This Darkest Man (2 page)

He
turned back to me. “I prefer to get a feel for the place first,” he said
smoothly.

“Okay.
Well, here’s the wine. I don’t know if any of its any good or not…”

Clay
moved over to the collections of bottles, which covered one entire wall as he
gave a low whistle. “That’s quite a collection.” He pulled out a bottle and
blew off the dust covering it. “You should probably get someone in to value it.
This bottle’s a hundred years old. The name doesn’t mean anything to me
though.” He replaced it and pulled a few others, inspecting them closely until
he finally decided on one. “Here.” He held it up. “This is only a few years
old. We’re probably safe to drink it without robbing you of your fortune.”

I
stepped closer to the wine and scanned my eyes over them. “You really think
they might be worth something?” I managed to disguise the hope in my voice. “My
aunt left a lot of debt against the house.”

“I
think you should at least look into—”

The
light flickered and then everything went black.

“You’re
not scared of the dark are you?” Clay asked in the darkness.

“I
like the dark.” My voice was stronger somehow now that he was unable to see me.
It was true. I
loved
the dark. No one could see you tremor with fear, or
see your cheeks flush a violent red with embarrassment. The darkness was my
friend.

I
felt him move, something brushed against me and then my hand was encased in the
warmth of his. “I’ve got the wine. Let’s go.” This was the first time that I
had noticed what a sexy voice he had, before I had been so entranced with how
good looking he was. He pulled me along and toward the stairs. I should have
been the one leading since I knew the house better, but he got us smoothly to
the stairs and warned me when I reached the first step.

The
lights were out as well when we reached the top, and he seemed to hold onto my
hand a fraction longer than necessary once we were free of the dangerous
stairs, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.

“Lucky
we cooked dinner when we did, huh?”

The
moonlight was casting enough light in through the window for us to see. “I’ll
get the candles.” I fetched several candelabras from the formal dining room and
brought them into the kitchen. He had already found wine glasses and filled
them red wine. He passed one to me after I set the candelabras down.

“Beautiful.
A candlelit dinner. Bon appetite!” He lifted his glass and I did the same,
clinking them together in a toast. His pasta dish was divine, and I ate more
than I normally would. It was so odd actually having company for dinner.
Normally, I just read as I ate. I’d lost weight since I had been here, not that
I had much to lose in the first place.

“So,
will you get an electrician to come in the morning?” he asked after he’d
finished his meal. He relaxed back in his chair and sipped his wine, but I was
so aware of his eyes keenly on me. It was good thing that the electricity had
gone out and left us with only dim light, that way he couldn’t see me blush
every time he asked me a question.

“Usually,
they come back on by themselves. I need to get it sorted out eventually but
it’s such a big job that I need to make sure that I have all my aunts financial
affairs in order first. She left everything in a bit of a mess.”
Plus
they’re going to sell everything out from under me…

“Were
you close?”

I
laughed at the absurdity of the idea, or maybe it was the wine going straight
to my head. “No. Definitely not. She didn’t like children, or anyone for that
matter. My parents use to dump me on her every summer and she made it pretty
clear that she didn’t like company, and I could either stay in my bedroom or
play in the basement if I wasn’t outside.”

Clay
arched an eyebrow. “Really? She sounds a bit of monster.”

“Oh,
that’s a common family trait.” The wine really had gone to my head if I was
speaking about family in such a derogatory way. A good family name was
everything, even when those family members did terrible things. He was staring
at me intently as if waiting for me to explain what I had just said, but of
course I wouldn’t. I straightened and began to gather the plates.

“Here,
I’ll help you,” he offered, taking the wine glasses that were now empty, but I
waved him away.

 “No,
I’ll do it. You made us dinner, I should do the dishes.”

He
cleared the table anyway. “Do you mind if I take a shower?” he asked.

“Of
course. There are candlesticks in the bathroom to light your way. Take this.” I
pressed the smaller candelabra into his hand. “Can you believe our ancestors
used to live like this all the time?”

