Divine (25 page)

I
nodded and walked with him to the front door, aching from everything
that had just happened. I wanted to grab onto him and kiss him; I
wanted to tell him that it
was
the
perfect moment for him to put his lips to mine.

He opened the door and
stepped onto the porch, turning around to face me.

“
Just a second,”
I said, leaving him there while I turned off the lights in the living
room. My mood was so sullen that I felt like hiding myself from him
as much as I could, and making it darker was the only thing I could
think of. Once I got back I turned off the entryway light to leave us
in the dark.

A
gust of wind blew past him and pushed his woodsy scent over my face
while he stepped forward and positioned his body strongly in the
doorway. For the first time since I had met him I actually
wanted
him to leave so I wouldn't have to muster through the gut-wrenching
torture of not being able to have him.

He raised his arm above
him and rested it against the open door frame. “I really am
going to miss you.”

My head shook as I
looked down at the ground. “I really wish I knew what you were
thinking right now, because I'm very confused.” After the words
blurted from my mouth I waited a moment and then looked back up at
him with an intense stare.

He looked at me blankly
through the darkness and silently brooded over what I had said. I
waited for him to say something, anything to me. But all he did was
stand strongly in front of me, looking like some kind of amazing
Greek god.

“
Are you going to
say anything to me?” I urged him.

He let out a deep
breath into the air, the muscles in his jaw tightly clenching as he
dropped his arm smoothly from above him and brought it to my waist,
pulling me into his hard physique.

I
was shocked by the sudden impact of his body against mine. My lips
parted to
grant
my shallow breaths escape while I quivered against the warmth of him.

His breathing deepened
as he traced his other hand up my arm and brought it behind my neck,
running his fingers underneath my hair and gently positioning my head
lightly to the side. “Is this what you want?” he purred
as he lowered his lips gently onto mine.

My body felt weak as I
relished in the moment that I had been waiting so long for. His lips
caressed mine softly with a smooth, delicate motion as he pulled me
even closer into him. I moved my hand up his arm and rested it
against the firmness of his chest, feeling the deep grooves of his
muscles beneath the fabric of his tight shirt.

He stopped the kiss
momentarily, moving my head the other way and diving back in,
carefully but assertively clenching tightly onto the hair at the nape
of my neck. I opened my eyes softly as his tongue parted my lips,
delivering the light taste of passionfruit tea into my mouth. I
trembled while it rhythmically traced along mine, giving me one last
taste of him before he slowly pulled away.

He opened his glowing
green eyes and looked passionately at me from beneath his lowered
lashes. “How was that?” he whispered onto my lips.

I was speechless. I had
no idea what to say to him; his kiss literally took all of the words
out of my mouth. “Amazing,” was all I could manage to say
with what little breath that was left in my lungs.

He smiled and moved
away from me, returning to his usual body guard stance. “You
still don't know what the green means?”

Does it mean love?

I looked at him quietly
and smiled. “No, but I wish I did.”

He shook his head and
chuckled softly. “You really need to get out more.”

“
Yeah, I guess I
do.” I crossed my arms and bit my lip, thinking about how
wonderful his lips felt when they pressed against mine. “Why
did it take you so long to finally kiss me?”

He stepped back onto
the porch and coughed lightly into the air, nodding at my question as
if he knew I would ask it. “I'm turning twenty next week. The
whole time I've known you you've been under age. I didn't want to
touch you until you turned eighteen.”

Finally, an answer I
can live with.

I stepped forward and
leaned casually against the frame of the doorway. “Oh, okay.
Well, that makes sense.”

“
But,” he
went on, shooting me a mischievous grin, “you're just so damn
impatient.”

I laughed at his brutal
honesty. “Yeah, I guess I am. But how else do you expect me to
be when you flaunt that body of yours around me like you do?”

“
Oh, like you
don't do the same thing?” he accused playfully while his green
eyes faded to a happy yellow.

“
Yeah,” I
laughed. “I guess I've done it a few times.”

“
More than a
few,” he corrected me.

I crossed my arms and
rested my head against the frame of the door. “Thank you,”
I offered softly as I relaxed into the sight of his yellow shimmering
eyes.

“
For what?”

“
For the kiss.”

A handsome smile lit up
his face. “You act like I gave you a gift or something,”
he chuckled lightly. “You don't have to thank me; I've wanted
to kiss you for a long time now. If anything it was a gift for
myself.”

I beamed with a smile
driven by flattery. “You always know the right things to say.”

He smiled and looked
down at his feet, taking a few moments to roll a tiny pebble
underneath his shoe. “Well, I guess it's time for me to go,”
he said, raising his head up to look wistfully at me. His eyes were
back to their normal crystal blue, but this time they were
shimmering.

I raised my head away
from the door and stepped in front of him. “I know what blue
means,” I whispered as I brought my arms up around his neck.

