True Loves (A Collection of Firsts) (51 page)

T
ears stream
down my face as the demon’s words reverberate in my brain, haunting me every night since I made the deal with him. 
“You belong to me now, and I’ll be back to get you after your twenty-first birthday, when the time is right. No one else can touch you until then and I’ll always be around to make sure.”

I dry my face with the sleeve of my pajama top and check the clock. It’s 3:33 in the morning. Why am I not surprised? I’ve been waking up at this time for sixteen years now. At first, the same dream every night kind of freaked me out, and telling Mom about it is one of the reasons I ended up in therapy when I was a kid.  

After my body calms down, I glide my legs across the cotton sheets, feeling their smoothness against my skin. I stretch my arms over my head and yawn. Slowly, I sit up and the memory of the dream floats into a foggy haze. My hand slides into my night stand drawer and I pull out a picture of Stew from between the worn pages of my favorite book. A smile tickles my cheeks. 

For the past couple of months, I’ve had a nightly sneak-out date in the old, backyard tree house with my neighbor, Stewart Masterson. We’ve had to slink around all summer since we’ve both been home from Capital University because his dad doesn’t approve of me. Stew says it’s not 
me
, per say, just what my reputation says I am. 

Crazy. 

Sure, if I saw Stew walking with me hand–in-hand down the street, I’d do a double take, too. We couldn’t be more opposite if we tried. He’s like perky golden sunshine while I’m an overpowering eclipse. 

I shimmy on a black tank top, pull up my dark-green pants, and slide my feet into my black Converse. After I run my fingers through my long hair, dab a little lip gloss on, and pop a piece of gum in my mouth, I’m ready to meet Stew. 

My bedroom window opens with ease and I make sure the backyard is clear.  I straddle the windowsill and then start down the trellis. Thank God, I’m light enough not to break it or this would be a hell of a lot harder to do every night. That’s one good thing about being petite.  

Butterflies fill my stomach when the tree house comes into view. A rush of adrenaline flows through me as I creep in the backyard like a spy on a covert operation. I wish our relationship didn’t have to be a secret. Falling in love with Stew was so easy. Did I ever imagine Stewart Masterson, our college’s golden boy, would be my friend? No way, at least, not until we discovered each other in the backyard at four in the morning this summer. Not only do we both not sleep, we also have parental issues. It’s a match made in crazy heaven. 

Stew is the only person, other than my sister, Alicia, that I’m close to. I tell him everything. Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell him I see a shrink—no sense in scaring off the one person I want around before the junior demon comes to drag me to hell—but I did tell him demon stuff freaks me out. He thinks I have Demon Phobia. A term he discovered on the internet after Googling “fear of demons”.

Stew thinks all my issues stem from my dad always working late and my mom’s frustrations falling on me. He believes he has me completely figured out. I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s not even close—that my problems are way bigger than bickering parents. 

Most of the time we just hold each other, make-out and talk until the sun comes up, but last night we came close to having sex.. He told me I was perfect, and I turned into putty in his hands. It was almost the best night of my entire life, but I decided at the last minute it’d be best to wait. I don’t think I’m ready just yet. I know I’m a little old to still be the big ‘V’, but sex hasn’t exactly been the top priority on my brain. 

Fall semester starts back in a couple of days and we’ll finally spend some daylight hours together…in public—away from all the parental authority. Stew’s dad, Mr. Masterson, would split us up in a second if he knew, which I think is pathetic he still lets his father boss him around like that. He’s a grown adult, not a little kid. 

His father made it quite clear he wants him to stay away from me. One evening when he spotted us talking across the fence in the back yard, Mr. Masterson grabbed Stew by the arm and practically dragged him to the back door.

My heart crumbled when his dad referred to me as a ‘crazy demon lover’ before shoving Stew into the house.

I climb up the ladder. Stew already has the little shack aglow with a teacup candle. The tiny flame flickers and the light dances around on the old, wooden walls. After our first two extremely dark visits, we decided to cover the windows with black trash bags to keep our nighttime adventures a sealed secret. We don’t want people to discover our secret spot or interrupt our private moments. How embarrassing would that be? 

