Keep You From Harm (28 page)

He doesn’t hesitate. Still watching me, he releases one of my arms to reach his hand down between us. He unhooks the button on my jeans before slowly pulling down the zipper. I shiver as his fingers slip inside, pushing down beneath the top of my panties, and he lightly touches the skin just above my pubic bone. His eyes continue to hold mine. He gives me a slow sexy grin before returning to my lips again, taking my breath away with his deep, passionate pulls on my mouth. Then he starts kissing his way down the side of my neck, lingering at my breasts, while his fingers slip further inside my panties, moving downward, and cupping me now. I gasp, and my inner thighs tense at his touch. I feel him push his thumb inside my folds and apply pressure as he begins an intimate massage. I’m not self-conscious like I thought I would be. I’m not embarrassed. This is Lucas. This is perfect.

Something is building inside me. It’s so intense, it’s almost uncomfortable. My muscles are quivering with tension now. I try to roll my body away, but Lucas is holding me securely beneath him. I feel him move a finger inside me, and my muscles contract around him. When he presses the heel of his hand down hard and slips another finger into me, curving it forward, my hips buck at the jolt of pleasure that rips through me. My head tilts back as my muscles grip his fingers and sparks ignite behind my eyes. My body bows stiffly while he murmurs the word “beautiful” in my ear. I can hear my own quick pants of breath as the ripples flow through me, going on and on before gradually receding, turning my muscles to liquid and spawning a new understanding. A smile curls my lips. When I finally catch my breath, I tell him, “You were wrong.”

His eyes gradually focus and curiously find mine.

“I understand the comparison,” I explain. “But healing isn’t even a close second to what you just did to me.”

Lucas throws his head back and laughs. I’ve never heard him laugh so freely before. The rich sound of it is positively musical. I reach my hands up to caress his gorgeous grinning face.

He closes his eyes and smiles with satisfaction as the fingers that were inside me slowly paint a trail of moisture across my stomach and up the length of my body. All my senses seem magnified as I register the gliding of his fingertips against me. Heat is radiating off him, and I want to pull him down to me so I can immerse myself in his warmth. I can also feel his unsatisfied desire pressing against me.

“Your turn,” I say, reaching my hands down toward the top of his jeans, hoping I can give him half as much pleasure as he just gave me.

He grabs my wrists and shakes his head at me. “Thanks but that’s not what I want right now.” His glittering eyes question mine.

Without hesitation, I nod and watch as he leans back to pull his wallet from his back pocket. He opens it, and withdraws a condom crinkling inside a foil wrapper. Placing it on the blanket, he reaches behind him for my foot. Then he proceeds to take off my shoes for me. He puts them neatly on the blanket beside us before leaning over me, hooking his fingers under the tops of my jeans, and waiting for me to lift my hips so he can pull them down. As he inches them over my legs, I watch his progress with fascination. “I never knew you were so methodical,” I say.

He looks down at me. “This is your first time. This is
our
first time. I don’t want to rush it.”

He’s so adorable and so completely off base. “Lucas, I’m really ready. Feel free to hurry it up just a little.”

He grins. Then he swiftly tugs my jeans down my legs and has them off in no time at all. Now I’m only wearing a bra that’s still askew and black panties.

When he reaches for his own jeans, I place my hands on his. My fingers are itching to touch him. “Let me.”

He lowers his hands, watching me as I lift myself to my knees and position myself in front of him. I get the button undone quickly. Then I make sure to brush against him as I slide his zipper down.

He hisses at the contact, and the sound makes my heart beat faster. Under his jeans, I can see a grey waistband circling the taut muscles of his stomach. I push his jeans down to reveal his boxer briefs and what’s barely contained inside them. I just stare for a moment, taking in this intimate part of him. I want him so badly, I can hardly comprehend it. I’ve never felt anything this strongly. I never believed I could.

I place one hand on his chest over his heart, feeling its rapid rhythm, knowing it’s in sync with my own racing pulse. Then I reach out my other hand and smooth it over his warm length. He sucks in a breath as I gently circle my fingers around him, gripping him through the thin fabric. His breathing quickens, and his long fingers lift my hand from his chest, bringing it up to his mouth. He shifts his hips, pushing himself more fully into my hand as he places a soft kiss to my other palm. When I look up at him, his tender eyes are lit with passion. He runs his fingers up and down the inside of my arm, making me shiver. I try to reclaim my hand so I can remove his remaining clothing, exposing all of him to my hungry eyes, but he only grips me harder.

My eyes flick up to find him studying my arm. “Lucas?” I ask, confused as I try to pull my arm from his grasp.

