Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1) (25 page)

“Miss Snow! Elisa!” A voice yells in my ear. I know that voice. It’s Benson. He’s here and holding me tightly to his chest. “You’re okay, you’re fine!” he yells again as he starts darting in the crowd, shoving and pushing bodies out of our path.

“Benson, what happened?” I shout, as flashes of light break over his face. “Where’s Reagan? Javier?” I wriggle in his arms, searching for red and black curls in the darkness. Benson’s hold tightens and in seconds, we plunge through the front doors into cold, fresh air. Before I can blink, the doors open again and Reagan sprints through them.

“Isa!” she cries, her hair flying in the wind.

“Reagan!” I reach with both my hands toward her, almost falling over Benson’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Where’s Javier? What happened?”

Benson stops at the corner of the main gate, leaning me against the Coliseum’s concrete wall and throwing his jacket over my shoulders. Somehow he has my camera in hand. Reagan reaches us in seconds, gasping. I hug her tightly, patting her face and arms to make sure she has all ten fingers and all ten toes.

“Isa! Holy fuck, are you okay?” she screams, doing the same with me.

“I’m fine! Never mind me, what—” But then I see it. I see it in her eyes first, then in Benson’s, who is towering over us. I follow their horror-struck gaze to my bare legs covered in pink welts. Where Mum’s dress used to be. It’s now in tatters, barely covering the tops of my thighs, the strips of silk blackened and curled by fire. They disintegrate before my eyes, blowing in the wind.

“No!” The word comes out like a sob from my lips. I start chasing the ashes, clutching the air with my fists. “No!” I gasp again as the silky dust flies into the night and disappears. I race after it anyway. “Please,” I pant. “Please!”

“Elisa!” A beautiful voice roars behind me and faster than any motion should catch up with sound, Aiden’s arms wrap around me. He lifts me and cradles me to his chest.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did someone touch you?” He is frantic, his hand flying to my forehead, my cheeks, resting on my throat, taking my pulse.

I find his eyes. They’re wide with terror. Yet, they halt my tears. Air flows again in my lungs and I throw my arms around his neck, inhaling his scent. Inhaling deeply, wanting none of the silky dust inside me. Only him.

“Baby, talk to me!” he says, his voice cracking.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry. I just…I caught fire, I
think
. I’m not really sure—what are you doing here?” My words are whooshing in the wind too.

He whirls around with me in his arms, and I see Benson sprinting toward us, Reagan behind him. Where is Javier?

“What the
fuck
happened?” Aiden explodes at Benson. His voice is so loud that I put my hands over my ears.

“Some fucking idiot behind her dropped a sparkler, sir, and her dress caught fire. Right as I got there. I swatted it down before it burned her skin but I think I hit too hard. I’m sorry, sir.” Benson shakes his head, eyes wide.

Aiden is turning into solid titanium around me. He covers my legs with Benson’s jacket, scanning every inch of my welted skin. His jaw is locked so hard that a thick vein is bulging in his neck.

“Aiden, shh,” I whisper in his ear. “I’m okay. Shh. Hydrogen, 1.008—”

“The Rover, Benson.” His voice is low, guttural, the words distorted. His fingers dig into my flesh. Benson sprints toward the parking lot, his massive frame much too nimble for his size.

“Reagan, where’s Javier?” I ask, rubbing the back of Aiden’s neck.

She shrugs. “He kind of disappeared when the security guards came to deal with the fire.”

Aiden’s rib cage expands. His muscles start vibrating. “Thank goodness!” I say to them both, reaching for my purse to call Javier. But it’s not on my hip where I slung it before.

“Reg, have you seen my purse?” I ask, trying to keep a calm voice for Aiden.

“No.” She frowns, looking back at the Coliseum gate.

I try to remember what I had inside. Phone, ChapStick, my debit card. I can cancel that if it’s stolen. Right now, I just need to breathe for Aiden.

