Blood Haze (15 page)

Rubbing
a hand down her thigh, she said, “I’m gonna get a shower then get ready for
bed. There’s really no need for you to stay. I’ll be okay here. I was just a
little unnerved about the break-in, but I’m so tired tonight…”

He
held up a hand which stopped her words. “Karmyl wouldn’t ever let it go if I
didn’t stay. If you’ll just grab me a pillow, I’ll be fine right here.”

She
shifted from foot to foot in indecision.

He
arched an eyebrow. “Go,” he said, barring any argument.

She
let out a slow breath. “Okay… well, thank you.”

She
grabbed him a pillow from the spare room and returned. Pointing to from where
she’d just come from, she said, “You don’t actually have to sleep on the couch.
I do have a spare room if you’d prefer.”

He
took the pillow and set it aside. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Now go.”

Again,
she shifted foot to foot. “Go!” he said more adamantly.

With
a hesitant smile, she trudged her tired body down the hall to the master
bathroom and stripped. Standing underneath the beating rain of water, she
finally allowed the suppressed tears and racking sobs to come. She leaned her
forehead against the cool tiles of the shower as the tears fell. No matter
what, it had always been she, Ian, and Drew, now she had neither. Her heart
twisted painfully. The thought of Ian’s body being lowered into the cold, dank
earth just made her cry harder. The anguish on Maggie’s mother’s face shredded
her.

Finally,
cried out, and emotionally drained, she washed her hair and body quickly under
the now cold water. She toweled off roughly and slipped on one of Ian’s old
football jerseys. It made her feel oddly close to him… the big dummy. She slipped
her weary body under her covers and placed her still wet head down on her
pillow. Within seconds, she was asleep… hard, dreamless – and glimpsing-free –
sleep.

She’d
been asleep for only a couple of hours when a jarring sound woke her. As
exhausted as she was, it took her a moment to realize what it was. Finally,
recognizing her cellphone’s ringtone, she snatched it up automatically, trained
from all the years of waiting for Ian to call.

Sitting
up, she answered without trying to read the display. “Hello?”

“Ara,
it’s me,” Drew said.

She
blew out a breath. “Drew…” she began, as she brought her knees up and put her forehead
against them. “What’s wrong?” she asked tiredly.

“Ara…
I can’t go on like this. I hate this. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Pain,
anger, and frustration stabbed at her chest. “Drew, I don’t know what to say.”

“She
meant nothing to me. You have to know that!”

His
words were like a cold blast of water in her face. Coldly, she said, “Funny,
when her mother slapped me in the face today after Ian’s funeral, she said
exactly the opposite!”

“Oh,
God, Ara! I’m so sorry. Oh, baby, I wish I could just go back and redo it all
over… do it differently.

“Me,
too,” she whispered.

A
sob broke through the line and she closed her eyes tightly, “I loved him, too.
You weren’t the only one who lost him today. You have to believe I’d never let
him knowingly drive in that condition. I’d just stupidly left the keys in the
ignition when we moved to…” he trailed off as his words hit him.

“When
you moved into the backseat with Maggie?” she finished emotionlessly.

“Ara,”
he sobbed, “neither time meant anything…”
  

Her
body froze at his words. “
Neither
time?” she questioned quietly.

“What?
No, oh, God, what I meant was that I’m just so sorry,” he rambled.

To
find out Drew had something actually going on with Maggie and that it’d not
just ‘happened’ as he’d initially told her, made what he’d done a thousand
times worse. More tired and cold than she could ever remember, she slowly
pulled the phone away from her ear and clicked it off. Her chest burned with
his betrayal. She jumped when the phone immediately began to ring again. She
stared down at it, focusing all her torrent of emotions on it, substituting it
for the cause of her pain. She threw it as hard as she could across the room. It
hit the far wall, causing the battery to fall away from the phone, and the
annoying ringing to stop. Arabella dug her fingers into her hair and pulled at
her roots.
The asshole
, she thought
to herself.

“Arabella?”
she heard Lynx question from the doorway.

Without
looking up, she mumbled, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You
didn’t. What’s happened?” he asked in his cultured voice.

She
tilted her head and looked at the gorgeous man at her door. He was bare-chested
and his lean muscles rippled as he moved to lean against the door’s frame.

She
gave a small shake of her head. “Nothing… Drew… he just…,” she began, then
clamped her lips closed. There was no way she’d admit to this beautiful man
that she’d been found lacking by another.

He
gave a small smile. “He is… how you say…an asshole.”

Her
eyes snapped up as he’d basically read her mind. Her lips began to twitch, then
she chuckled, then she began to laugh hysterically, falling onto her side as
laugher took her over. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t seem
to stop. After several minutes, her laughter ran out and she lay looking up at
the ceiling, her arm draped over her stomach. Remembering Lynx at the door, she
turned her head back to him. He must think she’d lost her mind… and maybe she
had. But he just smiled at her.

“Thanks,
Lynx. I needed that,” she said.

“Do
you think you’ll be able to sleep now?”

With
her head, she indicated the small television across from the bed on the
dresser, “I think I’ll watch a little TV, then I will. I’m fine. You can go.”

She
sat up as he straightened at the door. “Call if you need anything,” he said as
he turned to leave.

A
sense of loneliness filled her, not for the first time. “Lynx?”

He
turned back with a questioning lift of his eyebrow.

She
fanned her hands out in front of herself. “Do you… would you like to watch it
with me?”

His
forehead wrinkled at the question. “I…” he began before she cut him off.

“I
just don’t want to be alone…just for a little while,” she pleaded quietly.

He
gave a small nod of his head. “Okay.”

She
scooted over to one side of the bed and grabbed the TV remote and began to
click through the channels. Lynx climbed onto the bed, leaned back against the
headboard, and stretched his long legs out in front of him. She glanced down at
his bare feet. How could she find his feet sexy? She shook her head at herself.

