Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(80)

He keeps changing the songs—all having to do with something terrible befalling ICE. “The Ice Is Getting Thinner”, “Break the Ice”, “Choc Ice Goes Mental”. I laugh at his version of a romantic mix tape.

“Baby, I can make you feel hot, hot, hot,” he sings in a low voice. My stomach starts fluttering. He is smiling again. And singing. And we’re getting closer to wherever we’re going. If I need this beautiful dress, it must be breathtaking too.

“Were you reciting the periodic table earlier?” Aiden asks, his voice lighter.

I blush despite the ice concert. “Yes,” I mumble.

“Is that a trick you use to calm yourself?”

“Too often,” I confess, feeling geekier by the second.

He chuckles. The sound is so beautiful that I would recite a million periodic tables to hear it again.

“That’s charming,” he says, caressing my jawline. “Very useful too. It calmed me as well. First your sight, now your voice.” He looks at me with a lovely glare. “What are you doing to me?”

“Teaching you chemistry?”

He shakes his head like he is arguing with a voice inside his head but his dimply smile is not listening.

“Almost there,” he says, taking an unmarked exit. There is only thick forest around as we start winding up the Cascades. The pressure of the ascent builds in my ears. He drives faster but there’s no anxiety in me now. Only exhilaration. Suddenly, we break through the forest onto an open field on the highest hilltop. The Rover comes to a screeching halt.

In the deafening silence, I press my nose against the window, squinting so I miss nothing. Moonlight floods the low grass, the soft rise of the peak, the contours of the craggy mountains above—turning them all silver. There is a soft glow some distance away, streaming between the sentinel trunks of ten or so evergreens.

Aiden rolls down the window. At first, I shiver. The winds are free up here. Then a sultry, floral scent stuns me. I sniff the air, trying to match it to any fragrance I know but cannot. It’s somewhere between gardenia, rose, coriander and brown sugar.

I turn to look at Aiden. He is facing me, his elbow propped on the steering wheel, his index finger pressing into his temple. There is a powerful emotion in his eyes, something I have no name for. His smile is soft. It hangs on his lips like the moonlight hangs on his lashes: enough to brighten them, but not enough to dim him. The tip of his middle finger brushes absentmindedly over his lower lip.

“Where are we?” I whisper.





Chapter Thirty-Six





Starry Skies


“I’ve never brought anyone here.” His voice is low, rough as though chafing against unspoken words.

Instantly, I know where we are. My pulse stutters, then starts throbbing, almost painfully. “This is your Alone Place!”

He smiles, eclipsing the moon, the hill and even the astonishing fragrance in the air. He looks so beautiful that I close my eyes. For only a few seconds. When I open them, his face is inches from mine. “I think you have wanted to see it since the Rose Garden.”

I nod, not exactly speechless. For once, the words are there but I’m having a tip-of-the-tongue moment. A stutter. Not in my pulse or in my brain, but somewhere deeper. So I kiss him hard, like the words I am searching for are in his mouth. He unbuckles my seat belt and rips me from my seat onto his lap. His fingers twist in my hair, pulling me close to him—so close that I feel his heartbeat against my corset.

He ends the kiss abruptly, holding my face in his hot hands. Then he smiles the full dimple-and-scar smile and reaches in the backseat, bringing out a soft cream blanket. He throws it over my shoulders.

“Come!” His voice is exhilarated.

We topple out and I clutch the blanket around me. Why did I need a dress and heels for this? Then again, we dress up for man-made affairs. Why shouldn’t we do the same for natural wonders?

“Look,” he says, pointing at the sky.

“Oh!” I gasp, gazing at the thousands of stars twinkling above us. Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Draco, Cassiopeia—all closer, brighter.

“Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” he recites slowly.

“Oh!” I breathe again in understanding.

He scoops me in his arms easily—chuckling at my squeal—and starts heading to the edge of the cliff. I rest my head on his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat. It gallops in my ear just like mine. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

In fourteen heartbeats, he stops walking and sets me on my feet. “And now look here,” he says, turning me in his arms.

I follow his gaze…and scream. My own heart plummets in the ravenous depths below. We are at the start of a thin strip of land jutting out into the sky, nothing but air and stars around us.

“You’re okay,” he soothes, his arms tightening like steel around me. Then, he grins. “Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003.”

A shaky laugh bursts from my lips.

“You’re not afraid of heights?”

“Not with you,” I say because right now, I’m afraid of nothing. Nothing except losing him.

He smiles. “Then welcome to my other home.”

He walks slowly onto the strip, holding me tight. He sits away from the edge, cocooning me in his arms and legs and the soft blanket. I grip his neck, tucking my head in his chest again. We stay like this an immeasurable moment. Minutes, maybe even hours. I try to commit everything to memory. For once, I don’t want to photograph even a blade of grass. This place seems so intimate that any eyes other than ours—even artificial camera eyes—would spoil it.