“Hey,” Stew says, as he sits up on his knees on our makeshift bed of old comforters. He runs his hand through his brown hair. “I’ve missed you.”

He reaches for my hand and pulls me down so I’m on my knees, mirroring his stance. He’s almost a foot taller than my five-foot-two frame, but sitting like this, our faces are much closer. I breathe in the scent of cinnamon and earth as he rests his forehead against mine. His chiseled features look even better than I remembered from last night as he brushes a stray hair away from my cheek. The touch of his fingertips on my skin makes my whole body tingle.   

“I’ve thought about you all day. Did you miss me?” he asks. A smile flirts across his face. 

Since elementary school, I’ve had a major crush on him. When he sat behind me and pulled my ponytail, I knew he was special. We spent almost every day together in this tree house when were little kids. Before Stew’s mom died, his dad was okay with us hanging out--back when I still owned my own soul. But after that, his dad was hell bent on us not being friends. 

It was like he knew I had been touched by evil and was no longer good enough to be Stew’s friend. He separated us when Stew needed me the most, and he went through the grief process of losing his mom alone. 

I wish we hadn’t listened to his dad back then and been friends anyway. We lost so much time we could’ve spent together. It took until our second year of college to actually speak again.  

I think I fell in love the first time Stew smiled at me. It was like I was drawn to him, and the older I got, the more I liked him. I wasn’t sure if he even remembered my name though, because he stopped talking to me just like everyone else back in high school. But I still harbored a secret crush. 

Things changed this summer though.  When I discovered the reason he pulled my ponytail back then was because he felt drawn to me, too.    

I bite my bottom lip and nod.

His gray eyes sparkle against his tan complexion and hair, and a grin stretches across his face, putting his dimples on full display. “Good,” he whispers, before his lips crush into mine. “God, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs between kisses. 

Every inch of my skin aches, longing to be touched by Stew when he pulls me against his hard body. My hands run up and down the length of his back, tracing the outline of muscle underneath his blue t-shirt. Tonight is definitely not going to be a talking event. He’s a little more aggressive, almost hungry. He kisses me deeply and intertwines his fingers in my black hair. There’s no other guy that I’d rather spend what little bit of time I have left on this earth with. I’ve struggled with the thought that I shouldn’t start a relationship with him because my twenty-first birthday is just a few days away, and I know that little demon bastard will be back to collect on my promise and ruin everything. But, I figured I should live a little before I die. The thought of dying a virgin is mortifying.  

He leaves me breathless—my lips swollen—and pulls away. His hands, calloused from a summer of football practice with the college squad, cup my face and he stares into my eyes. “Do you like me?”

Oh my God!
 My heart beats wildly in my chest and my stomach flips. All summer I’ve imagined this moment, the one where Stew says he wants more with me. This is what I wished for since the first night he pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me.

“Yes,” I whisper, unable to hide my huge grin.

His smile reaches his eyes. I knew he had feelings for me, too. “Do you want to keep meeting me?” 

Of course I do. What kind of question is that?

Without a second of hesitation, I answer, “Yes.”

His fingers trail along my cheek, leaving a line of fire on my skin from his touch. “Good. I was worried with fall classes starting…you might want to stop.”

He leans in for another kiss, but I shove him back a little. The smile now erased from my face. “What?” Now, he’s got my full attention and my guard, which is usually down around him, springs into action. Why would we stop meeting if we finally admit we have feelings for each other? That’s insane.

He sighs and shrugs. “I figured you wouldn’t be cool with all the secrecy.” 

That makes no sense. “What does keeping our relationship secret from your dad have anything to do with school? We can be together at school without him finding out.”

He lets go of my face and sits down on the blanket, not looking at me.

Nausea rolls through my belly. “Stew?”

“Natalie, I’m being unbelievably selfish. I’d be pissed and never want to see me again, if I were you.” 

My lip twitches as I fight back the emotion that threatens to expose how uneasy I feel. “You aren’t making any sense, Stew.”

