Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5) (17 page)

“
I don’t know how to dance!” she said, wincing sheepishly when she stepped on his glossy black shoes.

His arms tightened around her when she tried to pull away. “Then just let me hold you.”

That she could do. Leaning up on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face into the curve of his neck. The warm night swept around them, lifting her hair, twisting her skirt around their legs.

“
You’re home,” he whispered into her temple. “No matter what happens, you will always be home. I love you, Ams.”

He said it all the time, never went a day without telling her how much, but each time felt like the first time. Her heart skipped in her chest. She tipped her face back to peer into his face, wanting this moment to forever be embedded into her memory.

“
I love you, too, Isaiah,” she whispered, voicing the words for the first time since the night in the attack.

He stopped moving all together. She was sure he even stopped breathing. He stared down into her face; his own a jagged mask of raw emotions leaping over top of each other. His fingertips were bits of hot embers ghosting the curves of her face.

“
Say it again.” His voice hitched, a single husky breath.

Her cheeks darkened, but she forced herself to keep his gaze. “I love you—”

He kissed her.

She felt the sparks burn straight down to her toes as her breathing stopped. His fingers tangled in her hair, fisting and holding her to him as he parted her lips and claimed what she willingly offered. He broke away a moment later, breathing as ragged as hers.

“
I’m never letting you go.”

***

Amalie tore herself out of that memory with a staggering gasp. A cold, hard fist wrapped around her gut and squeezed. She closed her eyes at the spearing pain in her chest.

***

“
Amalie!” Jacket raised over his head like a makeshift umbrella, Isaiah ran through the rain towards her.

Twirling under the fresh, spring showers, Amalie laughed. “Come on, Isaiah! Come get me!”

“
I’m not chasing you!” But he ran when she laughed again and bolted.

He’d dropped his jacket when she twisted around again to see. His hair was a wet cap on top of his head, plastered to his face and brow. His white shirt was wet, hugging every dip and groove of his chest and shoulders. Amalie felt something inside her stir at the sight, but she pushed it away.

“
You’re getting old, Isaiah!” she called over her shoulder. “You used to be faste—”

He caught her around the middle, the impact striking her like a charging bull. She squealed as she was swept up, spun and then thrown back into the gazebo post.

Breathless from the run, dizzy from the spin, consumed by his heat now pressed into hers, Amalie was a mess of lightheadedness.

Rain soaked them, turning everything transparent, plastering everything to them so there wasn’t even material separating them. But she couldn’t focus on that, could barely think of anything but how close his lips were to hers. How large and hot his hands were on her waist. How his every sharp inhale, exhale expanded his chest to press into hers and how he was devouring her with every hungry rake of his eyes.

“
What are you doing, Amalie?” his voice rumbled, thick, dark dangerous.

Water everywhere, but her mouth had turned into the Sahara Desert. She unconsciously licked the raindrops from her lips, only to have his gaze burn a path in pursuit the way a starving man would a banquet. His grip tightened at her sides, leaving imprints of his fingers embedded into her skin. His breathing rasped out in a husky groan that had her lips parting almost pleadingly.

“
We’re not little kids anymore,” he growled to her mouth. “We’re too old for these games.” The predator behind his eyes gleamed as his gaze lifted and pinned her. “But you know that.” His lips drew closer, stopping a mere inch from hers. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

She could scarcely breathe in fear that this all may turn out to be a dream. “I…don’t know.”

He nipped on her bottom lip,
eliciting
a gasp from her. “You do. You know exactly what you do to me.”

Then, his mouth was on hers.

***

The rain spiked off her skin, stabbing her sense back to the present, reminding her of coffins, of metal basins, water seeping…seeping…

With a gasp, she jolted, whipping around as if by moving she could somehow avoid being thrown into that watery grave again. Her hands flew up to shield her head, protecting it from the drops. But it stopped. Rain was no longer falling on her. But it was still coming down in sheets all around her, soaking her feet and making them sink into moist soil. Darkness hovered over her, a shield from the elements. It took her a moment to realize the flimsy material was an umbrella in pearl gray. It took a moment longer to follow the steel rod down to the hand holding it over her.

Isaiah watched her, his blue eyes deep, intense. They were shimmering with the same memories she was fighting to stuff back into the dark recess of her brain.

“Ams…”

She braved the rain, accepting the suffocating sensation over being with him.

“Amalie!” In two strides, he caught up to her, grabbed her elbow.

His touch nearly sent her to her knees. She felt the force of it coursing through her like a stab of lightning. It took all her strength to wrench free and whirl around to snarl at him.

“Don’t touch me!”

His hand dropped down to his side. “Ams—”

“Don’t! You gave up the right to call me that a long time ago.”

The look on his face could only be described as pure anguish. She wished it made her feel better. Seeing it only made the ache in her chest worse.

