You Can Run To Me

Forty-Four

"You can open your eyes now," a voice said softly.

Natalie smiled and turned to face the sound of the car door but she kept her eyes firmly closed. She could practically hear him rolling his eyes, "Alright then, I guess I'll just have to lead you out there."

Her whole body tingled with the anticipation of his touch. She could hear his clothes rustle, but in that moment she could well imagine that he was everywhere and nowhere at once. The urge to open her eyes intensified, but she made herself be patient. There. His fingers traipsed down her arm tauntingly, raising goose bumps in their wake. She twitched slightly in reflex, and he huffed out a soft laugh that she somehow felt upon her cheek, warm and sweet. Then in the space of her gasp he had slung her arm around his neck, and he was swinging her up into his arms. She very nearly opened her eyes but again she managed to catch herself just as the light began to turn her vision black-red. Instead, she laughed, and he soon joined her, their voices blending like the instruments of an orchestra.

She felt rather enfeebled, being borne along in his arms, and she started thinking absently of the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo – was it Michelangelo or Da Vinci nope definitely Michelangelo – until she paused a moment to wonder what had sent her down that track. She thought she could hear the throbbing beat of his heart through his suit, but at the very same time she knew there was no way. If nothing else it would be drowned out by the crunching of gravel beneath his feet... or at least it sounded like gravel. For all she knew he might actually be taking her into the lair of a sadistic serial killer and that sound was the bones of his victims- She cut the morbid thought off before it got any more vivid. It might make an interesting art piece though...

She focused rather on the soothing sway of his body beneath her. She might have expected this to be more uncomfortable than it was, especially with her eyes closed to make it even more disconcertingly like a boat, but despite his pretty rapid pace, she could only indistinctly feel him walking. Careful to position her head so she was looking completely up, she was surprised to find the first intrepid stars standing out against the blooming darkness that seemed to leech its way across the sky from the East. His face suddenly loomed ahead of the dusky constellations, though he didn't miss a step or slow in the least. His eyes stood out in the gloom, though his face was in deepening shadow, and she could easily enough make out the smile that spread across his face.

"We're here," he announced in little more than a whisper, his words misting across her face. He very gently lowered her to the ground, his face remaining a few short inches from hers the whole way down, and lingering there for an alluringly long beat. His face hung there for a moment, more familiar than the crescents of the Moon. In a flicker of movement his hand came up to her cheek, brushing it with a trembling caress, before moving to close her eyes as you might the staring eyes of the dead. Then with barely a rustle she sensed that he had gone again.

She sat there alone for the first few moments with a girlish grin smeared across her lips, content merely in the memory of his touch. After the moment drew out into two, stretching into three and more until she couldn't hold back the thought: what if he doesn't come back? Trying to drown out the mutinous mantra in her head, she made herself concentrate on her senses. What could she hear, and smell and taste and feel around her? The ground beneath her didn't give much away, only that she was somewhere outside, maybe a field or a beach somewhere. She couldn't really tell, but the sounds that drifted to her crossed the latter out, as there was no tell-tale wash of waves against sand. What she could hear though could place her in any number of places, as it was little more than the occasional impatient whistling of birds piercing an otherwise silent night. She could taste the air on her tongue, fresh and pure, and its innocent scent filled her nostrils too. The wind slipped her into its cool embrace, making her shiver a little.