Scars and Songs (20 page)

“Don’t feed me any of your crap, Shane.  I have no idea why you think you can call me at any hour and pretend you give a crap about who I leave a bar with.” 
Pretend?  I fucking wish I were pretending
. 
I am in fucking love with you
.  I had to tell her I loved her.

“Stop, Grace.  Please!” I pleaded into the phone.  “I have a whole speech I need to say and...”

“Yeah, yeah, Shane.  Four whores and seven beers ago...save it, Shane.  I don’t care what you have to say to me.  It’s none of your business if I take home an entire football team.  Are you just pissed because you didn’t get a crack at it first?  You can’t even comprehend how someone isn’t fazed by your rock god status. Well, get it through your skull, you’re not a thought in my mind.  So get on with your life.  And don’t be pissed off at me because I tried to do you and your friends a favor by showing you I can play a few instruments.  You don’t want me to play with you guys; fine. I DON’T CARE!” 

Disconnect. 

What the hell just happened?

Did she just fucking hang up on me?
  My body went numb.  Mind reeling.  I had no right to this beautiful creature, but I wanted her more than I ever wanted anyone else.  I wanted her more than
anybody ever wanted anybody else
. 

Standing in front of her door, snow soaked through my shirt, I wondered if I should ring the front bell.  Hell no, she would never answer the door for me. 
Wow, the city was spinning around me
.

I climbed over her railing and scaled the tall iron gates to the small alleyway between her building and the next.  Falling over the garbage cans, I crawled my way to the fire escape.  I jumped up, pulled down the rusty ladder, and climbed the rungs.  My hands slipped off the wet metal a few times before I got a good grasp and made it to her bedroom window.  There was no sensible thought in my brain.  I needed to see her.  The world spun out of control around me and I felt swept up in its torrents.  

I rapped my cold wet knuckles against the glass of her window.  Inside, the curtain was pushed to the side and the vision of her,
so damn beautiful
, looked back at me.  Heat soared over my body as I placed an open palm against the icy glass near her face to try to touch her.

The curtain fell back, robbing me of my redemption.  In my skin, my blood, my bones and my soul the only truth I felt to be real was one: If this creature could love me, and if I could love her, this existence of mine would mean
something
.  I would never get to stand in heaven again.  Yet, heaven was standing on the other side of that curtain.

“Grace, please. It’s freakin’ cold out here,” I pleaded, letting my forehead fall limply against the window. “Grace, I swear I will ring your doorbell until I wake everybody up.  Open the damn window!”

The click of the lock and the harsh creak of the window sliding up was the best sound that ever touched my ears.  Well, besides the sound of Grace’s voice singing or the music that emerged from her fingers when she played.

I tumbled in, scanning the room to see if she was truly alone.  My entire body relaxed when I found no one else.  Then my gaze locked on her and I was gulping for fucking air.

The glow of the streetlights fell across her soft skin, making her look ethereal; spectral.  My God, did she wear the warmth of that soft light like no other.  Her black hair spilled over her creamy shoulders and her exquisite silver eyes shimmered wide into mine.  A loose white sheet cascaded around her body, held up only by the hands she held clasped at her breasts.  I wanted to devour her.

“You’re not dressed, are you?  Is that your sheet?”  I could feel my own breathy voice puff out of my mouth and I clenched my fists.

She tightened the hold on her sheets and her gaze slid away from mine to stare at the floor.  “What. Do. You. Want?”

Those four words were all she spoke, yet her presence was overpowering my senses.  I was aware of all of her.  The smell of wildflowers, raw heat radiating from her body, her breath quickening and the pure desire surging through her body, enveloping me.

A tension beyond anything I’d ever felt coiled deep inside me and my body shook violently.  I wanted to taste her, touch her; completely make her mine.  I wanted to feel her heat seep right into my skin and kiss her perfect lips until they were raw.

When she slowly pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, I came undone.  I stalked towards her, backing her up against the wall.  Her body responded to mine, arching off the wall to touch me, answering greedily.  I leaned both my hands on either side of her face against the wall, and watched her lips slowly part.  Instinctively, her hands came up to my chest, but it wasn’t to push me away.  I knew this because they slowly slid up and fisted my shirt and pulled me in, dropping the sheet from her grasp.  She wore nothing but a tiny bra and panties and the feel of her skin so close to me made my mouth water.

“Shane, stop,” she whispered between throaty breaths.  Yet, her body continued to press itself into mine with need.

Hovering my face over her skin, I breathed her in and gently let my forehead rest against hers.  The touch was erotic, sensual and loving.  Skin against skin, mouths open, savoring each other’s scent and feel. 

I skimmed my fingertips slow and gently over her bare shoulders and down to her waist.  She felt like warm silk shivering beneath me.

Brushing my lips across her cheek, I buried my face in her hair.  A soft gasp fell from her lips and they tilted up towards mine.

“Grace, all I want to do is kiss you right now,” I whispered.  I softly pushed her hair back and grazed my lips along her neck.  I couldn’t help but slip my tongue out to taste her sweet warmth. 
Delicious
. She pressed against me harder and moaned softly against my ear.

“Shane, please,” she whispered.  I knew her mind was asking me to stop, but I knew every other part of her body was aching for me to continue.  I felt it in her clenched fists holding me tight, her small whimpers, and her warm skin against mine.

“Just tell me why I got crazy thinking you were going home with Ethan?  Tell me why I want to kill any man that looks at you?  Grace, I don’t want to feel this way.”  Pulling my head back, I locked my eyes on hers.  I slowly slid my fingertips back to her waist, hooking one under the silky lace trim of her panties, tracing a circle on the skin hidden beneath.

She sighed softly. “
So tempting
,” she murmured barely above a whisper.