“How did you get here?” I whisper, rubbing his neck. He doesn’t answer so I press on to get him to talk. “Aiden, sweetheart, talk to me. What are you doing here?”

“How could I sit at home with you in that crowd?” he says in that same guttural voice, and a violent shudder runs through him.

“Shh, I’m fine. How did Benson get in without a ticket?”

“I know the security detail.”

“Of course you do. My protector,” I whisper in his ear, hoping to lighten the mood but for some reason, he tenses again. Unable to comprehend his terror, I continue to rub his neck. A set of tires squeals on the pavement from the direction of the parking lot and the Rover flies through the gate. At that same moment, the Coliseum doors burst open for the third time and Javier runs out, carrying my purse and scanning the entrance frantically.

“Javier!” I call, waving. “We’re here, we’re okay!”

No. We are not okay. We are not okay at all. Because Aiden’s shoulders just creaked in my ear and a low, deep growl whirls in his chest. His eyes go blank—the way a man might turn off in order to execute someone.

“Aiden, look at me,” I whisper but he doesn’t. He stares at Javier, who is jogging toward us.

In seconds, the Rover screeches to a stop on Aiden’s left. Without a word, he opens the back door and lowers me on the seat. He moves sharply, like a machine. He cocoons me in Benson’s jacket, eyes unblinking.

“Get Miss Starr in the car,” he fires off at Benson, and slams my door so hard the Rover shakes. He whirls to face Javier. Peripherally, I see Benson usher Reagan to my side but I cannot look away from Aiden’s back. It’s rippling, the muscles’ vibration now visible under his blue shirt. I’m abruptly afraid for Javier.

“Aiden!” I call through the inch-open window but he does not react.

Javier comes to a sudden halt a few feet away. I don’t know what he sees in Aiden’s face but it must be something else because his eyes widen and he takes two steps back.

“Where were you?” Aiden’s voice whips through the air, colder than I’ve ever heard it.

Javier swallows once. “What do you mean, Mr. Hale?”

“I mean where were you when your adopted sister was almost burned alive?” Aiden clenches his teeth on the last two words.

Javier looks at me in the window. His eyes deepen and his eyebrows quiver. “I’m sorry,” he mouths.

“It’s okay, Javier. It was not your fault. Aiden, please! It was an accident!” I call, knowing that if I can hear them, they can hear me.

Javier looks at Aiden. “I—I had to step away,” he stutters.

“You had to step away? You
had
to step away while her mother’s dress went up in flames and now she has to miss one more thing in her life. Why?” Aiden explodes, his voice so thunderous that I jolt back in my seat, colliding with Reagan, who is watching over my shoulder.

“I saw the guards come in. I didn’t mean—”

“You promised to take care of her!” Aiden roars. “Did you even
think
to grab her before slinking off? Or do you keep your promises only when convenient?”

“Aiden, stop!” I shout, rattling the door.

He takes two steps toward Javier, his voice dropping to a vicious, low timbre. “Let me make
you
a promise, Mr. Solis. If anything happens to her again while she is with you—whether she breaks a fucking nail or ICE itself comes after her—you will be tango dancing across the Mexican border with one leg. And I keep my promises.”

Reagan gasps. It’s the last sound I hear before the world goes silent. My hair stands on end and I taste metal at a sharp bite on my own tongue. I shove at the car door—not to get Aiden’s attention but to rip it open.

Javier’s shoulders hunch a little but he nods. “You’re right, Mr. Hale.” His voice is very quiet. “I screwed up tonight. But I have a question for you. If you want her so safe, where were you? Not your henchman or your money—you!” He points at Aiden, then looks at me. “See you tomorrow, Isa,” he says and stomps off toward the parking lot, my purse still in his hand.

“Isa,” Reagan whispers, shaking my shoulder. “You have to rein Aiden in or you’ll end up losing them both. Talk to him. I’m going to drive Javier home.”

