Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (25 page)

I held up my hand as if deflecting a bullet. “Nope, no more. I get it.”

It did make me wonder though. Here he was, totally uprooting his life for me. Again. I was eighteen. He didn’t have to stay. “Are you good with that? Moving down here?”

“I’m good with whatever makes you happy. I have a few loose ends to tie up in Kentucky, but I knew very well what bringing you back meant. I happen to really like it here.”

“Good. I do too,” I said unnecessarily.

“School starts in a month. You want to go visit next week? Take a tour?”

“School?” My chopsticks clattered against my plate, dropping my sushi roll. The mention of school was a lot like getting a bucket of cold water dumped on my head. Reality sucked.

“Yes,” he said. “High school? Senior year? What did you think you were going to do, drop out?”

“No…” I’d wished it though. “I guess we can go visit.” No doubt even breathers needed an education. Maybe I could homeschool or something. My palms started sweating at the idea of sitting in a classroom all day, having to sit still for so long, not being able to feel the wind. I wondered how close the school was to the beach.

“I’ll set something up,” he offered with more excitement than I could muster.

The talk of school set a precedent of normalcy and the rest of dinner was spent discussing pretty much normal things. He finished off his bottle of wine—I helped a bit—and I couldn’t resist the offer of ice cream. We strolled around the square in a race to eat our ice cream before it melted.

While my dad browsed in the bookstore, I ducked inside Indigo’s, a shop that carried mostly bathing suits and beachwear. I made a beeline for the wall of sandals, searching for a pair that my feet could slip into, toes unimpeded. I had worn a pair of Toms tonight, but they cramped my toes. I wasn’t ready to give up shoes altogether, like Noah. I was a girl after all. It wasn’t as easy as I supposed it would be to find a pair that worked. Most every pair either had a thong or too many straps to have to get into. I was about to give up when a girl walked up beside me.

“These will probably work for you.” A girl held out a pair of sandals. She had pale blue eyes and the scent of the Deep clung to her skin. I recognized her from the concert. She’d been dancing with Daniel. Her hair was braided down her back. Fresh-faced, and not a smidgen of makeup. The sandals in her hand were exactly what I was looking for—open-toed, easy slip-on style.

“They’re perfect,” I said.

She dropped them on the floor. She was wearing a similar pair in a lighter shade of distressed leather. She was maybe a year or two older than me.

“You look like a size seven. Try them on.”

My foot slid in smoothly. I wiggled my toes and paced a few steps.

“I designed them with a wider toe bed to accommodate our webbing,” she said, not even trying to keep her voice down.

I scanned the shop to see who might overhear. There were a few younger girls milling about, but no one was paying us any attention.

“You designed these?” They molded to the bottom of my foot, pillow soft.

“Yeah. I got tired of cramming my toes into shoes that didn’t fit, and I’m not into the whole barefoot thing. Not out in public anyway.”

“These are great.”

“Thanks. I’m Quinn, by the way.” She leaned on a rack of bathing suits and eyed me with open curiosity. “I heard there was new girl.”

“That’s me, the new girl.” I ignored the expectant look in her eyes, not sure what else to say. I wasn’t going to confess my long and complicated backstory. Plus, it seemed I was making the rounds on the rumor mill, first with Jeb and now Quinn. Kind of made me wonder exactly what people were saying about me. I probably didn’t want to know. “I’m just going to wear these out. What do I owe you?” I asked, following her to the register.

“Fifty. But since you’re new I’ll give you the first pair half-off. But you have to promise to come back. We’ve got a great line of shorts and tops in quick-drying fabrics you might be interested in. Comes in handy.”

Yeah, I could see how it would. I would have gone ahead and let her show me some stuff, but as I technically didn’t need them right now, I decided against it. I was too afraid it would jinx me somehow.

My dad had a bag full of books from the bookstore and we took our time strolling back to the car. I had asked if we could go back to being the way we were, not knowing at the time if it was even possible. It was one thing to say you’d moved on, and forgiven someone, and another to actually live it. It was a huge relief, like waking to a clear blue sky on the morning after a storm.

“Kind of a low-key birthday, especially on such a big one. Eighteen. You’re legally an adult now.”

