A Demon Made Me Do It (18 page)

“
What about at night after
your grandmother has gone to sleep?”

“
What do you mean? I don’t
do anything. Why do you ask?” I hope I don’t sound as nervous as I
feel. Where is he going with these questions?

His eyes narrow. “It’s just…you
mentioned how she goes to bed early. I was just wondering how you
spend your evenings, if you get lonely or bored being all by
yourself. Do you ever go out?”

I gulp and look away. “No…not really.
Just take care of stuff and turn in kinda early myself. I’m not
really a night owl.”

He’s quiet. I hold my
breath.

“
That’s too bad,” he
finally says.

“
Why?”

“
I was hoping we could hang
out one night. Do something fun.”

I briefly close my eyes and clench my
jaw. “Sorry. I really wish I could, but I can’t. I promised Tatiana
I’d always stay home in case she ever needs me for
anything.”

Kieron thinks about this for a moment.
“Well, then. Maybe I can visit you at your house…we can make it a
Blockbuster night or something. They have great deals on the older
movies,” he says with an impish grin.

He has me backed into a corner. With a
sickened heart, I know my perfect time with Kieron is over. I’d
have to be a colossal idiot not to recognize it, and I’m an even
bigger one for ever thinking something could’ve happened between us
the first place.

“
I’m sorry…she doesn’t
allow me to have any visitors,” I whisper.

Oh, how badly I want to
freeze time…to stop the natural progression of our conversation
which inevitably leads to him getting up and walking away,
realizing he’s totally wasting his time with me…that I
really
am
the
weird, anti-social freak that everyone says I am. How stupid of me
to think
for even one second
that things might be different with him.
Stupid stupid stupid!

“
Okay, then.”

“
Okay,
what
?” I brace myself for his
rejection.

“
If the daytime is the only
time I can see you and spend time with you, then daytime it
is.”

He shifts closer to me. My heart
threatens to leap from my chest. I lick my lips nervously and hold
my breath, waiting…

Just as he leans in to me, his arm
suddenly jerks and his head swivels, followed by the sound of his
surprised laughter.

“
Whoa, got a live one
here.” He stands up and begins wrestling with his pole which is
bending almost to the point of breaking.

I jump up and move over to
avoid getting wet as Kieron steps into the water to wrestle his
catch. As I take a step back, my foot hits a slick stone, and
before I know it, my leg shoots out from under me. I scramble to
regain my balance, but it’s too late.
Splash!
The freezing spray swims up
my nostrils as I face plant in the cold water.

“
Liora! Are you okay?”
Kieron jams the end of his pole in a deep hole in the ground and
hurries over to me.

No, I am so far from okay
it’s not even funny. Kill me now before I die of
humiliation!

I nod, wiping wet hair away
from my face and spitting out the water. “I’m fine, just slipped.
No big deal.”
No. Not a big deal at all.
I’m just sitting here looking like a giant jackass covered in algae
is all. Don’t mind me.

“
Are you sure?” he asks,
concerned. He grabs both of my hands and helps me to my
feet.

“
I’m fine, just wet.” I
look down at my soggy sweatshirt and jeans. Then I look at his
beautiful, horrified face.

And then I start laughing.

Once I start I can’t stop, and soon
Kieron is laughing, too. We laugh until tears run from our eyes,
and I start to hiccup. I fetch a bottled water from the cooler and
sip it while he turns his attention back to the river. Within a
minute, he’s reeling in the giant trout.

He sets it down and eyes me
appraisingly. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Before I have a chance to ask him
where he’s going, he sprints off in the direction we came from. I
watch the fish flop beside me, still alive. Without thinking I toss
it back in the water.

Kieron comes back a few minutes later,
his arms laden with clothing. “What’s this?” I ask.

“
A clean towel and some
sweats for you to change into.”

I take the towel and blot my face and
hair. He hands me a black and red hoodie and matching pants.
“Ummm…” I laugh holding up the large sweatshirt.

“
Yeah, they might be a bit
big on you. But better than sitting around in wet
jeans.”

He’s right about that. The cold denim
is already molding to my thighs.

“
Thanks,” I say, looking
around for a place to change. I consider going behind the trees,
but the ones closest to us are pretty spread apart and won’t
provide me with much privacy. The denser patches are much farther
away.

“
It’s okay, you can change
here,” Kieron says, noticing my dilemma. “I’ll turn my back and
cover my face. A perfect gentleman, I promise.”

I hesitate only a brief moment before
nodding. I don’t want to walk far in my sticky pants. And I’m
feeling chilly. Kieron immediately turns his whole body away and,
as promised, places his hands over his face. I wait a few more
seconds to make sure he’s not going to peek. When I feel confident
he won’t, I quickly remove my nappy sweatshirt. As I replace it
with his large, soft one, I get a whiff of his musky scent. I feel
warmer already.

But I can’t take off my jeans until I
remove my boots. My fingers are trembling so much that getting the
laces untied proves to be a challenge. “Just a minute more,” I call
out, so he doesn’t turn around.

“
Take your time,” he
says.

I know my jitters aren’t
just from being cold. It’s from being in this unbelievably
surreal
situation. I
can’t wrap my head around the fact that here I am, getting
practically naked, with Kieron standing just a few feet away. Never
in a million years would I have imagined my day ending up like
this. In a
billion
years…

Kieron remains true to his word, not
once turning until I manage to peel off the mud-encrusted denim and
slip into the softness of his sweatpants. I have to fold over the
waist and roll it down a few times, but now I’m comfortable and
cozy.

