Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1) (19 page)

“With sex and money,” he says with contempt.

“No. With your humanity.” I take his right hand and put it over his frantic heart.

“Listen,” I tell him. The defiant boy leaves his eyes, and the man stills as he listens to his own heartbeat.

“Now listen here.” I take his other hand and put it over my own heart. His touch sends tremors along my spine but I don’t move.

Our heartbeats spike under our hands in harmony, and then our lungs fall in sync too. At that precise moment, I reach on my tiptoes for his lips and kiss him.

His shoulders relax under my touch, and now I know why. His lips start moving with mine. Light and hesitant, like questions. I answer them as best I can. Then his kiss changes. His hands fly to my face. I press myself against him, fisting my fingers in his hair. He responds so forcefully that we stagger across the room until I feel the wall at my back. His hips pin me against it. My feet leave the ground as his kiss literally sweeps me off my feet.

I bite his lip like the taste of his mouth is not enough. He lifts me and wraps my legs around his waist. His erection finds its spot and presses against me.

“You will not make this easy, will you?” he asks, his breathing harsh. His eyes are scorching.

I shake my head.

“Ceasefire,” he says and kisses me hard.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Boy, Man, God

I flex my thighs to bring him closer. He moans. My dress has bunched up on my hips and the thin layer of my knickers is not enough to block him. He starts grinding against me and rolling his hips slowly. He brings his lips to my ear. His words start. Different words. Not hard, not dirty. Loving. Between each whispered word, he nibbles, kisses, bites and grinds.

“I missed you… I missed the way you smell…the way you moan. Speak up, baby… I love the way you say my name. Don’t ever call me Mr. Hale again. I hate it… Yes, like that… It sounds good when you say it… I love the way you look when you’re about to come. Eyes open. Look at me… What do you want? Tell me… No, not yet. This one is for you. Only you… I know, I know… Here, shh. I’ll take over.”

He picks up his tempo against my knickers. The throbbing increases with each grind until the tension in my body becomes unbearable. Every muscle flexes and snaps. My insides convulse violently and I soar.

When I float back to earth, the only thought I can form is
extraordinary
. I open my eyes. He looks triumphant as always but his jaw is locked and his fingers dig into my buttocks. The sight is both predatory and hunted. I realize now that he stopped himself from coming. This
was
all mine.

“Where is your room?” he says, kissing along my jaw. I don’t have the power of speech back so I point behind him across the living room. He strides there, with me wrapped around him, his tongue speaking with strokes now instead of words. My body, already sensitized, inflates again.

In my room, he leans me against the closed door and lowers me to the floor. When my feet touch the ground, he steps back. He doesn’t look anywhere else but at me. He takes off all his clothes except his trousers. I stare at him, apple-and-Eve again. With one step, he closes the distance and lowers his mouth to my ear.

“You get more beautiful by the hour. Even my memory can’t do you justice.”

His hands roam my body and trail up along my spine. He finds the zipper there and lowers it slowly. The nail of his thumb grazes my spine as my dress comes undone. He caresses my back and slides the dress off my shoulders. As my skin is exposed, he kisses it. His lips are hot, his breath fire.

In one move, my bra and knickers come off. He runs his thumb over my lips and, like the first time he did this, I have an urge to taste him. I part my mouth and he pushes his thumb inside. He tastes like nothing and yet, like everything. He repeats the process with his index and middle fingers, then with his other hand. The gesture is so erotic that the buzz in my body becomes tangible.

Wet now, his hands mold my breasts. He is gentle at first, then rougher and, finally, I feel the delicious pinch that I have started to know well. I lean against the door as my weight becomes too heavy. His mouth closes around my nipple. Slow strokes of his tongue change to bites and back again in a heavenly pattern. He moves not like my body is the end, but like it is the beginning.