I can’t speak over the tangy rage in my mouth. She gets out of the car and starts running after Javier. Benson leans close to Aiden and mouths something. There is no movement from Aiden whatsoever but he must react somehow because Benson nods and retreats some distance away.

Aiden does not move for a while. Then, slowly, his back relaxes. At last, he turns to face me, eyes lightening. But for the first time, I detest my effect on him. I don’t want to numb anything about what just happened. He strides back to the Rover. With every step he takes, my anger becomes static. My throat starts burning as though it’s warming up for a scream.

He opens my door. “Come, Elisa, let’s go.” He reaches to pick me up.

“Don’t touch me!” The words slip out of my gritted teeth.

“What the—” He stops, his eyes widening as though he is seeing me for the very first time.

“Are you so blind that even with your genius brain, you have no idea that you just humiliated Javier in the worst possible way?”

The V cracks between his eyebrows. “You must be joking! He put you in danger!”

“He did nothing of the sort.”

His jaw locks. “Elisa, he left you behind. You could have been burned.”

“But I wasn’t! And even if I had been, I’m not his responsibility. He looks after me because he cares, not because it’s his job. And now you’ve made him feel like a failure when he’s a big reason I’m here at all.”

“Better him feeling guilty than you being torched alive!”

“Enough!” I shout. “Enough with this saving Elisa rubbish. From our first night together, you’ve tried your best to push me away. Well, your threat to Javier was so disgusting that you may have just succeeded.”

He is frozen. His mouth parts slightly. His eyes still until they resemble solid glass. For a moment, he just stares at me. Then, he blinks. “Elisa, you’re upset and you’ve had a long day. Let’s just go home and we’ll talk about this later.”

“I’m going home with Reagan. Now let me go!”

I’ve hit something because his eyes shift and fade. “Your home is with me,” he says, a wounded edge in his voice.

“No, it isn’t! I don’t know what I have with you, but it’s not home. It’s…it’s—” I look around the car as though the word may materialize there. “It’s a rampage or something. Like you’re trying to save me to make up for God knows what. Why? Am I just another rescue mission here? Or do you actually care about
me
?”

He draws up to his full height and looks away from me, eyes fixed in the distance, past the Coliseum. He says nothing.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003…
When I open my eyes, he is looking at me.

“Do you really want to part like this?” he asks, his voice very low.

His question douses my rage. Do I? Do I want our last memory to be this? Do I really want a last memory at all? I don’t know. But I do know that I cannot think anymore tonight. I just want to be in bed, with problems that even if I cannot solve, I can at least understand.

He takes a step closer when I don’t respond. “Please let me take you home.
Our
home. It has started to feel like that with you. You can sleep there tonight, and if you still feel this way in the morning, I will let you go.”

He doesn’t move his eyes from my face, as he waits for my answer. Woodenly, I nod. He shuts my door quietly and without another word, walks around the car and climbs next to me. Benson must notice because he strides back to us and slips into the driver’s seat.

“Home, sir?” he asks.

I don’t look at Aiden but I assume he nods because Benson starts driving at an even speed. Drained—more drained than I remember being in a long time—I stare at the night. Fragments of images start playing in my head. My mum’s dress on fire. Javier’s anguished eyes. Reagan’s shocked whisper. Aiden’s vicious threat. And his wounded face now in the end. Over and over and over. I cannot stand them so I close my eyes and lean my head back.

When we arrive at his house, I get out of the car, sensing Aiden behind me. Close, very close. He slides his palm over the pad and the doors open. I march through them, across the living room, noticing our Powell’s books—from a happy time—still on the dining table. His footsteps echo in my wake. At the bedroom threshold, I pause. His footsteps stop too. His body heat reflects on the back of my neck, and my resolve wavers. So I shut the door behind me. His footsteps do not ring in the hallway. I drape what’s left of Mum’s dress over the chaise and take off Benson’s jacket and my heels. The welts have already started to fade. I put on my periodic table T-shirt and climb into bed.