“After the last few weeks, low-key is just what I needed. It’s been perfect.” We shuffled along as I debated whether to tell him I had spent time with Sol today. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how he would take it. But to not tell him felt too much like a lie. “I spent some time with Sol Kelley today.”

My dad’s steps faltered slightly. “So you’ve met him?”

“Yeah. He’s…” What? I had no idea how to describe my brother. “A little intense. Do you mind so much, me seeing him?”

“I want you to be happy, and if having a relationship with your brother makes you happy, don’t let me stand between you. Don’t feel guilty on my account.” He couldn’t quite get the conviction of his words to translate in his eyes. I saw doubt there, complicating his answer even further.

When we reached the car, I opened my door, then looked at him over the hood. “I don’t think they’re very close, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried. You’ll do what’s right.”

I should tell him that Athen Kelley had come to see me. That he was asking for the same thing my dad had asked for. Forgiveness. And even though not telling him my father had come to see me felt like lying too, I kept my mouth shut. What was it that Noah had said about not hurting someone you loved unnecessarily? He’d been hurt enough.

And as far as doing the right thing, I still had no idea what that was where Athen Kelley was concerned.

O
nce we arrived home
, my dad and I exchanged goodnights and I headed upstairs, my new sandals flopping on the hardwood steps. I paused on the landing and tilted my head to the sound coming out of my room. I didn’t remember leaving my music playing. I didn’t remember leaving my balcony door open either. A shaft of warm air funneled through a crack. I reached under the lamp on the bedside table, flicking on the light. I jumped, stifling a gasp when Noah came out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his wet hair.

“You scared me half to death.” I pushed the door to the balcony the rest of the way open, letting the sounds of the beach inside, a kind of music all on its own.

Noah’s hands stilled and a bewildered expression passed over his face as though he wasn’t sure he was in the right house. His eyes raked over me from head to toe, a slow blatant journey that sent a frisson through my body.

“Were you expecting someone else?” I managed to say in a voice that sounded embarrassingly breathless. My eyes filled with the sight of his bare torso, lingering over the carved V-shape of muscle angling out of the band of his shorts. His biceps and deltoids strained against his smooth skin as though it were too tight. When had he gotten so big? He sucked all the air from my room and made it feel impossibly small. And I couldn’t stop it, not while he was standing there looking at me like he wanted to devour me. I couldn’t stop the Song that swirled in my head and escaped on a sigh. His whole body grew taut in response, light eyes darkening to a deeper, warmer shade of green.

He was the first to move, each step a predatory procession, forcing me backward until my shoulder blades hit the wall behind me. His hands pressed against the wall on either side of my head, a trap I was all too happy to be caught in.

“You look really good,” he said.

“Thank you.” I swallowed. “My dad and I made peace over dinner.”

“I’m glad.” He bent his head and ran his nose up the column of my throat on a long inhale. His hair tickled my cheek.

“You smell really good too.”

My eyes focused on his lips, and I thought I would die if he didn’t put his mouth and hands on me. I knew he heard me, I could see it in his face, in the hard set of his jaw, and the heat in his eyes as they raked over me. He had said my moods translated in my Song. Made me wonder what my lust sounded like.

“You know, when I asked you to kiss me that was a standing invitation, right?” I reminded him, just short of begging.

He dipped his head, his lips so unbearably soft and warm, and with just that one touch I melted against the wall. He drew away, eyes intent on where his mouth had just been.

“I brought you something,” he said, a whisper of breath that caressed my cheek. He pushed off the wall and I really wanted to cry a little.

“You got me a present?” I asked, trying to regain a little equilibrium.

“It is what people do on birthdays.” He nodded toward the bed to a small unwrapped box.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.” I bounced on the bed and sat down with my legs crossed, staring at the box as if it had something live inside. “I’m glad you did, though.” I smiled up at him.

He remained ominously silent, standing over me while I picked up the box and cradled it in my hands to prolong the moment. When I finally opened it, I nearly choked. Inside was a bracelet made of supple leather woven in an intricate vine-like pattern, more feminine than the ones he wore. At its center gleamed one of Noah’s pearls. Something alive indeed. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

I slipped it out of the box and placed it in the palm of my hand as though it were made of fragile glass and would shatter into a million pieces at the slightest touch. “It’s beautiful.”

