Landlocked (A water witch novel) (27 page)

The house was more silent than the desert, and the sound of Jaron’s ragged breath told me that he was feeling the same thing that I was. I loved how right and warm my hand felt in his. With wide eyes, he looked down at our clasping hands and his thumb started tracing small circles on my skin. It was electrifying. Why was I so sensitive to his touch? Surly this couldn’t be what it was like for everyone. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to clear my head, but it didn’t help. I breathed him in, and the memory of his taste lingered on my lips, breaking my will. With my eyes still closed, I pulled him into me hard and pressed my mouth to his. His tongue parted my lips and I allowed it, desperate to taste him again. He drew me into his hips with one hand and tore out my hair tie with the other. My hair tumbled down around my face, and Jaron’s bright eyes grew wild. He buried his face against my neck and my moan echoed off of the travertine floor.

I pushed away from him, breathless and. “Let’s try this again. Be quiet and follow me,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“I’ll follow you anywhere,” he said, not even trying to hide his heavy breath.

I kept my head forward. I knew his eyes were still shining with want, and I didn’t need to see them. If I did, I might lose the bit of self-control that I had found.

When I reached the last step, I stopped and Jaron bumped into me. I whipped around. He smiled sheepishly, still looking dazed and a little too affected from our make-out session. I turned back to glance down the hall before he could see my smile, I affected him as much as he did me. The thought made me giddy in a way that I had never felt before.

Once I was sure the coast was clear, we quietly sprinted to my room. I ushered him in and closed the door behind me, sealing us in for the night. For a second, the reason why he was here left my mind. The terrifying men, Jaron’s ability, and mine… all I could think about was the fact that he was staying the night with me.

Jaron smiled a shy smile that melted my heart. “Sorry about that down there.”

“I’m pretty sure that was my fault.” I distinctly remember pulling him to me, not the other way around.

“That’s okay, I forgive you.”

“I never said I was sorry,” I quipped, moving to my bed. “Come lay down. I’m tired.”

Jaron didn’t move from where he stood, wearing a pained expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“Don’t ask me to get in bed with you, Maribel.” His voice was rough.

“Why?”

He pulled a hand through his dark hair and bit his lip. “Do you know what I would do to you if I got into that bed?”

My heart clenched. “Nothing that I didn’t want you to do, and I don’t want to do that—”

“I would never do anything that you didn’t want, that’s true. But the part about you not wanting it, that’s a lie.”

I gasped.

“The only thought running through my mind right now involves tearing off all of your clothes, and it’s hard to stop myself knowing that you want me to… So getting into bed with you is the first thing that I want to do, but the last thing I should do.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to wake your aunt and uncle…”

“No.” My cheeks warmed. “Why do you think that we would have sex? It’s not like I’m experienced in that department—”

“What do you mean?”

Oh God, I hated this conversation. Why was it that I was the freak for being an eighteen-year-old virgin? It’s not like I was Steve Carrel. I wasn’t that old, but everyone acted like it was a huge deal. “I’ve never… you know,” I said, sounding like an idiot.

“You are so adorable, do you know that? You must know that?” He sighed. “Just makes me want you even more.” He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“And what about you?” I asked, sitting up to read his face. I didn’t know what to expect. If an eighteen-year-old female virgin was a needle in a haystack, a male one was a unicorn.

He grinned. “I’ve already told you.”

I pursed my lips. The most sexy man I had ever seen in my life talking to me about sex? Yeah, I think that I’d remember that conversation. “I don’t think so, maybe you talked about it with another girl,” I accused jokingly. But my joke backfired and I felt an unfamiliar sprout of jealousy bubble in my chest. For some reason my comforter suddenly seemed interesting and I trained my eyes on it.

He placed his warm hand on my chin, coaxing me to meet his eyes.

I looked up, his beauty was amazing, and staring into his eyes, I knew he was right to be cautious about lying in my bed. My body reacted just to him sitting on the edge.

“That’s the point, love. There is no other girl, never has been. I’ve never had a girlfriend, I told you that.”

I did remember him saying that. But in today’s society, just because a person said he'd never had a relationship didn’t mean he hadn’t had sex.

“So you’re saying that you’re a virgin too?” I stuttered. How could this god among men not have had women throwing themselves at his feet?

“Afraid so, begrudgingly I might add.” He must have noticed my questioning look, because he continued. “See, my whole life I never was interested in girls, like even when the other dudes in class started going crazy for them. For a while, I was embarrassed and wanted to be attracted to the beautiful girls that chased me around like puppies at school, but no matter how hard I tried to force it, there was nothing there. In fact, if it hadn’t been for my dreams, I might have questioned my sexuality.” He laughed.

“Your dreams?”

He cleared his throat and turned red. “You don’t want the details, but most nights, I would dream of beautiful women that I had never seen. Strangers that taunted me with their elusive beauty in a way that no one ever had outside of my mind.”

My fists balled at my side in response to my fictitious competition. “And now?” I asked.