On his nightstand is the frame I gave him. Was he planning on sleeping here tonight? I fight off every single tear, switch off the side lamp and turn on my side. For the first time since we laid eyes on each other, I’m thankful to be alone.

Chapter Forty

Lifeline

I jolt awake with a sense of unease. Dawn light streams between the strands of my hair, tangled in my lashes. I blink once, twice. I am knotted around Aiden’s pillow, clutching it between my arms and legs. Instantly, I remember last night and my body splits in two. My fingers squeeze the pillow to my chest but my senses try to block Aiden’s words echoing in my ears.
Mexican border…let you go… Hydrogen, 1,008. Helium, 4.003. Lithium, 6.94
. His words go silent, replaced by the first chirps of the resident bluebirds. Then I see him.

“Oh!” I gasp, the pillow plopping on the bed.

Aiden is sitting on the chair in the corner, ankle over his knee, in the same dark jeans and blue shirt as yesterday. In his right hand, tucked between his thumb and index finger is the quill from our first night. He rolls it gently, the Amherst feather quivering from his touch. A few Powell’s books are at his feet, Byron on top. He is not looking at them. His eyes are on me—vibrant but turbulent, as though images have spun in their depths for hours. I try to speak, even a simple “hi”, but I can’t make a sound with my heart crashing against my ribs.

“I don’t want you to leave.” His voice is soft, quiet.

“Why not?” I whisper.

He sets the quill on
Byron’s Poems
and stands. A look of purpose flashes in his eyes. He takes the five steps between us, while I try to calm my pulse thudding in my ears. I expect him to sit at the foot of the bed but he kneels on the floor next to me.

“Because you were right yesterday,” he says. “Ever since our first night together, I’ve been so consumed with pushing you away that I didn’t realize how much I
don’t
want it until you threatened to leave me. I’ve watched you sleep all night, afraid it was my last chance. This little wrinkle between your eyebrows didn’t go away even in your sleep. Thank God you took mercy on me and hugged my pillow or I’d have gone insane. I’ve been dreading this morning even more than on embargo night. Stay with me…please!”

Every word, every pause, every new, shy inflection in his tone is so close to what I have dreamed that for an instant I wonder whether I’m really awake. But then I see his dimming eyes and the dark circles under them and I know I must be. No matter how much he hurts me, I’ll never want this look of anguish on his face. His rare “please” echoes in the air.

“But all the reasons why you wanted me to leave are still here. What made you change your mind?”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t changed my mind. I capitulated.”

It sounds like a regret.

The tectonic plates start shifting and he pales. “Seeing you last night—white as a ghost, dress in shreds, running in the wind—” He shudders. “I haven’t prayed in twelve years and eighteen days but when I saw you, all I kept thinking was ‘Please, God, please let her be okay!’” He shudders again.

I shudder too, but for another reason. What happened twelve years and eighteen days ago? I want to ask but, instinctively, I know this is something he needs to tell me on his own. Abruptly, he grips my hand in both of his. “I’d rather be deployed again than be unable to protect you. If you hadn’t calmed me yesterday, I have no idea what I would have done…or whom I would have hurt.”

I shiver, replaying the violence emanating from him as he whirled toward Javier.

“Elisa?” His right hand flies to my cheek, then at the hollow of my neck. “I’ve scared you again.”

I nod. “Yes, a little.”

He leans away from me immediately, resting his hand on the bed. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

“I’m more afraid of what you may do to others.” I shiver again.

His jaw flexes. “I’ll destroy anything and anyone that may hurt you, Elisa. Including myself. On that point, I will not negotiate.”

“I understand that better than you think. I’d do the same for you. But it’s how little it takes for you to jump straight to destruction mode that scares me. A broken nail, Aiden? A burned dress? What if I’d fallen and sprained my ankle? Or got hit by a car?”

He says nothing but from his rigid shoulders I know that even these scenarios are triggering his vigilance.

