Authors: Melanie Matthews
“But how?” Eva asked.
Lucas shrugged. “I guess it’s love.”
She couldn’t believe it. Lucas admitted that he loved her. Her heart had just been miraculously healed.
The headmaster sighed. “That’s why this makes it all harder.”
“Makes what harder?” Eva asked, clutching Lucas’ hand.
The headmaster walked around from behind his desk and stood in front of Lucas. “I need to investigate this. Call up Dublin. There are people there who are more informed than I am about…this,” he said, waving his hand to her and Lucas. “So until I know more, and this is an order,” he emphasized, staring into Lucas’ eyes, pointing a threatening finger at his face, “you are to stay away from Eva.”
“Never!” Lucas pulled Eva to his side.
The headmaster wasn’t fazed by Lucas’ outburst. The veteran Leprechaun kept his finger pointed at Lucas’ face. “That was an order, Lucas Daly. If you can’t abide by my rules, then you will be expelled. Is that clear?”
Lucas furrowed his brow, confused. “Green Clover is supposed to help people like me, and you want to kick me out? Just because I’m helping another student? Are you fucking crazy?” he asked in disbelief.
The headmaster didn’t seem shocked by Lucas’ language. She assumed that he had heard it countless times from the students and from Lucas over the last three years.
“It’s either stay here, remain Eva’s classmate, and I stress, classmate only, or you leave, and never see her again. Now what is your choice?”
“If I decide I can’t stay away from Eva, how will you know?” he asked, confident.
“You may be able to get away with it here and there, but I’ll be on the lookout,” he said, tapping his finger against his shamrock tie. “And the professors, along with the staff will know.” He threw his hands out. “Hell, the students will know! The gossip around here is unbelievable!” Mr. Quinn smiled as if he couldn’t do anything about the rumor mills and had accepted it.
“But I love her,” Lucas said, turning to Eva. “How can I stay away from her?”
She was almost in tears—tears for joy at Lucas’ admission, and tears for sorrow that they were being forced apart. She was cursed in every way it seemed.
“If you really love her, you’d stay away.”
Eva thought of Devin. He was staying away from her. Did that mean anything?
Lucas laughed and it brought Eva out of her already messed up head. “Where have I heard that bullshit before?”
“Do it or you’re gone,” the headmaster said with a tone of finality.
Lucas lowered his head, clenched her hand, and then he gently pushed her away. “I’ll do it,” he said in a defeated voice, soft with sorrow.
Eva knew this may happen, but it did nothing to prevent the pain in her heart, as it finally ripped in two—irrevocably broken.
“Good,” the headmaster said, nodding. He picked up the phone on his desk. “I have some calls to make. Long distance.”
Lucas nodded and left. He didn’t even give Eva a goodbye glance. She turned to the headmaster and watched him dial several numbers on the phone’s pad. When he put the receiver to his ear, he nodded his head, a motion to tell her to leave, but he did it with a smile.
She didn’t smile back. She felt worse than she had ever felt before, even at her old school when they’d called her a “freak,” or at the psychiatric hospital, where the staff thought she was crazy; they just had fancy words to describe it.
She expected to be alone once she left his office, but when she closed the headmaster’s door, Lucas was there. When she opened her mouth to speak, he put a finger to her lips, silencing her. She pressed her lips together, feeling his rough skin against her sensitive flesh.
Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, securing her against his body. “Hold on,” he whispered.
She clung to him and they disappeared from the abandoned hallway of Green Clover Academy.
14
Just Friends
Eva wished Lucas had warned her.
The sensation of teleporting was new to her, and it wasn’t pleasant. Inward from her bones and outward to her skin, she felt like she was losing control of her body.
When she finally opened her eyes, she was surrounded by darkness. Lucas’ arms were still around her waist. She felt his breath against her neck and smelled his mixture of tobacco and sweat.
“Where are we?”
“A hideout,” he answered cryptically.
He removed one arm from around her, but his other arm held her tight, which she was grateful for—her legs seemed to be made of jelly. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she noticed that Lucas pull at a long piece of dark fabric. A blast of light from outside fell through, and Eva looked out a window, half-covered by a dusty white curtain. The view outside was obscured by a line of trees, but they seemed familiar to her.
“We’re at the little schoolhouse, beyond the gate?” she asked.
“It’s all I could think of on such short notice.”
He led her to a long wooden bench against the wall. They brushed the dust off and sat down. She looked around and saw wooden tables with wooden chairs, a podium up front, a dusty blackboard, shelves with decaying books, and more spider webs than she could count. The other windows were hidden by curtains, creating a dark atmosphere. It was just a schoolhouse, but it looked creepy. Maybe Colin was right. Maybe it was haunted. Obviously, Lucas didn’t think so, bringing her here.
She turned to him. His eyes were scanning every feature of her face…and below.
“How could you do that? How could you take me with you?”
She remembered the headmaster’s words on the plane that a Leprechaun could take any object with him, but she didn’t think it was another
person
.
He ran his fingers through the ponytail of her long black hair. “I’ve never done that before,” he said softly. “Leprechauns, when they can control their abilities, can take
anything
or
anyone
with them. But I’ve never teleported with another person before.” He smiled as if this were a revelation—a welcome revelation.
Eva returned his smile, but her thoughts drifted to when she’d first met Devin. He’d been holding his guitar case, and when he disappeared, so did the case. She wondered if he had vanished while holding Bree, so they could sneak off to be somewhere alone, like her and Lucas were doing. She wanted to forget about Devin, but it seemed the smallest things reminded her of him. She loved Lucas and only wanted to think about him. All Devin made her feel was confused and hurt.
