Reverence - Book 2

- 30 -

The fingers that clasped around my neck were gentle. Calculated. Their tips rough but wanting, knowing how to knead my flesh with the most careful diligence. 

They had touched me so many times before. They knew that map of my skin and the valley of the soul that lie shrouded within. 

The lips that breathed a gentle sigh, shaky with a clothed cautiousness were near my ear, where I longed for them to be so desperately. 

They had pressed tenderly in that place so many times before. My breath being carried past them at every grace of them on my body. 

The eyes that met me as I turned in the gentle wanting grasp were on fire. 

They had always been molten honey, glittering black diamonds of passion and trilling desperation. But never like this. 

I had never seen them like this. 

They were still. Hypnotic and luring like the fatal pull of rip currents, swallowing over your head as you float mindlessly in their depth. 

His face was tanned and set, the sharpness of that jaw unclenching slightly as his lips parted delicately to reveal a relieved smile, the flash of his dangerous white teeth disarming me in his grasp. 

I was water that pooled in his palm, dripping between his fingers. 

Those fingers loosened their hold, retreating from my skin. I felt a hurried chill sprint up my arms, chasing that touch, begging for it again. He brushed through the gentle wisps of hair that spilled down the nape of my neck, curling the tresses slowly before withdrawing his hand completely. 

As if on the whispers of the wind, I heard it bellow between us. Whistling hotly in my ears. 

Come back

Hurried hands clasped around my waist, a flare of hot arms curling around me. Blazing. 

Dark curls tickled against my cheeks, the waft of gentleness and veracity clothed me. Imelda tightened against me, her chest rising in relief. 

"I'm so glad you're home." 

She sang, low enough for only her and I to hear. 

I let my own hands comfort her back, but my eyes remained on him. The almost awkward set of his shoulders, his knee bent away as if he were ready to run and hide. 

Uncertainty. 

I felt my mouth pull down on the edges. 

Imelda released me, and the breath refilled in my lungs, startling me like lightning spitting through a calm night sky. 

She turned her back to me, the bounce of her hair swaying just past the small of her back. She placed a firm hand on his arm, pulling his ear down to her lips. She whispered for a long moment, before placing a small kiss against his cheek and an assuring pat against his chest. 

I watched his eyes flutter close as his chest stuttered with a shaky inhale. 

Imelda strode up the grassy path towards the house, each step she took shaking in my chest as my heart beat. I watched as she passed through the gate. 

As she disappeared past the crest of the hill. 

And I continued to watch her ghost, imagining her grazing down hallways. Farther away from where we stood now. 

My fingers were shaking. I didn't - Couldn't turn back around. Whatever nerve that had propelled my into the center of this wavering field had been indubitably snuffed out like fingertips on the head of a match.