“
Okay, I’m done,” I say. He
turns back around and runs his gaze up and down the length of my
body.

“
Better?”

“
Much.”

“
That looks really good on
you.”

I grimace, knowing that
can’t
possibly
be
true. The bulky sweatshirt is easily three times too large for my
small frame, and I look like I’m wearing clown pants.

“
I mean it,” he says,
walking back to me. “I like seeing you in my clothes. It’s…sexy.”
He raises a mischievous eyebrow at the last word, and I quickly
turn my head back toward the river.

“
So how come you
just
happened
to
have spare clothes and a dry towel with you? It’s almost like you
were expecting me to practically drown today.”

“
I always keep a towel in
the truck. Comes in handy. The sweats were for later, to wear
jogging.”

“
Oh. Sorry.”

“
For what?”

“
I didn’t mean to mess up
your plans.”

His eyes twinkle and he grins. “I
think my plans took a turn for the better.” He pauses and glances
down at his collection of fish. “I see we have an
escapee…”

“
Sorry,” I repeat, giving
him a guilty look.

“
I’m not.”

******

Finally, Kieron decides
we’ve caught enough fish. Correction,
he’s
caught enough, as all of mine
have been returned to the water. He grabs the tackle box and pulls
out some knives, laying them on a small board. Then he expertly
builds a fire inside a nearby rock pit.

“
You might not like this
part too much, best if you go down to the waterfall for a few,” he
suggests.

“
Oh, please. I’m not that
big a wimp. I can take it,” I scoff, positioning myself to watch
him work.

He shrugs. “Suit yourself. But don’t
say I didn’t warn you.”

He gracefully removes his sweater,
revealing his sculpted, bronzed torso. My heart quickens and my jaw
actually drops, but I immediately snap it shut when he glances at
me.

“
Cleaning fish can get sort
of messy. Don’t want to stink later.” He smiles and winks. I just
nod dumbly, too in awe of his chiseled abdomen and ripped arms to
be the slightest bit bothered by the gory decapitation and
subsequent gutting of our soon-to-be lunch.

A few minutes later he’s putting the
trout in a metal pan over the fire. Then he takes out the rest of
the food from his cooler. “How did you just happen to have all this
in there?” I ask as I snack on some of the grapes and sliced
cheeses.

“
This was the lunch I’d
packed.” he says, nibbling on some cornbread

“
This is
so
good,” I say between
mouthfuls. “I don’t even really like fish, but this tastes
amazing.”

“
It’s ‘cause it’s so fresh.
That’s the trick. Nothing store bought or restaurant prepared will
ever come close.”

I could really care less
what I’m eating right now, because Kieron still hasn’t put his
sweater back on. So I’m far more interested in appreciating his
smoking hot body than the quality of our food. But I need something
safe to talk about before something
really
embarrassing comes out of my
mouth. Watching him move wearing only his loose fitting jeans and
hiking boots, eating the food he’d caught and prepared…it’s so damn
sexy I could be eating mouthfuls of dirt and wouldn’t
notice.

“
It’s
really
good,” I murmur and steal
another peek. But this time his eyes catch mine and I see a
devilish gleam. I quickly look away, embarrassed to be caught so
blatantly checking him out.

We clean up our lunch and wander over
to sit by the waterfall overlooking the valley. Much to my dismay,
Kieron has put his sweater back on, but sitting so close to him is
consolation enough.

We sit in comfortable silence, lost in
our own thoughts. But I can sense he is holding something back from
me. So many times he seems to want to say something, but stops
himself at the last second. Other people do that with me a lot, so
I’m used to it. But when Kieron does it, it hurts. I want so much
to be able to talk with him about anything.

But it’s pretty hard to have an honest
conversation with someone when it’s based on a lie.

And that’s what this is. A
lie.
All of it
.
It’s a lie because he thinks I’m someone I’m not. It’s a lie,
because it wouldn’t even cross his mind to consider that the world
he knows is really a lie…that there really
are
creatures that go bump in the
night, and yes, monsters really
do
exist.

And…that one of them is sitting right
here beside him.

After a long silence, Kieron finally
speaks. “Liora, I have a confession to make.”

Chapter 10.
Liora

“
That sounds ominous,” I
say, my heart speeding up.

He raises an eyebrow and bites his
lower lip. “Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. You
might not really like me after you hear what I have to
say.”

“
What is it?”

He takes a deep breath and stares
straight ahead. I look at him curiously, waiting for him to say
something…anything. But his face is hard and he remains silent.
Whatever he needs to say I wish he’d just spit it out already. The
suspense is killing me.

“
I wasn’t entirely honest
with you earlier. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I think I
should just come clean so I can stop feeling like I’ve deceived
you.”

“
You lied to me about
something?” I rack my brain trying to think what he could possibly
have needed to lie to me about, but come up blank.

“
Well, I didn’t really out
and out
lie
…but I
was less than truthful… It’s just, well, I didn’t really need help
with my schoolwork like I said. I was in all advanced classes at my
old school, and I’d already done all the reading.”

Wow. I don’t know what I’d expected
him to ‘confess’ but it definitely wasn’t this.

“
So, you were just
pretending not to know anything about
Inferno
?”

He nods, shrugging. “Pretty much. I
actually won an essay contest on it last year.”