I see my own end on the horizon and fist my hands in his hair, afraid I’ll collapse. My thighs flex and at that moment, he slides his fingers inside me. His thumb circles and presses hard on the center. It’s instant. The buildup of his words, the fingers and the aftershocks of the first orgasm peak again and I start convulsing. He doesn’t stop. His mouth joins his fingers. Around and around. Flicks, licks, blows, strokes. In. Out. Over and over again. I’m lost in my own body. It feels like my heart is between my legs and my lungs are in my mouth. I could be screaming or I could be crying. I have one orgasm. Two. Three. All mine. I don’t know from where. My last thought is that he still has not allowed himself release. Then I disappear.

When I resurface, I’m surprised to see that I’m still upright. Sort of. Somehow, my legs are both over his shoulders and he kisses the inside of my thigh. It twitches under his lips. He smiles, untangles himself from my legs and sets my feet on the floor. He rises with fluid grace and does not seem bothered at all by the fact that for the last—how long have we been doing this anyway?—he has supported my entire weight with his arms and shoulders. I ogle his muscles that twitch a little, no doubt because of the trouble in his trousers, which have expanded to unusual proportions.

He looks at me and loses all humor. One of his hands frames my face, the other trails to the small of my back and arches me against him until my belly meets his cock.

“Can you handle it?” His voice is hoarse. His desire is so primal, so vital that it feels like a third being around us. With a question like that, what girl could say no? I nod, blind and mute to anything else but him. He kisses me, walking us backward to my bed.

He takes off his trousers and boxers, and springs to life. At the sight, instinct takes over. My body—sated twice—jolts awake again, more in tune with his needs than with my own. It knows its master. More than his fingers, more than his mouth, more than his tongue, his cock reigns king. He turns my parents’ photo away from the bed. I laugh.

“Good idea.”

He chuckles with a lovely sound. “I don’t need a lightning bolt today. I barely made it alive through the last forty-eight hours.”

He props a pillow against the headboard and leans against it. Then he gazes at me and curls his forefinger.
Come here.
The moment I reach him, he rolls on a condom and lowers me on his lap so that I am straddling him. So close that my breasts brush against his chest. His arm wraps around my hips, and he guides himself inside me very slowly.

His eyes close and his jaw locks with every inch he conquers. I moan as he drives himself inside farther than he has ever been. At a new depth. He holds me there and rests. He is breathing hard. Eventually, his jaw unlocks and he opens his eyes. The sapphire depths are blazing. He grips my arms and throws them around his neck.

“You like holding me.” His voice is husky.

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

I feel the expanse of his shoulders under my arms and lean in slowly to kiss his scar. A gentle blow, a light kiss. He sighs so I pull away but his arms tighten around me.

“It doesn’t hurt. Just a gift from a rifle.”

I shiver despite his warmth around me, but he holds me tighter. I don’t know if it is for me or for himself, but I hold him back. His mouth presses on mine with a new urgency. I feel him inside me, hard, full, ponderous. He groans and pulls out slowly, then back again. One more time. Twice. I catch fire. I try to pick up speed but he restrains my hips. Instead of his punishing rhythm, he starts a dance. Some thrusts slow and deep. Some fast and shallow. I hold on to his neck, my eyes locked on his, as my body starts quivering.

Instantly, his rhythm picks up. He rolls his hips and mine turn frantic. They grind against him and break through the restraint of his hands. Finally free, I meet him thrust for thrust and set my own pace. Circles, shimmies, forward, backward.

“I love watching you dance, Elisa,” he whispers, his fingers digging into my thighs.

He meets me but lets me lead. My legs start to shake and my vision blurs. His name floods my lips. It’s the only word that matters.
Aiden. Aiden. Aiden.

At the sound of his name, he takes over. Each thrust is harder than the one before. I hear my own cries begging him, for what I don’t know. But he knows because with every
please
, every
Aiden
, every
God
, every
no
, every
yes
, he responds with a different stroke, a different blow. I feel his hand between my legs. His thumb caresses me in circles. Then he presses it firmly down and thrusts once more, hard enough that his own hips leave the bed. I come with a scream that seems to rip my lungs apart. Convulsions crash against the confines of my body. I give out, and the last things I register are Aiden’s arms holding me against his chest, his forceful release and the sound of the bed scraping on the floor.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Of Dragons and Cats

After my two-hour postsex coma—during which Aiden apparently read all the books I own and started on Reagan’s—I amble to the kitchen in my lilac robe. Aiden follows me, wearing nothing but his trousers. My eyes refuse to leave him even for a second so I walk backward like I did at Powell’s, now finally understanding his physical space issues and why he insists on renting things like city blocks.