“So…
what’s your pleasure?” she asked as she scrolled through the channels.

“Oh,
I don’t think you’ll find it on the TV,” he said, tongue in cheek.

She
twisted her lips wryly and shook her head. “You might be surprised. Sometimes
it’s hard to tell the difference between regular TV and the porn channel.”

“Oh,
do tell,” he said with a grin, leaning to prop himself up on his elbow to face
her.

“Oh…
how about not!” she said with a laugh.

He
leaned over and grabbed a clump of her hair, and ran its strands through his
fingers. “So… tell me what did good ole’ Drew have to say.”

Her
lips tightened. “Again, how about not!” she grumbled as she tossed the controls
to him. “Here, you choose something.”

He
caught the controls in one hand but continued to study her closely. After a
minute he said, “Arabella, you are not to blame for any of this and you are not
responsible for the actions of your brother or Larkin.”

She
stared at the blank TV screen. “Maybe not directly,” she finally said.

He
continued to rub her hair between his fingers. “Not in any way.”

“Maybe
if I’d made different choices…” she began

“No,
if
they’d
made difference choices,”
he concluded.

“There’re
things you don’t know,” she said looking down as she pleated the bedspread
between her fingers.

He
gave a bow of his head. “I’m sure there are, but I’ll tell you what I
do
know, Arabella,” he brushed a finger
along her jaw-line as he spoke her name in that way of his and she shivered. “You
weren’t in that car; and you didn’t put the drink in your brother’s hand. Of these,
you are innocent. Guilt… my beautiful Arabella, is a dangerous emotion on which
to cling. If you allow it, it will wrap around your soul and squeeze the very life
right out of you.”

Her
chin wobbled as she contemplated his words. She swallowed past the emotions
which threatened to clog her throat. She lifted over-bright eyes to his, “I
want my life back… the life before the accident… the life before I knew the
truth,” she whispered.

He
brushed his thumb over her trembling bottom lip. “Ahh, Arabella, you know the
saying… the truth will set you free.”

“Do
you think that’s true?”

Pressing
his lips to her brow, he sat back against the headboard, his stomach muscles
rippling once more. “Let me ask you...if you could really go back and not find
out what Larkin had done, would you really want that? Because we both know, if
it happened once, it would have happened again… if not with this girl, then with
another.”

Mimicking
his movements, she scooted up to lean against the headboard as well. “I don’t
know… they say ignorance is bliss.”

“If
we’re going to sit here exchanging cliques, how about;
knowledge is power
?” he said with a grin.

She
held up her hands in defeat. “You win, you win. Now, pick us a movie… nothing
scary or filled with blood and gore, or I’ll never get to sleep,” she said with
a grin.

His
lips twisted wryly, and in his best Dracula imitation, he said, “I want to
drink your blood.”

She
burst out laughing. “That was bad… really bad!”

He
grinned at her smiling face, and slowly his grin faded away. With a shake of
his head, he turned away from her and with remote in hand, he flicked through
the channels, finally settling on an old black-and-white movie from the forties.
She wondered what had wiped the smile from his face. Sighing, she squirmed down
and watched the flickering screen of her TV until slowly, her eyelids grew
heavy and closed.

~X~

She
was dreaming, and for once, she was happy in her dream. She was standing in an
alcove outside the Night Owl waiting for… someone, she didn’t quite know who,
but she knew she was excited about seeing him. It was raining, with just a
smattering of clouds up above. She looked up and the moon was as big as she’d
ever seen it. It seemed so close that she might actually be able to reach up
and touch it. It’s light so bright, she could almost see each individual
raindrop as it fell. She reached out a hand and the rain pelted against it,
stinging and cold. She found she like the feel of it against her skin.

She
glanced down at her sheer, white dress. And even though she knew it would
basically become transparent in the rain, she stepped out into the falling
water. She stretched her arms out to each side and threw her head back. She
opened her lips and allowed the rain to pelt her face and fall into her
upturned mouth. She licked against moisture.

She
felt someone come up behind her and wrap their strong arms around her waist.
She smiled and lowered her head. She felt cool lips press tenderly against her
neck and she shivered at the sensation. She lifted a hand to wrap into the
long, dark locks… but the feel was wrong. The hair was short and bristly
against her fingertips. She started to jerk away when she felt the stranger
behind sink his teeth into her exposed flesh. She whimpered and struggled to
get away, but he was too strong for her.

Suddenly,
Lynx appeared in front of her. She sobbed his name and begged him to save her.
He ran his hands over her shoulders and arms and hugged her close to him, while
the maniac behind continued to suck wildly at her neck. “I’m here,” she heard
Lynx whisper into her ear. “Just hold on to me.” Trusting in his words, she
clung to him… even as the man behind kept her securely clamped between his
teeth… even when the pelting rain began to feel like acid against her skin…
even when she knew she should let him go. She clung to him and slowly her mind
freed her and she slipped far away from that place and into one where she was
safe, warm, and protected.

Lynx
had long since given up pretending to watch TV, and had instead begun watching
Arabella as she slept. She’d turned toward him in her sleep, with her hands
folded underneath her cheek. He reached over and lightly brushed her tousled hair
from her face. She was so exquisite. How could any man chose another over her?
It was beyond him. Larkin was indeed a fool. That he’d hurt her terribly was
obvious.

He
inhaled deeply and her scent filled him. With his animalistic hearing, he heard
the blood as it rushed through her veins to her slow-beating heart, then back
out again. He wondered if it were possible that it tasted as good as it
smelled? His lips tightened that another knew the answer to that question. He
cocked his head to one side. He was jealous. The emotion surprised him… and
bothered him terribly.