I take his hand again. “Life happens, Aiden. One day, whether naturally or accidentally, something will happen to me. We can’t have you go on a carnage spree just because I got the flu. And what if we’re both very lucky, and one day when I’m ninety, I pass away in my sleep, probably dreaming of you. What will you do then if you’re still alive?”

He blanches. “Don’t talk about that.”

“But it’s a given. It
will
happen. Are you going to grab your dentures and beat people up with your cane?”

His lips twitch in a repressed smile.

“It’s not funny, Aiden. We need to prepare you for…for losing. For life.”

The semismile disappears. His eyes lose focus, as though this is a frontier beyond which he cannot see. I pull on his hand to lift him off the floor. I can’t watch him on his knees when he looks so vulnerable. I might as well be trying to lift the Coliseum but he understands my intention and sits at the edge of the bed. He grips my hand like a lifeline.

I take a deep breath, choosing my next words carefully. “Aiden, I don’t want to leave. I dread losing you like I dread boarding that plane to London. But it’s one thing for us to do this to each other and it’s quite another for Javier or Reagan or some other poor soul to bear the brunt of it. I think you should see a doctor for your anger…for your
PTSD
. You’re destroying your own health, your peace—”

“Okay.”

“I mean, the rate of heart attack—wait, what did you say?”

“I said okay, I’ll see someone.”

It takes me a while to find coherent words so instead I blink at him until he almost smiles. “Just like that?”

“It may be just like that for you but it has taken over a decade for me to try this again.”

“Try this
again
? You mean you’ve seen someone for this before?”

The tension returns to his shoulders. He looks away from me, his eyes resting on the frame I gave him on the nightstand. “Briefly—when I first came home.”

“How briefly?”

“Enough to know I didn’t want to do it.” His shoulders are straight, defiant, as though they agree with that decision, with the part of him that rejects any form of help.

“You’re punishing yourself, aren’t you? That’s why you’ve refused treatment.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his grip on my hand tightens. I take that as confirmation.

“Aiden, why? What do you think you’ve done to deserve this?” My voice rises and cracks.

His eyes start withdrawing slowly, like a prelude to the lock that signals his flashbacks. I don’t want him to drift into any horrors so I keep talking.

“Look, if it’s too hard to tell me, I’ll wait until you’re ready. Or never if that’s what you need. But you can’t just bottle this up. What about talking to the other Marines? To Marshall—”

Abruptly, his index finger flies to my lips. “Elisa, why I think I deserve this is not the point of this discussion.”

“Your health is the point of this discussion.”

“Fine, my health,” he shouts. The bluebirds outside stop chirping. He is breathing hard and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. When he looks at me again, they’re almost liquid.

“
You
are my health now,” he whispers. “So for you, I’ll try.”

There is only silence. No chirps. No breathing. Not even my own pulse in my ears.

“I’m your health?” I try to say the words but no voice comes out.

He must read lips because he smiles. A sad, no-dimple smile. “Are you really that surprised? From the moment I laid eyes on you, you’ve calmed me better than any drug. And believe me, there was a time when I tried them all.”

A drug…
I close my eyes, breathe in, and try to find my voice. “Aiden, I have to ask you something.”

He stills. “What?”

“Well—you use words like drugs and addiction when you talk about me—” I stop because my throat constricts so tightly that it sends a zing through my jaw.

“And you’re worried that that’s all you are to me.” His voice is very soft.

I nod, twisting the sheet in my hands.

Before I can blink, he rips me from under the sheets and brings me on his lap. “Elisa, baby, no! If all I wanted was your calmness, why wouldn’t I just keep your painting? That alone is enough to do the job. I wouldn’t need you.”

“Well, I thought maybe the live thing works better?”

“It
is
better, but not because I get a stronger high. It’s because you’re more to me than that. You…you make me want…”

“What do you want?” I whisper, fixing my eyes on his so I miss nothing.