He snakes his arms around my waist, bending to kiss me. His lips are light, no doubt because now he is worried he bit mine too hard. The world starts vanishing again but then I remember.

“Do you really never kiss on the mouth?” I ask, keeping my lips on his.

He continues to kiss me. “Yes,” he says between each kiss, “just you.”

If he weren’t anchoring me against his body, I’d be the first human to defy gravity and float. “Why?”

“I told you…I already have to remember sight…sound…smell…touch. I wanted the taste of my own mouth to be mine.”

“But now it’s mine too?”

“Yes—yours too.”

“Why?”

“Your favorite question.”

“Yes.”

He kisses me forever in the middle of my kitchen. No sound except our kissing, now fierce, now gentle, and his cinnamon sigh every time he tastes me. I hang on to my unanswered question with only one brain cell. The rest are absorbed with him.

“I wanted all…the fantasy with you,” he finally answers. “And as you can see, I seem unable to stop.”

“Then don’t stop,” I whisper because his answer is so terminal still.

He stops. “Ah, Elisa.” He sighs, unraveling my arms from his neck and setting them to my sides. The light in his eyes dims. He backs into the chair by the kitchen table. The strain returns to his shoulders.

“Would you like a spot of lunch?” I ask to keep him from drifting into some noble scheme of giving me up. “You must be famished after your, umm, decathlon.”

He smiles. No dimple. “Yes, thank you. I need to regroup.”

His eyes become determined. Oh no!
Ceasefire
, he called it. My stomach starts twisting again. I pad to the fridge for the most soporific food I can find.

“Turkey sandwiches and soup?” I call over my shoulder. Tryptophan in turkey is nowhere enough to really cause drowsiness—contrary to common belief—but combined with other protein, large quantities of food and my calming effect, it might help.

“Sure,” he says absentmindedly. I turn to look at him. He is watching me carefully. There is calculation in his eyes—the way a chess player looks at the board, thinking a few moves ahead. I take out the turkey, veggies and chicken stock, and start chopping quickly by the sink under the window.

I peek outside, surprised that the world is still the same. Calico is lounging on his spot, flicking his tail every few moments. The blossoming cherry tree scrapes against the windowpane. The pink rhododendron blooms are buzzing with bees. So much life for anything to end today. I focus my eyes on Aiden’s reflection on the window.

He is leaning back on the chair, the back of his head and shoulders resting against the wall. His eyes are closed. Bad sign.

“So you didn’t go on your trip with your friends, then?” I ask.

He opens his eyes. They roam over my bare feet, my legs, my behind—they fix there for a while—my back, my hair, and finally meet my eyes in the window. He smiles as he discovers my trick. He rises sinuously and saunters next to me.

“No,” he says. “If you must know, I’ve spent the last two nights outside your apartment, arguing with myself. I almost caved and broke in yesterday morning but then I saw you with Mr. Solis.” He picks up a tomato and my knife, and starts slicing.

I almost melt at his words, but then I understand his game. He wants to talk about it so that he can tell me his arguments. Hideous thought. “Why do you insist on calling Javier Mr. Solis?” I ask, taking another knife from the cutlery block.

“Because that’s his name.” He moves on to the carrots. He chops them better than Emeril. He probably saw it on the telly once, fifteen years ago.

“Yes, but it’s so formal. He’s family. You know, like a brother,” I say, lest this is still bothering him.

He smiles and sets down his knife. “I know. But remember what Bob said. You have to distance yourself from
Javier
, at least until your green card is squared away.”

“Bob said to distance myself from Feign, not Javier. I can’t stay away from the Solises. We have salsa nights and I babysit on Antonio’s therapy nights. I live there almost as much as I live here!” My voice is rising in panic.