So why couldn’t she forget about him? Where did she know him from? Why did she…love him?
She heard a shout in the distance.
“We’re going to get in trouble.” She tugged at his arm that was wrapped tightly around her waist. “We need to go back.”
“Shhh. I know.” He trailed the tip of his finger down her cheek. “I just want to be alone with you…away…before we go back, before we’re forced to separate.” He shook his head, cursing. “The headmaster can’t keep us apart. We’ll find a way to see each other. We just have to be cunning.”
“No, you’ll get expelled. Remember what the headmaster said.” She grabbed his hand. “Wouldn’t it be better…to be friends…than to never see me again?”
His head fell, but he continued to caress her hand, massaging her fingers. “I don’t want to be…just friends. I love you, Eva.” He lifted his head, clenching her hand. “I love you. Don’t you love me?”
“I do.”
And she really did love him. Lucas was the guy she was supposed to be with. Not Devin, despite how much she longed for him. He couldn’t even stand to be near her.
She and Lucas embraced, finding each other’s lips, tasting each other: sweat, tobacco, sweetness, desire. He swiftly pulled her to him, and now she was straddling his lap. She wanted him. He wanted her. His mouth found her neck, trailing circles with his tongue against her tender skin. She held him to her like a security blanket, needing him more than life itself. He came back to her lips, moaning as he kissed her, with his hands traveling all over her back, then over her breasts, and finally up the length of her neck, cradling her head. When he pulled his lips away, she let out a loud gasp, intoxicated from his kisses, his touch. He tilted her head down, and she looked in his blue-gray eyes, so hungry. She could feel his eagerness, ready, beneath her.
“I want you, Eva. I want you,” he said in a husky voice.
Part of her wanted him too. She thought that she was ready. But a stronger part of her disagreed for two reasons: one, they were in an abandoned schoolhouse, probably filled with rats, and two, if she were to go ahead, there would be no going back. Lucas would be her first. Not Devin.
She pulled away from him and went to stand up, but he pulled her back, holding her thighs in a tight grip against his legs.
“Please, Eva. Please, I need comfort. You need comfort. Let’s comfort each other. Let’s be together,” he pleaded, and then gently kissed her lips.
She gave in, wrapping her arms around his sweaty neck. They savored one another, kissing slowly, until Lucas picked up the pace, licking her and biting her as if he were a half-starved animal. Part of her was thrilled, but the other part, the bigger part, was scared out of her mind.
As much as she didn’t want to, she pulled away, and this time, he let her go. She stood in front of the open window, embracing the only light amidst the surrounding darkness.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” she apologized, holding her arms against her chest, feeling a sudden rush of cold from being out of his arms.
He sighed loudly, running his fingers through his blond hair. Then he leaned back against the bench and closed his eyes. “It’s all right,” he said, barely audible.
She didn’t believe him. He seemed so sad. “Really?”
He didn’t open his eyes, only nodding.
“I’m not ready,” she said softly.
Finally, he opened his eyes, stood up, and closed the gap between them. He gripped her arms gently, rubbing her skin with his thumbs. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” He looked around and turned back to her, smiling. “Maybe this isn’t the best place…for your first time.”
“Where was your first time?” She blurted the question out, regretting it instantly.
He shook his head. “That was in the past. I don’t want to talk about it.” He gently rubbed her arms with both hands, trying to soothe her worries away.
It worked. “Okay,” she said, giving in to his seductive touch.
She heard the sound of a tractor’s engine turning over.
“Must be Colin,” Lucas commented. “About damn time that piece of shit got to work.”
She didn’t understand Lucas’ hostility. “What do you have against him? What happened between you two?”
Lucas laughed. “Don’t tell me you are friends with him?” His trailed his hand down to her wrist—the wrist that Colin had gently held—and clenched it, a bit too tight. “Why did you let him touch you?” he asked with an edge to his voice.
She shook her head. “He wasn’t touching me,” she answered in a weak voice.
Lucas raised his eyebrow, not convinced. “Well, it must have been a trick on my eyes then, because it looked like he was holding your hand,”—he leaned in close to her face, their noses touching—“and you
let
him.”
She could see the anger in his once serene blue-gray eyes, now stormy like an apocalyptic whirlwind.
Scared, she gently pulled her wrist out of his tight grasp. “There’s nothing going on between us. We were just talking.” Then she found some unknown strength—a desire to know the truth. “And you didn’t answer my question. What do you have against him?”
Lucas brushed his lips against hers, and instead of pleasure, she felt pain. He wasn’t being affectionate. H
H
e was claiming her. Her heart was thumping wildly, but it wasn’t from the rush of love.
“Because…he’s always panting around my girls,” he finally answered in a low voice.
“You mean you and Bree?” she asked, despite the fear that he was instilling in her.
He pulled away from her face and nodded. She felt relieved to have some space.
“And others,” he answered. “I don’t have a problem with him. He’s the one who has a problem with me, and with who I
want
.”
She couldn’t believe his attitude. A surge of anger built up inside her, overriding her fear. “Who you
want
?!” she spat at him. “Is that all I am to you? An object?”
His face fell, anguished. “No, baby, no,” he soothed, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She allowed him to hold her, but she didn’t embrace him as he did her. “That’s not what I meant,” he added.
She pulled away from him, not as gentle this time. “Well, what did you mean?”
He lifted his hand close to her face, and when she didn’t push him away, he gently stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“I can get…overprotective,” he admitted.