They still—the turquoise more translucent than ever. His lips lift into the first full smile today. “I want to take you out to concerts. Fall asleep with my nose in your hair.” He runs his fingers through my tangles. “Kiss you in broad daylight in the middle of the Rose Garden, not caring who is around us.”

All the things he cannot have.

He tips my face up so I can look at him. “I want to be your new home.”

For a long moment, I can’t speak. And that’s good. Because the only thing I want to say is
I love you
.

Instead, I kiss him hard. He groans and responds so forcefully that we fall back on the bed, our bodies skating across the sheets to the very edge. His hand clamps around my jaw—like it did on our first night.

“I don’t want the fantasy anymore,” he says. “I want the real girl.”

His mouth locks with mine then, our tongues twining with no more space for other words. Or even air. He grips the collar of my T-shirt and rips it off. Before my gasp leaves my lips, he shreds my knickers. His lips start a scorching path down my throat, along my collarbones, to my shoulder, closing around my left nipple. He breathes on it once and tugs gently. It stands at attention, lifting the rest of my body off the bed.

“Mmm…still perfect,” he moans, his breath making me hiss. He switches between tongue, teeth, and lips in a sucking, nibbling, kissing pattern. As my belly tightens in a familiar, sharp ache, I grasp what he is doing. He is retracing our first time, with perfect, infallible detail.

And like the first time, my body bows to him down to my last cell. But unlike then, now I move with him. In a togetherness we haven’t had before.

I wrap my legs around his waist, soldering him to me. His mouth and tongue travel to my other nipple, then lower—circling my belly button, nipping at my waist, sucking at my hip. With each kiss, his fingers skim along my calf, inside my thigh, around the all-but-gone welts, until they meet his lips on the relentless pulse beating between my legs. His mouth wraps around me in the same move as his fingers slide inside.

I moan a garbled version of
Aiden
, gripping his hair and pushing myself into his mouth.

“Open up,” he orders as he sucks hard. He spreads my legs as far apart as they will go. “I want to taste you…all of you… I wanted to do this since I first tasted your candy… That’s when I knew it was you…” His tongue laps away in circles, jolts, dips and flicks. Exactly as then. Yet new.

Everything burns and shivers at the same time. I hold on to his hair like I might drown if he lets go. He doesn’t. Another suck, another stroke. I’m suspended for a timeless moment—then I soar and vanish. Reincarnated back into that first night of wakefulness.

* * * * *

A faint gust of air wafts over my face, then a distant chuckle, a faraway sigh. I open my eyes and Aiden’s face is here.

“Hey,” he whispers, smiling. He has taken off his clothes, his skin blazing against mine.

“Hey,” I breathe, expecting his kiss and my citrusy residue on his lips. I kiss him until all I can taste is his fiery cinnamon flavor.

“I wish I could explain how this feels for me,” he sighs, raining kisses on my nose, my eyelids, my cheeks. “Always like the first time”—he kisses my jawline—“and always better.”

“It’s like that for me too,” I whisper, wrapping my legs around him.

Eye to eye, he slides inside me. My body knows him now and grips his every inch. Our hips circle and roll together. He lifts my hips up until my toes touch the mattress above my head, and thrusts hard inside me. My cries mingle with his rough breathing.
Aiden. Baby. Aiden. Elisa
.

His rhythm picks up—hard, fast and blinding. On every thrust, my insides close around him with precision. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

I explode violently, crying out his name. Just like then. Just like always. He follows in seconds with a final word.

“Elisa!”

* * * * *

From somewhere far away, there is a buzz like a mosquito in a summer loll. I bury my nose in Aiden’s chest to ignore it. But it buzzes again. And again.

“Umm, Aiden? Do you need to answer that?”

“No…vacayshon.”

“Vacation?” I squeal, shooting up in bed, instantly alert. He said he never takes vacation!

He opens one eye. “Mmm.”

“Really?”

“Mmm.”

“So what are we doing?”

“Surp—rise,” he mumbles, drifting into a soft snore.