“There’s sort of a protocol in place.” He sat down on the bed next to me. “In the old days, they were used as a way of identifying family groups. And sometimes as tokens of extreme affection. The closer to the heart the recipient wears the pearl the more intimate the gesture.” He paused as if giving me time to absorb his words. My eyes lit on his face, remembering the tear that had streaked his cheek.

“I thought we were beyond the anklet stage,” he said with a quirk of one side of his mouth. “And the necklace, well, my mother still wears my dad’s around her neck. I thought the bracelet was appropriate for us. I don’t expect you to wear it yet, or ever if you don’t want to. But I thought you should have it. It’s yours, after all.”

“It’s beautiful, Noah,” I said, throat tight with emotion.

“I guess I should say thank you. I was lost when you came here. I’m not so much anymore.”

I thought back to that first night I had seen him, a boy pinned to the ground. There was nothing boyish about him now. He looked strong, confident. Sometime in the last few weeks that boy had turned into a man. And here he was giving me a piece of that strength. A piece of himself.

“Put it on me,” I said. As if I wouldn’t wear it. No way was I going to hide this under my pillow along with his hair.

His eyes met mine with raw hunger. His fingers trembled when he took the bracelet from my hand and laced the small clasp together. It fit perfectly.

“You have really small wrists. I was afraid it would be too big.”

“It’s perfect.” Energy shimmered in the iridescent green orb. I sat dumbstruck that he would give me something so valuable, greedy in knowing I had a piece of Noah I could keep forever.

“I love it.” I love
you
I almost said, but caught myself just in time. I couldn’t possibly love him already.

His eyes brooded over me as a new tension eased over his body, and for a horrifying second I thought I had said the words aloud. He leaned over, his attention caught by something on my bed behind me. I groaned inwardly when I realized what it was.

“Where did you get this?” He pulled the length of his hair from under my pillow, all two feet of it, smooth as silk where I had run my fingers through it over and over. He raised himself from the bed and stood over me. I scrambled up to my knees, afraid he would be angry, and wondering if this, like his pearls, was personal.

“I took it from Jax,” I said, unable to read the look on his face. It was like it had turned to marble, not a single tell as his eyes trailed from the length of his hair back to my face.

“When?”

“That night at Erin’s when you got sick.”

“You kept it.” He held it like a length of rope, one end in each hand, eyes dark and unreadable.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“Caris, I like that you kept it.” With one quick flick of his wrist he flung his hair around the back of my neck. The gesture made me dizzy and the look in his eyes—possessive, almost animal-like with the exaggerated rise and fall of his chest, the flared nostrils—made my pulse race. Definitely more than human. He tugged on each end of his hair, pulling me off the bed until I was pressed up against him.

“Is your dad home?” He gathered the slack, sealing me so close.

“Yes,” I whispered as his mouth descended in a swift kiss meant to tease—no tongue, just the hard pressure of demanding lips.

“Come to the beach with me.” He backed up, pulling me right along with him onto the balcony by the tether of his hair. He coiled the length of the braid once around my throat and left it hanging on me boa style. Then he leapt over the rail. I rushed forward, hands gripping the iron. He stood below me, holding out his arms.

“I’ll catch you.”

I hurled myself over with complete trust, not giving one thought to the twenty-five-foot drop. Noah caught me without the slightest strain then carried me down the path, tucked against his chest, my favorite place in the world, as though I weighed nothing.

“Noah, stop.” I couldn’t wait to get to the beach to kiss him. I answered the question in his eyes by grabbing his face and slamming my mouth to his. He shifted me in his arms and I crawled around him so that we were chest to chest. My legs wrapped around his hips and his hands cradled my back.

We were moving again, lips still fused together, tongues engaged in a delicious dance. The next thing I knew he was laying me down in the sand. My hands tangled in his hair. I wondered how I ever thought it was too long. It brushed in soft waves over my shoulders and cheek. My hands circled around his back, skimming over every ripple of muscle as he moved over me, wedging one thigh between my knees. Drowning. I was drowning.