He whispers a curse as he runs his fingers over the inside of my wrist. “What are these?”

His harsh grip tells me there’s no turning back now. I don’t need to look to understand what he’s found. I close my eyes and exhale my regret. For a little while tonight, he helped me forget. My body, which had been swimming in desire moments ago, sinks slowly down to the blanket.

Abruptly, he releases my arm and pushes himself to his feet. He’s standing over me now, glowering down at me. Under his scrutiny, I self-consciously pull my bra back into place and reach for my jeans. Before I can grab them, he bends down and takes my arm again, turning it so that we can both see the three small lumps running vertically along the inside of my wrist.

“You didn’t give it to Alec. You gave it yourself!” He hollers so loudly it makes me cringe. Dropping my arm again, he turns away and rakes both his hands through his hair.

I pull on my jeans and curl my legs under me, waiting for his fury to pass.

“Why?” he finally asks. Then he drops down to his knees before me. “Why would you do this?”

“I didn’t knowingly do it,” I reply, staring down at my hands rather than at him. “Once it was inside me, I couldn’t get it out.”

He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me, forcing me to look at him. “Tell me what you mean. Don’t make me drag this out of you.”

I blow out a shaky breath. I never wanted him to know. I never wanted to see that anguished look back in his eyes. It’s the same look I took away when I helped his mother. The last thing I wanted was to be the cause of its return.

“If I’d thought about it more clearly,” I begin hesitantly, “I could have predicted this might happen. I didn’t actually think I could give it to myself. I’d seen my mother try, and it didn’t work. But what was missing when she attempted it was the family connection. That wasn’t missing this time. Once I’d taken Penelope’s disease into me, I couldn’t push it out again. It wouldn’t leave my body.”

He’s staring at me. His eyes are wide, and I can’t tell what’s going on behind them. “This is so fucked up!” he snaps at me. “You didn’t say a goddamned thing. You let everyone believe it worked.”

“It did work.”

His expression turns fierce. “Trading your life for your niece’s wasn’t the plan. I never would have encouraged you to do it if I’d known this was a possibility. You have to give it back to her.”

My eyes widen at his suggestion, and I begin shaking my head. “No, Lucas, I can’t. I can’t cure myself. Besides, even if I could give it back to Penelope, I wouldn’t.”

His jaw clenches so tightly I wonder why his teeth aren’t shattering. “We have to fix this. There has to be some way to get it out of you.”

“I’m able to dissolve the tumors as they appear. They grow back, but so far, I can control them. Maybe it will be okay,” I tell him, hoping I’m right, but not really believing it.

His eyes narrow in confusion. “Wait, you can control them, but not cure them? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either. I think it has something to do with the nature of this disease. These tumors, somehow they’re different. My energy works on them. But they come back, just like they did with Penelope.”

“What if they get worse? What if they get so bad that you can’t control anymore?” he asks, voicing my own fears.

I pull my legs into my chest and wrap my arms around them. I have no answer to his question. It’s a possibility. I can’t deny that.

“We’re going back and telling Kyle,” he states, standing now, and buttoning his jeans.

“What? No?” I quickly uncurl myself and stand up to face him. “Why would we do that?”

He pulls his shirt over his head before turning back to me. “Because I want him and his wife to know what really happened. They can’t go around thinking everything’s sunshine and rainbows while you’re slowly dying right under their noses.”

When he turns, I grab his arm and place myself in front of him. “You can’t do that. It’s not their fault. Don’t ruin this for them.”

“Finish getting dressed,” he orders. Then he steps around me and starts back up the hill toward his truck.

I yell at his retreating back. “If you tell them, I’ll never forgive you, Lucas!”

My words stop him in his tracks. He stands there for a moment before turning and stomping back to me. “So what do you want to do? Bury your head in the sand? Keep quiet and act like everything is fine? Just hope for the fucking best?! If that’s your plan, it sucks ass.”

I try not to let his anger get to me. He has a right to it. The fact is I have come up with something of a plan. It’s been building in the back of my mind since I got the envelope from UCLA. But I haven’t had time to really consider it, and if I follow through with it, I’ll be completely disregarding the warning my mother gave me in that strange dream I had.

“That is my plan until graduation,” I say. “Then I want to go to Los Angeles and try to find my father. If he has this power, too, and if he’s as powerful as my grandmother said, maybe he can help me.”

Lucas stares at me, and I can see the wheels turning in his head as this sinks in. Then he gives me a single nod. “That plan doesn’t suck ass. But your time frame does. We should go now. We shouldn’t wait.”