Aiden’s jaw flexes. He takes my knife, which is pointing at the innocent mushrooms, and sets it on the cutting board. He pinches my chin. “I don’t want anything to jeopardize your immigration status, Elisa.
Nothing
.” The last word hisses through his clenched teeth.

I cup his face, playing with his stubble. “And I won’t let it. I’ll steer clear of Feign but not the Solises. What if my visa doesn’t go through this time either?” My voice drops to a whisper.

He closes his eyes briefly, looking like he is about to start on a barrage of arguments against Javier, ICE or himself. I change the subject to something that always seems to put him in a good mood. “And anyway, if I distanced myself from Javier, what would happen to your painting then?”

“Now that I know it can risk your future, that painting can wait forever as far I’m concerned.” He picks up his knife and flies through the rest of the vegetables.

Maybe it’s his fast movements or hearing him relinquish the very thing that brought us together but the void flares in my chest again.

“But you were so keen on that painting,” I say, my voice faint. “You said that in there, I would always belong to you.” I pour the chicken stock in the pot because my eyes are burning with unshed tears.
Hydrogen, 1.008—

He tips up my face, forcing me to look at him. “And I stand by that statement. That painting is the
only
place you should belong to me.” He stares at me as his words finally explain his fantasy. It’s not only the eternity he wants. It’s the distance.

Panicked, I search for ways to hold on to him a little longer. Am I always going to be racing against time with him? If not from ICE, from his past?

“The Solises are throwing me a graduation party next Sunday. Would you like to be my date?”

He leans against the counter and folds me in his arms with a sigh. That doesn’t sound good.

“Maria will make carnitas. No one can resist those,” I say, resting my head on his bare chest. His skin is warm, fragrant with sandalwood and us.

“Antonio will tell you all about how great America is and may even erect a monument in your honor if he hears you’re a Marine,” I babble because he says nothing. “And my little sisters will read your ear off with
Percy Jackson
. Come, it will be fun.”

I look up at him. As I list all the things that make my life here, I want him to come not just for me, but for him. So that he can do something fun and normal for a change. Leave his glass home and be part of the world he fought for.

His eyes are soft but the rest of his face is hard, as though forged in steel. He pushes me away, very gently. “No, Elisa.”

“Why not? We’ll be very careful. I’ll always have my arm around your waist. Benson can come too. I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on you, I promise.”

“No.”

“But you went to coffee with me, and the presentation, and work?”

“Yes, in limited situations I can control—not at a party with children.”

“But what about my graduation? There was a whole crowd there.”

“I stood across the lawn against a tree. Benson in tow.”

“But—”

“No ‘but’, no ‘if’, no ‘and’, Elisa. This is
exactly
why I’m ending this.”

The air stills. How fast the past can stun the future! With one blink, with one look, with one word, and we are no more than what we were at our worst. I try to breathe as our pasts collide. Because even though it’s his demons this time, with all my guards down, I’m still the girl in that hospital gown four years ago, sleepwalking to the morgue.

“Elisa, baby, look at me.” He twines his arms around my waist and walks us to the kitchen table, setting me down on his chair. He kneels before me and wraps his hands like handcuffs around my wrists.

“Elisa, don’t you understand? If I continue this, I’d be giving you your green card but I’d be taking away the life it can give you. All you’ve worked for these last four years, everything you’ve built with these little hands—” he kisses them and looks up at me, “—you’d lose. Your world and mine cannot coexist. And remember that I’m always more dangerous when you’re around.” His voice hardens on the last sentence.

Perhaps because of that, my brain latches on it and ignores the rest. My breath catches as an idea occurs to me. “But if I calm you, shouldn’t my effect numb the bad memories too?”

He shakes his head. “No. You calm me, yes, but you can’t wipe out mangled kids or my mother’s broken body or m—” He stops like he said one letter too many. The silence is deafening.

“But even traumatic memories can rewrite themselves, can’t they? The neural pathways just need new stimuli, new associations—”

He puts his hand over my mouth. “Over a long period of time, maybe, but mine never have.”