“There’s
certainly something quaint about it,” he said, taking it from me as he turned
for the stairs. I watched him go, surprised at myself for actually enjoying
having company in the house. It probably wasn’t healthy for me to be so
isolated out here. Then again, I’d really been isolated most of my life, even
when I was in a room filled with people I never knew how to act or what to say.
Isolation was my friend, along with the dark, and I mustn’t forget that.

I
cleaned the kitchen thoroughly and made sure that everything was well ordered
and tidy, just like my aunt liked it. I didn’t know why I bothered; the bitch
was dead, but it was hard to get out of the habits of a lifetime. When Erin and
I moved in together in our final year of college, I had to catch myself from
mimicking my aunt’s tone in response to Erin’s slovenly ways and try to loosen
up. There was nothing about that woman, or anyone in my family for that matter,
who I would ever want to end up like.  The last thing I did before going
upstairs was to put the empty wine bottle in the trash. I wasn’t a big drinker,
but had drunken that wine with ease, and what’s more, embraced the loose,
careless feelings that it had instilled in me.

Clay
must have lit the candles that sat in the iron holders along the walls,
lighting the way for me. I snuffed each one out on the stairs as I passed it
but left the ones in the hallway glowing for Clay. The bathroom door at the end
of the hall opened, and steam escaped as Clay stepped out. Just a towel was
loosely wrapped around his hips, which put his body on display. For a second, I
couldn’t drag my eyes away from his well-developed chest and arms that were
still wet and seemed to shine in the candlelight. He was such a contrast to
Josh, whose intelligence and wit made up for his thin body.

“That’s
a great shower.  I wasn’t expecting that.” My reverie was broken, and I
blushed, ashamed at having been caught staring. He was rubbing at his hair with
a towel and had a wide smile on his face. Was he laughing at me?

“Yeah,”
I muttered. “Good night.” I kept my eyes down as I opened the door to my own
bedroom, which was across the hall from the one I had given him to use.

“Good
night, Mattie,” I heard him call behind me just before I closed the door. Once
safely in the solitude of my bedroom, I leaned my head against the door and
groaned. Had I really just been staring at this guy? And worse, been caught? I
was so stupid.

Dejected,
I walked toward my bed and started to get changed into my nightdress. It was
one of the things that Erin had sent me when she went on her first shopping
trip in Paris. The others were rather risqué and I could just imagine Erin
laughing as she bought them, knowing that they were things that I probably
would never wear. This nightdress, however, was more demure. It was white and
was a decent length as it reached my mid-thigh. Delicate lace covered my
shoulders and décolletage, with a silk underlay preventing it being see through
over my breasts and panties. Those panties, of course, matched. Erin was big on
matching things. She made me wear a matching bra and panties on my first date
with Josh. That was before we found out what kind of person he was, of course.

I
slid under the cold sheets of my bed and was just about to extinguish the
single candle beside the bed, when I heard a thump. A second later I heard
Clay’s door open.

“What
the hell? Matilda, are you all right?”

Grabbing
the candlestick, I reached the door and opened it to find Clay standing there
wearing only boxer shorts. This time, I managed not to stare.

“I’m
fine.”

“What
was that noise?” He held his own candle and walked to the top of the stairs.

“It’s
probably nothing. Old houses like this always makes noises,” I told him as I
followed. I’d been used to those noises ever since I could remember coming
here.

“That
wasn’t a normal noise,” he said over his shoulder as he descended the stairs.
“Stay behind me.”

I
nearly rolled my eyes at his back. “Trust me. It is.” But I followed him
anyway. He looked through every room in the house, and nothing seemed out of
place. “See?” I told him.

“We
haven’t checked the cellar.” He moved past me, toward the narrow staircase. I
let him go down first before I followed. “Man, its creepy down here.” He moved
his candle so to inspect every corner, but all he found were cobwebs. The last
part that he checked was the dark space where the skeleton had been holed up.
“Are you sure this doesn’t lead to the outside somehow?”

“If
it did, I’m sure the poor person that was left there would have escaped.”

He
twisted his head to look at me. “Ha ha, very funny.”