We?
His statement startles me. He wants to go with me, and I’m so surprised by that, a tremor of relief runs through me. But I’m still not leaving now. “I’m not running out on my high school career when I’m so close to graduating,” I inform him.

He narrows his eyes. “Dead people don’t need high school diplomas,” he says in a tight voice.

My mouth hangs open. I know he’s going for shock value to prove his point, but I can’t let it change my mind. “This is what I’m doing. I don’t want to argue about it.”

“It’s three weeks. That’s too long to wait. You don’t know how long it’s going to take to find your father. You don’t know anything about him.”

“But Alec might. I want to talk to him before the police pick him up.”

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine. We’ll talk to him together.” He steps closer to me. His eyes are burning with hurt. “I’m furious at you for keeping this from me. Why didn’t you tell me? Were you trying to protect me again?”

I’m feeling tired now, and the tumor in my back is making it hard to stand. I shrug my answer, wordlessly acknowledging my guilt.

“Didn’t I tell you to cut that shit out?”

I cross my arms over my breasts. I still haven’t put on my shirt, and it dawns on me for the first time that anyone could stumble upon us and see me. I can hardly believe how little I cared about that just a few minutes ago when he was touching me. Then his words sink in. “I’ve got news for you, Lucas. I might not always do everything you tell me to.”

“No kidding,” he says. I watch as he pulls in a deep breath and his wrinkled forehead smoothes out. “You have to stop this, Ray. You have to start talking to me. I can’t stand that you still won’t talk to me.” He reaches out for me, and I go to him, wrapping my arms around his back, feeling like nothing can hurt me when he’s holding me close.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says quietly next to my ear.

I’m not sure how long we stay this way, just holding each other, before he pulls back to look at me. “I don’t like waiting three weeks,” he says. “You realize that puts your deadline right around your birthday. We have to make sure you see your eighteenth birthday. I want you to consider taking it one day at a time. If things get worse, we’ll go earlier. No arguments.”

With all that’s going on, I’ve hardly thought about my birthday. It makes me happy that he remembered. I nod my head because I’m too tired to argue. “About what happened tonight, what we almost did,” I say sleepily, feeling warm again just thinking about it. “Should we talk about it?”

“What did we almost do?” he asks innocently.

I laugh. “If you don’t know, that’s going to make it tough to get a rain check.”

His hand cups my cheek, and his eyes narrow in on mine. “Believe me. I’m on it. You’ll get your rain check.” Then he lowers his lips to mine and our mouths open together, breathing each other in, melting into one another until I break away in pain when his hand inadvertently pushes against my spine.

His eyes question mine before realization sharpens them. Glancing from me to his hand, he frowns, but he holds back the curses I know are on his tongue. “As much as I enjoy looking at you this way, we should get your shirt on,” he says. Then he picks up my tank top, hands it to me, and watches while I pull it over my head. When he reaches down to button my jeans for me, I suck in a breath as his fingers brush my bare stomach. I wish more than anything that we hadn’t stopped. But as I watch Lucas, and see the deep furrow back in his brow, I know his thoughts are elsewhere.

“Let’s talk to Alec now,” he says, glancing at his watch. “It’s still early.”

“Now?” I just settled on this plan. I’m hardly ready to put it into motion.

“We need to be prepared if this thing starts to hit you harder. Once the police pick Alec up, we might lose our only source of information.”

I take in his determined tone and nod warily, figuring he’s probably right. “So what? We just drive over to his house and hope he’s there?”

“Pretty much.” He takes my hand, and we climb the short hill together. “Let’s not tell Alec he isn’t dying though,” he says. “We’ll tell him you want to meet your father. That’s our only reason for being there as far as he’s concerned.”

“Okay.” I’m clenching my jaw now. I need to start dissolving these tumors. Lucas pulls open the door for me, but I just stand there. My back feels like it’s on fire. I don’t think I can climb in.

“Ray?”

“Can you lift me inside?” I have to ask.

His mouth is a tight line as he effortlessly picks me up and gently sets me down on the seat.

“I need a few quiet minutes,” I say, hoping he’ll give them to me without starting the argument about leaving earlier again. When he nods and leans against the door to watch me, I close my eyes and try to relax. It takes less than five minutes to direct the energy around my body and shrink the tumors. When it’s done, I open my eyes and smile weakly at him. Then I reach my hand out for the door handle. His mood is unreadable as he reluctantly steps aside so I can pull the door closed.

I’m glad Lucas remembers the way to Alec’s house because I certainly don’t. When we arrive, it looks much the same as it did the night we came for Alec’s birthday. I see his white sedan in the driveway, and I’m both apprehensive and relieved to find that he’s at home.