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

The laugh that escaped her throat was fierce, harsh…cold. “What did you want to do, hmm? Make me happy? You broke my heart, Isaiah! I
needed you
and you abandoned me! I needed you…” she stuffed the heels of her hands into her eyes and rubbed until dots appeared across her vision. “You swore you would never hurt me. You swore you would never leave me. You swore…God you made so many promises and I believed you. I’m so stupid for believing you!”

“Amalie—”

She jerked back when he took a step closer. In her peripheral vision, she spotted Derek, standing a discreet distance away, watching, possibly waiting to intervene if things got carried away. But she kept her fury fixated on only one man.

“I won’t fall for you again. I won’t let you hurt me again. Stay away, Isaiah. Go back to…whatever her name was! She can have you.”

Isaiah

There was no one else. There never was. He would have fallen to his knees right there and then and confessed it all, but she was running away from him. The sight of her back was so unreal, so unusual he didn’t know what to do but stand there and watch her. She had never run from him before. He wasn’t even sure his heart was still in his chest or if it was in broken tatters at his feet.

The umbrella fell out of his hand, rolling like a tumbleweed with the wind and disappearing from sight. He let it go, let himself face the elements unguarded, feeling nothing but the raging cold already claiming him from the inside.

It had been for her own good. It had been for the best! He could live with the agony every day of his life, if he thought he’d done the right thing. But he didn’t know.

His shoulder sagged. His head dropped forward until his chin nearly brushed his chest. He closed his eyes as rain plastered his clothes to his skin.

Please let me have done the right thing,
he prayed. He raised his head, opened his eyes and exhaled.

A figure moved from the corner of his eye. Derek stood watching him, a thoughtful look in those stormy gray eyes. The sight of him had Isaiah’s temper boiling over.

“Shouldn’t you be watching her instead of me?”

Derek’s eyes narrowed. His lips pursed, but he walked casually back towards the house without another backwards glance.

“Asshole,” Isaiah muttered, kicking at a clump of dirt.

It was easy to blame the other guy. It was easy to think he’d maliciously gone after Amalie just to piss Isaiah off. But he hadn’t. Garrison had given him the job because he had wanted Isaiah to decide. Derek really had nothing to do with it, but Isaiah still hated him. The guy got to be where Isaiah wanted to be. He got to spend nearly every waking hour with the girl Isaiah loved. He got to touch her. Guilty or not, Isaiah wanted to shove him off the cliff.

***

“
Isaiah?”

Beside her, sprawled on the warm grass with his arms beneath his head, Isaiah hummed quietly. He kept his eyes closed, his face tilted to the warm, afternoon sun.

“
If…if I’m not here anymore, will you come look for me?”

Turning his head, he squinted at her through one eye. “Where you going?”

Amalie looked down at the blade of grass twisted around her finger. She shrugged. “Nowhere. I’m just wondering.”

He went up on his elbow, shielding his eyes with his hand. “You know I would.”

Eyes the flawless blue of the miles of sky above them rose up and met his. They twinkled with tears and the smile now tipping her lips. “You’d come for me?”

He brushed away strands of hair from her cheek. “I would follow you anywhere, Ams.”

***

Self-loathing was a tame term for the disgust rising in his throat. Amalie was right. He had no right. How could he ask for her forgiveness when he’d gone out of his way to shatter her? Did he even deserve her forgiveness? What right did he have?

“What the hell are you doing?” he growled to himself.

Nothing but the roar of the ocean, the rush of the rain answered back. Neither were very helpful. They couldn’t answer him. No one could, not even himself. Somehow, over the year, the reason behind his decision seemed hazy, illogical, stupid. At the time, protecting her, helping her, had been the only clear thought in his head. He would have—would still—give his own life in order to save her, even at the cost of her hating him.

So why did he want her back as if his very existence depended on it? Why did her absence leave a cavern in his soul? How could she mean so much to him and he nothing to her? It was some sick, cosmic joke.

But he had brought it on himself. He had asked for it.

Well, you know what you have to do if you want her back.

But was it right of him to want her back? No. It was wrong and selfish. But hadn’t he already proven he was both of those things?

His feet squished inside his shoes as he slouched inside. He ignored the puddles he was leaving through the corridors, over the antique rugs. He was a man lost in the turmoil of his own pain.

Garrison nearly jumped out of his seat when Isaiah burst into his office. The door ricocheted off the wall and nearly rebounded back into Isaiah’s face. He grabbed it in time, slammed it closed behind him.

“I want to stay,” he declared. “I’ll work for you.”

Composure back in place, Garrison set his pen gently down on the documents he’d been poring over. He folded his hands over time and observed Isaiah with the smallest measure of interest.

“In exchange for?”

Isaiah wasn’t stupid enough to bounce on thin ice. “Because I believe what you’re doing with your research will change the world. I want to…” He faltered, cleared his throat and continued. “I want to support you.”

It wasn’t a lie, Isaiah told himself. Not entirely. He just hadn’t figured out what his own motives were, only that this felt like the most right he’d done in over a year.