“Now?” He met my unsure gaze. “The invented temptresses of my youth have nothing on your beauty.” He leaned in and gently kissed my forehead. “Now I see your face when I dream, and sometimes more than that,” he said wryly.

I elbowed him in the ribs and smiled. Maybe I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. I liked being the girl that he dreamed of, clothed or no.

“I never had to try to make myself attracted to you. I just was. The instant I saw you, it was like something inside of me woke up.”

I was sure that his words would have sounded crazy to any other girl, but not to me. He was describing my life. Only I'd never really cared that I hadn’t ever notice a boy… maybe because Sylvia had always told me that it was perfectly normal not to. “I felt the same thing when I saw you standing in that doorway.”

He smiled proudly and brushed his lips to mine gently. “Climb in bed now, you need your rest. Tomorrow is going to be a long day…” He trailed off and a worried look flashed across his face.

He had said he was going to take me somewhere the next day… I had almost forgotten the statement entirely; too preoccupied with the one he had made before it. He had made good on his promise, here he was keeping watch over me, and it was easy to drift off to sleep in the warm safety that seemed to pour from him.

***

Gray waves crashed into one another making the sea tumultuous and angry. My subconscious pulled back from the dream playing out before me, it was a repeat, so I shouldn’t be so frightened. How could I be when I already knew how the scene would end? Jaron stood aboard the skiff, crying out into the sky for reprieve from his fight.

“If you’re there, God, help me, please!” he begged as he plunged his bloodied spear into the water to defend me from the sharks.

I didn’t understand how it could be worse than the first time I dreamed it, but it was. Having already experienced it before, I was no longer distracted by the sharks or the cracks of thunder or the crashing of a wave. All I saw was his face; his beautiful, tormented face. The sharks tore at my flesh, rocking the boat I was strapped to, but it looked like Jaron was the one being torn apart.

A fin surfaced on the other side of the boat and he cursed, looking away from me to stick his weapon into the predator.

“We’ll make it,” he half cried as he stabbed at another creature, this time losing the spear in the processes.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to help him. But I could only watch as the sharks ripped at me so ferociously that the small boat almost capsized.

“No, Maribel!” Jaron looked over the side of the boat into my lifeless eyes. He dove into the water and held my face in his hands. Sobs shook his body as he cried out again. “No, love… not you too.”

Then he was dragged under. The swirling blood staining the water ripped at my heart so much worse than seeing my own image torn apart. I waited for the dream to end, but instead, a large wave spun the boat and I understood why Jaron was fighting off the creatures from both sides. There was a body tied there too, a much larger catch, though just as thoroughly ruined. A man was strapped to the boat, a muscular man that might have been handsome if this wasn’t such a macabre scene. The sandy brown hair atop the stranger’s head was the only tell that I wasn’t looking at Jaron’s ruined body.

My voice found me then and I screamed myself awake.

I tore my eyelids open and sat up in my bed, pulling the covers around me. Why was I having such horrid dreams? I had never watched a scary movie in my life! I sucked in a breath and held it in for fear that I’d start screaming again if I released the air. The bed shifted beneath me and I remembered that I wasn't alone in my room.

Jaron was looking at me, wide eyed in a panic. “Maribel, are you—”

“What the hell?” Dylan shouted from the doorway.

The terror of the dream immediately vanished as I realized what Dylan was seeing. A boy was in my bed while I sat shielding myself with a blanket, screaming.

14

Dylan sprang from the doorway with the athleticism of a jungle cat. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t what it looked like, but I was frozen in shocked horror.

Jaron bounced off the bed quickly, raising both his hands palms out non-confrontationally. “I—” his words were cut off in a whoosh of air as Dylan plowed full force into him.

They both slammed onto my carpeted floor with a loud thud.

“Stop!” I screamed, jumping out of bed. “Dylan, stop! He wasn’t hurting me.”

Jaron wasn’t putting up a fight, just holding his hands up in surrender. That didn’t stop my uncle. Dylan pulled his arm back and pounded his fist into Jaron’s head.

I caught his arm as it swung back to deliver another blow and tugged on it with all of my might. “Dylan, please listen. I just had a nightmare. That’s why I was screaming. He didn’t do anything. I asked him to stay the night with me!”

Dylan stopped struggling against my hold, but his eyes didn’t lose an ounce of the flint burning behind them. I had never seen Dylan angry in my life. I hadn’t ever even seen him bothered. He had always been so calm and collected.

Sylvia crashed into the room behind me, now she was another story. In less than a millisecond, she was running toward us, raging eyes on Jaron.

I couldn’t believe it. “Stop!” I shouted as loud as I could. Everyone gave pause as all of the flame-shaped light bulbs in my little chandelier exploded. Glass rained down around us, and Sylvia moved quickly to shield me from it.

After the glass stopped falling, Sylvia whispered, “Must have been an electrical burst.”

I took advantage of the momentary still before things got out of control again. “Dylan, get off of him!” I tugged on his arm again.

He stood up begrudgingly and brushed himself off. “You better tell us what’s going on right now, young lady.”