My heart starts pounding as I lead him exactly where I wanted. “So if we spend a lot of time together, then maybe I can help you?”

His forehead locks and his jaw clenches as he wises up to my plan. His nostrils flare. “No!” he says so sharply that I fall back in my chair.

He releases my wrists and stands. He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. It looks like he is counting in his head. At last, he takes a deep breath and looks at me. Instantly, his eyes lighten and now I understand why. They lighten in calmness.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, his voice softer. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But no, you can’t help me. Even if I were to allow you to spend time with me, which I won’t, you would never survive long enough, and even if you did, some memories I would never choose to numb.”

The air stops in my lungs as I finally understand. Not because he says I would never survive—apparently that doesn’t matter. But because he summons these horrors. He preserves them.

“Why not? If it would help you?”

He shakes his head, standing straighter, almost defiant. “Because I don’t want to.”

He stares beyond the window again, like he did when talking about his mum.

My thoughts are a stampede. Why would anyone want to hold on to such anguish? It’s a cruel punishment of the self. Then I remember the list of symptoms I just reviewed.
Guilt.
But what could he have possibly done to think he deserves this? How can I ever ask him without catapulting him to some horror that already holds him prisoner? A pain different than what I’ve felt before lacerates my insides. For my parents, I hurt because I’m mourning. But for him, I hurt because he is alive, yet buried.

I stand and pad over to him. “Look at me,” I say.

He meets my eyes. Purple to sapphire blue. I don’t blink as layer by layer, the darkness retreats and my calmness takes over. When the blue is bright again, I turn my head to the side and strike the pose from my painting.

He smiles and shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

Be with me, make love to me until we both drop, lock us away because with you, that would be paradise
. “Spend some time with me.” I pick the thing that will hopefully freak him out the least.

He shakes his head, ready to strike again. “Absolutely not. Time leads to opportunity, opportunity leads to you getting injured or worse,
dead
.” He shouts the last word.

“I still want to try.” Apparently, I’ve gone mental but I’d rather take a chance than be just a portrait.

He runs his hand through his hair, teeth clenched, like he is trying to contain a roar. “That’s because—you don’t—understand—what it would be like.” He speaks slowly, like he cannot trust himself to release his jaw.

I take his face in my hands. “Then show me.”

“What?”

“Show me what it would be like, and then we’ll both know if we can do this.”

He pulls my hands away from his face. “An experiment with your fucking life? Have you lost your fucking mind? Did something happen to you these last two days that I don’t know about or did I fuck your common sense out of your brain?” He is yelling now. Straight to dragon. So loud is his voice that Calico hops on the kitchen window and presses his whiskers against the glass, peering in.

At the same time, the door bursts open.

“Isa!” Reagan roars.

Oh, bloody hell!
Oh no, she’s home early! She will lose it. He will lose it. Maybe I should hide him? Maybe I should hide her? Where is my calming effect? Too late. She turns the corner.

She takes in the scene, her green eyes wild. They zoom straight on Aiden and narrow to slits. Her hair achieves a level of sentience, red curls whipping out in static. She drops her purse on the floor. Her lips twist in a sneer and a low, hissing sound rises from her. Calico paws at the window.

I turn in terror to look at Aiden. He’s not here. But the dragon is. Tall, straight, every exposed muscle flexed ominously. His teeth are locked, eyes glowing. I open my mouth to speak but Reagan explodes.

“What the
fuck
are you doing here?”

Instinctively, I plant myself between her and Aiden. “Reagan, sweetheart, listen to me—”

“Get behind me, Isa,” she roars and starts prowling toward us.

Oh, bollocks!
“Reagan, please, he is here for me. Just—”

“What the fuck is your serious defect, Aiden Hale, huh?” she screeches. “Did you come here to gloat? Are you sick of your dick and need free castration services? Or do you have a painful death wish?”

“Reagan, stop!” I call but I might as well be talking to ICE. She takes another step forward, blowing her hair out of her face. I’m too afraid to look at Aiden so I run to her and take her hand. “Reagan, we worked things out. Let’s just—”