I searched her eyes and watched as tears pooled in the bottom of them.  I wanted to wipe them away, but I watched as her features hardened again and I knew our moment was
over, but I knew it wouldn’t be our last.  I didn’t know what force stopped her from taking a chance on me, or what she was afraid of, but I would be spending the rest of my time here making her mine.

“Shane. Stop, you’re drunk, you’re soaking wet, and you are so cold you’re trembling.”

The room spun around me as if I was on an alcohol fueled merry-go-round.  I stumbled to her bed and sat down, hanging my head in my hands. “I’m not trembling from the cold, Grace,” I whispered as she walked out her door.  She left me alone for a few minutes with my own thoughts.  They were dark and disturbing and I wanted to crawl out of this skin.  There was no way that I could ever replace Selah in my heart, but I desperately longed to ease the pain of losing her.  The wounds still felt fresh, even though she was taken from me lifetimes ago. 

Grace came back into the room fully dressed, carrying an armful of clothing.

A sudden sweep of fear flushed through me. 
Did I just go too far?
  “Did you wake up Conner?  Oh, God.  Grace, did you call the cops?”

“Shane, you are a real ass sometimes,” she giggled and knelt down in front of me and lifted my wet shirt over my head.  She struggled a bit with the wet material and I laughed.  She gently touched a hand to my face and smoothed her knuckles along my jawline.  Waves of heat spread through my body and I clutched at the sheets of her bed to keep me from throwing myself on her like an animal. “I have dry socks, boxers and pants for you too, but you need to dress yourself.”  Again, she left the room and I changed out of the rest of my wet clothes quickly.

When she didn’t return, I walked down the hallway and into the living room in search of her.  She stood in front of the couch that she had made into a bed for me, with her hands over her face, body shaking, silently sobbing.  It killed me to think I did that to her.  She was plainly hiding so much from me, and I ached for her to let me in.

She lifted her head and her body straightened immediately when she saw me, not wanting me to see her humanity or her moment of need. 
Shit, how damaged is this creature?

“What?” she asked me exasperated.  “There’s no way you should be going home this intoxicated in the snow with no jacket on.”  She seemed to be trying hard to act pissy.  It wasn’t natural for her; Grace didn’t come with a bitch bone in her body.  She was hiding things, from me I knew, but mostly from herself. 

“I really screwed things up with our friendship, didn’t I?  You’re standing here looking at me the way you look at Tucker.”

She laughed.

“Why are you laughing at me?” I asked moving closer to her.

“Shane, you can’t ruin a friendship, if you were only pretending to be my friend to get into my pants.”

That was so easy for her to believe.  Such a human jealous, self-pitying emotion.  And I loved her more for it.  I took her wrist and led her back to her bedroom, and she let me, placing her other hand on my back, as if she
needed
to touch
me
.  I stopped in front of the door to her room and faced her, lifting her wrist to my lips.  Her body trembled and her breath caught.

Her eyes fell to her wrists with a fear in them, and I followed them down.  A tattoo darkened the soft skin.  “You have a tattoo?”  My thumb lightly swept over her skin and my heart raced. 
What the hell?
  “It’s covering up a scar?”  I grabbed her other wrist fumbling for it; she gave it to me easily.  A horizontal jagged scar ran across both of her wrists. “Why would you do that?” I asked.

She pulled her hands back slowly to her chest.  “You know, Shane, the people that walk around you every day?  Each of them has a life separate from you.  Pasts, pains, loves and losses.  You don’t know me.  I am a hell of a lot more than a fifteen-minute screw, and sadly, most of your other
friends
are too. You just don’t ever see that from between their legs,” she whispered.

You are so right, Grace.  You are so much more to me.  So right, and I’m going to prove that to you over and over again
.  “Goodnight, Grace,” I said walking back into the living room.

The next morning, I woke up with my brain hammering against my head.  It was late morning and I was alone in Grace’s living room underneath blankets that smelled of wildflowers and summertime. 

My entire body was stiff, and certain parts could rival the hardness of a diamond as soon as thoughts of Grace wrapped in her sheet came to my mind.

The coffee pot in the kitchen was half full and still on. I figured Grace had already been up when I saw her favorite mug turned over in the sink.  I walked through the apartment looking for her. 
Empty
. 
Silent
.  I walked softly to her room and knocked on the semi-open door. 
No answer
.  I pushed the door open wide enough to stick my head in.

I struggled to swallow the huge-ass knot in my throat and sweat broke out all over my body.  Grace lay across her bed curled into a ball on her side facing away from the door.  Ebony strands of glossy hair spilled across her pillows.  The hem of her black shirt had ridden up high on her ribcage showing off a line of dark scripted tattoo across her back.  From where I stood, I couldn’t read the words.  Without even thinking, I walked closer. 

Latin, the ancient language scrolled deep under her skin. 
Nullum Desiderium,
Deus solus me iudicare potest
(No regrets, only God can judge me).  What was this creature’s story?  I held myself back from touching the black inked lines. 
Who the fuck was I kidding, I was holding myself back from licking them
.

The waist of her pants hung low against her skin and the most exquisite curve of a hip peeked out and traveled tightly into the soft ivory skin of her waist.  I stood over her and took in her features in rapt desire as she slept.  I studied every inch of her face.  The smoothness of her skin, the plump pink curves of her lips and the shape of her nose were pure perfection.  Under her closed eyes, her skin was a pale pink and a thin tear streak stained her perfect cheek. She took my breath away. 

Her hands were clenched around some papers, no doubt containing the reason for her tears.  I didn’t look at them further, whatever was in them, whatever pain they caused was her story to tell.  Not mine to take. 

I couldn’t help but stay and watch her. 
Could you blame me?
  It was one of the only times I could really look at her without her biting my head off or giving me those sexy little smiles that she pretends she doesn’t make when she looks at me.