. Picking up my fork, I cut a small sliver with frosting to sample and placed it in my mouth. While I had no basis for comparison, that 'better-than-sex' cake was better than anything I’d ever tasted before in my entire life. I savored each bite in silence while Julian picked at his dessert and watched me with absorbed interest. As soon as I was finished with my cake, he happily slid his plate over for me so that I could finish his dessert as well.

“So it’s safe to assume you enjoyed the cake?” Julian smirked at me with an expectant brow.

“It was all right,” I said playfully, licking the corner of my lip. “It was chocolate, after all.”

“Good. So, on to part three?” he questioned, both eyebrows raised and right hand extended out to me.

“Absolutely,” I responded more confidently than I felt, easily placing my hand in his. Being with Julian seemed to have that effect on me.

As soon as our hands touched, he pulled me into his chest and the boat lit up with small twinkling lights that looked like stars in the heavens. Music began playing softly in the background and we swayed back and forth to its enchanting rhythm.

“This is amazing,” I wondered aloud, taking in everything around me from the docks to the lights to my date.

“You’re amazing,” Julian breathed as he twirled me around in a circle. “I’m a lucky guy.”

“You always know all the right things to say,” I said sheepishly, bringing my head down onto his shoulder.

“You make it easy,” he replied, gently kissing the top of my head.

We danced like that under the lights and stars for what seemed like an eternity, and yet it was not nearly long enough. Finally, when my feet were no longer holding me up, only the strength of Julian’s arms alone, he pulled me in so close that I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began.

His kiss was as soft as a feather lost on the wind when his lips lightly brushed against mine.

My head swam and my stomach did a million flips as I fought my knees’ natural inclination to buckle. It took me a moment to realize that Julian really
was
holding me upright; only the tips of my toes were touching the deck and it felt like a miracle that I hadn’t floated off altogether. Setting me back down, he took me gently by the hand and led me to the door of the boat.

“Aspen,” he began, his eyes aglow, “I just want to thank you for making this such an amazing evening.”

“Wait,” I protested, still recovering from my first kiss. “I'm pretty sure it's you who has made this evening amazing.”

“We’ll agree to disagree.” He narrowed his eyes at me teasingly, his smile still fully intact.

While walking back to Julian’s car, I thought that the evening had to be the best night of my life. First date, first kiss, first
love
, I thought to myself as I looked into the depths of his sea-blue eyes.

I was falling in love with Julian Casey.

*

I was giddy when I entered my apartment.
My first kiss
. . . I felt like I was in a fairytale, gliding along the worn-out hardwood floors with guided feet. Collapsing backward onto the bed, I touched my face as it beamed with the joy that only young love could bring. He was amazing―purely and truly amazing.

My night could not have gone more perfectly. As the moon spilled in through my bedroom window, I languidly rose from the bed to close it out, hoping that the darkness would beckon sleep to me. It was full and bright as I looked up to the sky, widening the smile on my face. Everything seemed more beautiful when happiness abounded. When I reached for the cord to pull the shutters, I spotted something in the shadows of the alley below me.

A silhouette.

A man.

Merrick?

His back was to me, walking away to slip around the corner at the far end of the alleyway. My heart faltered momentarily. Had he followed me? And to what purpose? Mystery shrouded him, and though it should have made me, in all my good sense, run for the hills, it didn't. Instead, I found myself drawn to him like a moth to a flame. A dangerous game of cat and mouse was afoot.

Another unseasonably warm day for Beaufast had all the natives bounding around town in t-shirts and flip-flops, and the tourists looking painfully out of place in sweaters and boots. Julian sweetly offered to cover my shift so that I could have a day off to digest my lessons in fun after our incredible evening together. And since the town square had the loveliest park, with benches for people-watching and reading that I’d always wanted to take advantage of but had never had cause to, I decided to indulge. I settled down onto one of the wood and wrought iron structures that looked as if it was crafted at the turn of the last century and made myself comfortable.

Pulling my book from my bag, I opened
The Catcher in the Rye to the place where Holden Caulfield was watching Phoebe on the carousel, his eyes close to tears. Crystal droplets fell down my own cheeks as his heartfelt tale pierced my soul, and I understood the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of love. The sleeve of my hoodie from inside my bag doubled as a tissue with which I wiped the tears from my face. Letting the story digest, I sat there, lids closed, cradling the book in my lap after I had finished the last page.

“I see Salinger made an impact,” a deep voice from above purred, catching me off guard.

My eyes flew up to find a pair as green as mint leaves staring back at me.

“It’s a beautiful story, Merrick,” I gushed, holding the book close to my chest. “I feel that Holden was such a lost soul who may have finally found a sense of identity and happiness by the end.”

“An optimist,” he murmured, taking a seat next to me on the bench.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” I asked, turning my body to face him.

“What is the basis for your hope?” he grunted, looking away from me and off into the distance. “Humanity becomes more depraved and apathetic by the day.”

“Humanity?” I countered, the sorrow for his jaded perspective bleeding through my tone. “You speak about people as though we’re cattle or aliens, Merrick. God created us in His image and that is the basis of my hope.”

He just stared at me with a perplexed expression, as though I were some strange creature he was observing for the first time.

“You have an interesting way of looking at things, Aspen,” he conceded, running his fingers through his already disheveled hair.

“Thank you,” I replied, biting my lower lip. “Speaking of interesting . . .”

“Yes?” he eyed me warily.

“Today’s t-shirt,” I began hesitantly. “I’m fairly certain there will be a gross mispronunciation debacle if I even attempt this one aloud.”

He looked at me questioningly for a moment before glancing down at his chest and shaking his head back and forth slightly, a smile hovering on his lips.

“Metallica,” he finally answered.