A Deep and Dark December(53)
He hitched a shoulder. “Depends on the ability.”
“What if you could move objects with your mind and you saw that a little girl was about to be hit by a car. Would you use your ability to save her? Or would you stand there and watch her die?”
“I…”
“It’s not so easy, is it?”
“Change one thing and you could change everything.”
“The Butterfly Effect. I know. I live with it. It’s like if I’d done something about seeing Greg dead. Stopped it somehow. I would have altered everything that came after. Like this moment, this conversation. None of it would have happened. To be honest, sometimes I don’t think changing things would be such a bad idea.”
“Have you ever?”
“Changed things? I tried once. With my mother. It obviously didn’t work out. Now the fear is too deeply ingrained. In that way, Aunt Cerie did a phenomenal job raising me.”
“I’d say she did a phenomenal job all the way around.”
He pulled up to the police station, cut the engine, and turned toward her. He could just make out her features in the dim streetlight. Lightning flared, illuminating them both for the barest of seconds. Thunder rumbled low as he reached for her. She met him halfway and he was finally, finally kissing her. Being with her, kissing her pushed everything else away. It was only them. Him and her and nothing else.
“I lied earlier,” he said, breaking the kiss to trail his lips along her jaw line.
“Hmm?”
“I lied. I would’ve saved that girl from the car. Or at least tried.”
“I know.”
It was such a relief to hear her say that, to know she believed in him. Maybe he wasn’t so lost after all if she could find him amongst all the horror of what they were up against. He recaptured her mouth, pouring every grateful thing he felt with her into one kiss, one long, slow caress. She clutched at him, matching his urgency with hers.
His thoughts scattered, spiraling into a single need, sharp enough to slice him in two. He struggled to remember where they were. Struggled to right his world and put her, this kiss, and everything else into some kind of perspective. But when they broke apart and he looked into her eyes, he saw everything he was reflected back at him. She’d scrubbed him clean of his past and presented him back shiny and new and worthwhile. He wanted to be all of that for her. All of that and more.
“Erin,” he begged.
“Ssh.”
“I don’t think I can do this.” He wasn’t the man she thought he was. She didn’t know the shit he carried around and how much of that would get piled onto her. He couldn’t do that to her.
She put a hand on his cheek and leaned in close. “I know.”
They left his car in front of the police station and walked up the hill in the rain to Erin’s house. Standing at her door, dripping, Erin struggled to fit the key in the lock. She shook, not from the chill, but with a craving that ran so deep, it scared her more than anything. If Graham were going to reject her, she’d just as soon he did it right here on the porch. Once they crossed the threshold she couldn’t be responsible for what she might do. Desperate as she was, she wasn’t above begging and that, well, that would be the end of whatever they had going here and the last of her self-respect.
He fit his hand over hers and guided the key into the lock for her. She turned it and hesitated, biting the inside of her cheek. He put a hand on her shoulder, twisting her around to face him. The last shreds of her control slipped away under the heaviness of his stare. She saw the same mixture of longing, nerves, need, and unworthiness she felt.
She fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him through the door with her. She didn’t stop pulling him until they were in her bedroom. There, they squared off. And then he slowly reached back and closed the door behind him. In the darkness she could feel him, burning in the space between them. She didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly they were on each other, kissing, touching, yanking at clothing, each other’s and their own.
His shirt hit the floor with a wet smack. He’d gotten soaked, having left his coat with her father. That thought did more to excite her than the magic he was doing with his fingers and mouth. And oh, what magic it was. Her blouse and bra vanished, replaced with his hands. He bit her earlobe and she let out a loud moan, her knees dipping. His chuckle was low and wicked as he bit her again.
“God, Graham.”
“Yes, Erin?”
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” she panted, reaching for the button of his pants.
“So are you,” he said, shoving her jeans down her hips.
He cupped her backside, bringing her up against him. She could feel the hardness of him and renewed her efforts to free him. The wet denim wouldn’t budge. She made a frustrated noise, which seemed to amuse him as he took over the job, slipping out of the rest of his clothes faster than she could have wished them away.
The first feel of him skin on skin nearly pushed her over the edge. He groaned and pulled her closer, pressing against her belly. She ran her hands over him, learning the lines of his body. The hardness here, the fleshy tautness there. She skated her fingers across a puckered ridge on his side. The anomaly drew her back to it, but before she could explore it further, he captured her hand and brought it to his chest. He turned them, moving them toward the bed. She tripped, her feet tangled in her wet jeans. They fell together in an ungraceful heap on the floor. She landed on top of him, hitting her forehead on his teeth.