His gray eyes appear deep in thought. “Not secret 
just
 from my dad,” his whisper barely audible. 

I gasp. “What?” My pulse pounds in my ears. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Do I mean nothing to him? He’s the one person I thought I could trust and spent most of the summer opening up to. 

He reaches for me, but I shy away. “I do have feelings for you, Nat. I want to keep seeing you—” My arms cross instinctively and uber-bitch mode goes into effect. Alarms continue to sound in my head. 

How could I be so stupid? He’s only with me because I’m next door and convenient for the summer while we were both home from college. Practicing with the team for a school as big as Capital doesn’t exactly leave a ton a free time to find girls. I was just accessible and seemed overly eager. What a jerk. “But you don’t want anyone else to know.” I lift my hand to cut him off, finally understanding he never wants to be seen with me.

He faces away from me, like he can’t bear to see me as I call him out. “I’ve told you—people expect things from me. My dad doesn’t want me to see you.”

Expect things? That’s the crap answer I get after a whole summer together? I should’ve listened to my sister, Alicia. She’s the men expert, not me. Guys really do only care about one thing. “I only had one expectation of you, and that’s not to be an asshole. Guess what? Epic fail, Stewart.”

He picks at a loose string at the seam of the blanket and doesn’t attempt to look at me. I wait for a couple seconds, hoping he’ll redeem himself. When he doesn’t answer, I shake my head in disgust. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to keep your dirty little secret anymore.”

I fling my leg over the opening in the tree house and place my foot on the ladder. 

“Please, Nat,” he whispers and grabs my arm. “Don’t go. We can work this out. I need you.”

My hand balls into a fist and it takes all my willpower not to punch him in his stupid face. “Stew,” —I jerk free of his hold—“when you decide you can talk to me in public, let me know. Until then, stay away from me,” I huff, and then climb down the ladder without looking back. My feet pound the damp grass as I run away from the only man I’ve ever been close enough to develop feelings for. And now that I’m out of his sight, I allow the tears to roll down my cheeks. 

“Who’s the guy?” The voice stops me dead in my tracks in the darkness as I fly past a tree.

Quickly, I wipe my face before I turn around and attempt to slap all emotion from my face. “What guy?” 

I might be ticked at Stew right now, but there’s no way I’ll serve up info to evil boy about him. 

The boy demon steps from behind the shadows of the trees and nods toward the tree house behind me. “The one in there. You’re not dating him, are you?”

I’m so not in the mood to deal with this little, demonic twerp. “Look, you may own my soul, but you don’t own 
me
. Not yet, at least. So I can do what I want with my life.” My voice sounds a little hoarse. 

He shakes his head and looks down at the ground. “I knew I should’ve checked in more as you got older.” It’s almost like he’s talking to himself for a second before his eyes snap up to meet mine. “You know you can’t date. You know the rules. You’re taken.”

“Taken?” I let out an exasperated sigh. “My soul may be taken, but I’m not.” This isn’t a good time for another argument over my eternal soul. My mission has always been to try and stay on his good side. If I piss him off now, I may never get my soul back. “If you aren’t taking me to hell anytime soon, please leave me alone.” I try to step around him, but he blocks my path.

He moves closer and glares up at me. “You are going to be with me, just like you promised. Like it or not, so you might as well forget about Romeo up there.” 

I step back. “There’s no way I’m going to let you tell me what to do. Besides, I never agreed to being tied to you forever. You get my soul, as promised. That’s it. You can stuff it in your vial or whatever, but you don’t get to keep me as your side-kick for eternity. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“You don’t have a choice in this matter. Your soul is you, and I own it. You’ll do whatever I say. This is how it is going to be.” He reaches out and grabs my hand so quickly I’m not even ready to try and jerk away. 

An electric shock jolts me. I drop down to my knees and groan as mind-numbing pain tears through my flesh. I open my mouth to scream out, but hold back when I think about Stew hearing me and getting involved in this situation. The intense jolt is gone within seconds, but my legs weigh a million pounds and are close to giving out on me. Winded, I plop down on my butt, unable to run away, and cradle my burning hands to my chest.