He hugged tightly
around my waist and looked into my eyes. “I'm sorry, I don't
want to make it harder for you to leave. I'm just really going to
miss you.”

“
I'm going to
miss you, too.”

“
Text me tomorrow
when you leave, if you want.”

“
Of course I want
to,” I smiled. “It will be early, though.”

“
I don't care.”

I watched the shimmer
leave his eyes as they returned to their usual blue. “Will you
kiss me before you leave?” I softly begged him.

The corner of his mouth
raised slyly at my invitation. “If I kiss you right now, I
don't think I'll be able to stop.”

“
You don't have
to stop.”

“
There you go
again,” he chuckled. “So damn impatient.”

I shot him a friendly
glare. “Okay then, I guess you'll just have to wait and kiss me
again on my birthday.”

I attempted to move
away but he gripped onto me, holding me tightly against him so I
couldn't escape. “Oh, you're not getting away that easily,”
he graveled. “But, it won't be like the last one; I need to be
able to pull away from you.”

“
Why is that?”

“
Because I'm
strong, but not strong enough to resist what you do to me; so don't
tempt me.”

“
Okay,” I
nodded, sounding a little more desperate than I had intended.

He moved in and kissed
me in a way that was both simple and passionate, fulfilling my wish
yet leaving me with much more to be desired. When his mouth left mine
he hugged me into him with a gentle squeeze, wrapping me in his
warmth.

“
Have a fun
trip,” he said as we pulled away from each others grasp.

“
Yeah, I will.
And I'll call you everyday.”

He smiled and walked
backwards toward his truck, still keeping me in his line of sight.
“And I hope to get two calls from you on my birthday.”

“
Yes, of course,”
I chuckled. “I'll make sure to call you twice on your
birthday.”

He melted me with one
last smile before jumping into his truck and starting the engine.

Why do I have to be
away from you for two whole weeks?

We
waved goodbye to each other through the darkness as he backed out and
drove away, leaving me in the echoes of his rumbling truck.

* * *

The
next morning was a nightmare. First of all, I didn't even know how I
got upstairs to my room after Jonah left. I was so dumbstruck by his
kiss that I must have blacked out and floated upstairs. Once I
did
get
upstairs and into my bed my mind replayed the kiss over and over and
over again until I eventually somehow fell asleep. So when my alarm
went off to get ready to leave I was basically running on two hours
of beauty rest.

Even though my parents
and I had worked hard to make it on time, we ended up arriving late
to the airport. Fortunately, the flight was a little delayed so we
made it through all the necessary security points and were still able
to grab a cup of coffee.

When we finally boarded
I sent Jonah a text letting him know that we had made it and were
getting ready to take off. He messaged me back, asking me to let him
know when we made it safely to Arizona.

I turned my phone off
and tucked it into the pocket of my sweatshirt. “Oh man,”
I sighed heavily into the thick air of the plane.

My mom's hand fell on
top of mine and squeezed my fingers. “You'll be okay,
sweetheart. You'll see him in two weeks.”

“
I didn't sigh
about that, Mom,” I smiled. “I'm really nervous about the
flight.”

“
Oh, sorry honey.
I know you have a hard time with heights.”

“
Yeah,” I
agreed as I rested my head against the seat. “I'm sure I'll be
fine once we're in the air.”

My dad leaned forward
and looked around my mom to see me. “Takeoff is the worst
part.”

“
Yeah, I know,”
I sighed again.

A voice came over the
loudspeaker and told the passengers to fasten their seat belts for
takeoff. I could feel a lump lodge itself deep in my throat as my mom
let go of my hand and I clipped the two sides of my belt together.

Moments later the plane
was slowly moving and ready to make its ascent into the air. I found
my mom's hand and watched the scenery move by outside of the window.

“
Are you sure you
want to watch as we go up?” she asked.

“
Yeah, I might as
well try to enjoy
something
about this flight.”

The plane gradually
lifted us off of the ground and my stomach went with it, feeling as
though it had been stuffed up into my throat. I swallowed hard and
tried to think about something to distract myself from my fear.

Okay, think about
something else, Summer. My job, my new car, Jonah getting my new car,
Jonah, Jonah's kiss, Jonah's green eyes . . .

I stopped at the
thought of Jonah's eyes. Those times that he had been intensely close
to me, first when he kissed my cheek and then when he actually kissed
me, his eyes had sparkled green with such vivacity.

What does green
mean? Why doesn't he want to tell me what it means?

The plane began to
level out as we reached the desired altitude. Thinking about the
green color got me through the hard part, but now that I was on the
subject I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I opened my eyes and
looked out of the window as I brainstormed.

Does it mean love?
No, red means love. But actually that's not right either because his
eyes turn red when he's angry. So maybe green does mean love?

“
How are you
doing, honey?” my dad asked.

I snapped my head over
to look at him. “Oh, you scared me, Dad.”