I
couldn’t help but grin back at him, just like I couldn’t help but notice how
perfect he looked in the candlelight.  His high cheekbones and firm jaw were
all the more prominent in the light and shadow, and as the flame flickered, it
gave him an almost ethereal appearance. We held each other’s eyes for a moment,
and for once I didn’t feel myself blush. Instead, I felt myself drawn forward,
almost as if I would be the one to initiate a kiss.

But
the sound of the door swinging closed interrupted us. It slammed shut with a
loud bang, and we both ran for the stairs. “What the hell—”A crash of glass
followed, and Clay wrenched open the door that lead to the kitchen. The wine
bottle, the one that I had put safely away in the trash earlier, lay shattered
on the floor.

“I
guess someone didn’t like us drinking the wine,” Clay said as we both stared at
the mess.

“It’s
probably Aunt Anna. She never did like people touching her things.”

He
looked at me. “I don’t know if you’re joking or not. But I don’t believe in
ghosts, someone’s done this. There must be someone gaining access to the house.
We should—”

“Stop.”
I raised a hand to emphasize my point. “There is no one else here. These things
happen sometimes.”

He
gave a laugh of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Things just get broken
randomly?”

I
looked back down at the mess of glass. “Not usually broken, but there are
noises, things fall…” I looked back up at him. “There’s nothing to be scared
of.”

He
took a step closer to me. “I’m not scared. I’m pissed that’s someone’s fucking
with us.” He was staring down at me with such intensity that I should have
taken a step back. His hand lifted to cup my cheek, the gentleness was
unexpected considering the anger that was in him. I couldn’t drag my eyes away
from him, feeling almost entranced by him. Time seemed to stop as he slowly
lowered his lips down to mine and kissed me with an agonizing slowness. I
almost stopped breathing in shock, but somehow my lips began to kiss back,
coaxed by his. I closed my eyes, and felt like there was nothing else in this
world but him and me.

His
lips moved from mine to kiss along my cheek, and I felt his hot breath against
my ear. “You are a sexy little thing, you know that?”

My
eyes snapped open, and bad memories poured in. I pushed him away, stepping back
and breathing heavily. “Stop making fun of me!”

He
paused, confused, then he went back to his normal, confident self. “I’m not.”

“You
are!” I nearly spat, my arms crossing over the front of my nightdress in a
defensive motion. He closed the gap between us, and I couldn’t look away.

“I
never joke about sex,” he said in a low tone. “I don’t like to waste time when
I see someone I want in my bed. Whatever your self-esteem issues are, or
whatever your problem is, I don’t care. This is what I want.” He hand wrapped
around my wrist and he pulled me toward the stairs.

“What
are you doing?” I didn’t even try to pull away from his grip as he led me
upstairs, my mind still whirling with what he’d just said.

“I’m
going to show you what I see.” He pulled me into the bathroom, setting the candle
stick down on the vanity before turning me so I stood in front of him, facing
the large bathroom mirror. One of his hands was firmly wrapped around my waist,
while the other had a light grip on my chin so I was forced to stare at our
reflections. I was breathing hard with confusion, anticipation and…excitement?

He
moved the arm from my waist and began to stroke my hair. “I see a very
desirable specimen. You float around in this sexy little nightgown in the dark
like you have no fear of what’s lurking there. I don’t know if it’s that
fearlessness or naivety that turns me on more.” He spoke in a low and
mesmerizing tone that worked to block out every other thought within me. I
should have told him that he was wrong and that I was scared of everything, but
I couldn’t get my mouth to work. The hand that stroked my hair moved down
lower, over the lace on my shoulder to slowly glide down over my chest. My
heart started to beat harder as that hand sensually cupped one of my breasts,
and I think that I gasped, especially as his thumb began to trace circles
through the fabric and my nipple hardened to the point where it was visible
through the garment.

The
hand holding my chin in place released it, but I couldn’t have moved then even
if I wanted to. My eyes were glued to my reflection like I was spellbound. My
other breast was cupped just as seductively as the other, and my nipple sprung
to life in a hardened peak and I felt myself begin to throb between my legs
while my breasts ached.

“You
see this body,” he murmured in my ear. “This is the body of a woman. It’s
exquisite and it’s alive. What do you think this body wants me to do to it?”