AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Clara still looks nervous, suspicious. Her shoulders hunch a little more. “It… has,” she agrees. The ‘ten years’ goes unspoken between us, and I let them. Right now, she’s thinking about what else sits between us- the betrayal, the blood- and I let her. Let all of that rise to the surface, churning and confused, ready to be whipped into a frenzy by what I’m about to do.
I step toward her, and she flinches but doesn’t bother backing away. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you the second I saw you. But there was a lot of smoke.” I drag my eyes up her body, over her too-thin t-shirt and shorts. There’s no bra under that shirt, and I wonder if the hunch of her shoulders is her attempt to hide that fact. I let my eyes linger on every new and old curve of hers. “And you’ve grown so much.”
Her throat bobs with a swallow. I can’t tell by the light whether she’s blushing or not, but I’m fairly sure she is. “You… You’re different too,” she manages.
I give her a grin. “Different good? Different bad?”
That flusters her, and she loosens her grip on herself. “I-I, well…”
I don’t give her a chance to recover. “I apologize,” I go on, getting closer. “For my rudeness. I was only surprised to find out who you were. And given the circumstances, I couldn’t be too careful. You understand?”
“I-I do.”
I’m in her space now, and she takes a step back from me, but when I reach out and cup her cheek in my hand, she falls still. “If I’d known who you were, I wouldn’t have been so rough.” I frame her face with my palms, and her eyes are huge as they stare up into mine. “I have to say, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Clara.”
Her breath catches, her eyelashes fluttering. “I… I missed you too, Thomas.”
Got her.
I pull her into my arms, the hug all-consuming, and wait for the stiffness of her shock to melt. My hand cups the back of her head, protective, intimate. Slowly, Clara lets her face rest against my shoulder, but she doesn’t lean into me. Her hands rest lightly on my back, but she’s not returning the hug. There’s hesitation still.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, you know. After the schism…” I let the words hang in the air between us, let them be blunted by the comfort of my arms around her. “I’m just so glad I found you when I did. That you’re okay.”
“I almost wasn’t,” Clara whispers. Her hands slide just a little bit more around me. I stroke her hair, and she shivers. I pull back so she can see my face. The softness in my mouth, and the intensity in my eyes.
“Clara…”
I step forward again, and she has no choice but to step back into the wall I’ve been guiding her toward. I’ve placed a careful inch between our bodies where heat is growing. Uncertainty and fear rekindle in Clara’s expression- and a brush of my thumb over her cheek erases it. Slowly, I slide my hands over her shoulders. Down her arms where goosebumps rise at my touch. Her breath hitches again, and her breasts graze against my chest. I move centimeters closer to make sure she can’t breathe without it happening again.
“I can’t believe how much you’ve changed,” I murmur, my hands traveling lower, tracing the length of her arms. Now I let myself look her over like I didn’t in the car. I take in her auburn hair, longer than ten years ago, her bangs styled so they frame her square jaw better. Her lips have grown into their pout. Her eyes look sadder, more tired. It could be the hour of the night and the narrow miss with the fire, or something else. And her body… Her body is a woman’s now. She’s grown into her long legs. Once she seemed stick-like and too tall, but now she’s gracefully slender. “You were always beautiful, but now…”
“Y-You think so?” she asks, and I answer with my body, finally pressing it against hers, lining us up like puzzle pieces. My knee pushes between hers, my thigh flush with her pelvis. The fabric of her shorts is very, very warm. My hands bracket her hips and slide up to her waist, lifting her shirt along the way.
“I’ve thought about you so often,” I tell her. It’s only half a lie. “I’ve wondered if you were okay, if you needed me, if you’d become someone I didn’t know anymore.”
As if I ever knew her. As if my father ever let me out of my room or away from my tutors long enough to get to know other children. But nostalgia is a powerful drug, and so are teenage crushes. I think about the last time I saw Clara Speare, in the garden with Raleigh, looking up at me through my window. I remember the way she smiled and blushed at me.
I ignore the memory of hiding my smile from her and wondering if I ever could get to know her.
Did she know then what her uncle planned to do? Or did he have to convince her after the fact that it was for the best?
Clara stutters, “Thomas-?” and I press my face into her hair to silence her.
She smells like smoke. I have to fight the sudden urge to recoil. Instead, I let the scent ground me. Smoke, like my father’s cigarettes. Like the night my home burned down. Like Raleigh’s home, burning all over again. Because of this woman and her uncle and their traitorous, grasping schemes.
“It’s been so hard for me, you know,” I breathe, close, so close, to her ear. “Thinking of us as enemies. Thinking of you as someone… forbidden. Do you think of me that way, Clara? Am I your enemy?”
She stiffens, just a little. Her breath is so shallow. Every push of her lungs is friction between our bodies. I tighten my hands on her bare sides. Press my lips against the shell of her ear.
“Is that why,” I whisper, “you tried to burn my sister’s house down with her in it?”
CHAPTER 3
Clara
Despite the heat of Thomas’s body, despite the weight of him pinning me against the wall and the puffs of his warm breath in my ear and the way his hands on my sides are making me want to burst into flames- I go ice cold. His lips are close enough to kiss my skin, but now it feels like he’s a predator poised for the kill. His hands tighten, and it’s no longer delicious pressure. He’s made his body into a cage, and with a few words convinced me to step right into it.
His face pulls away from my hair, but it’s not a relief. Now his eyes are pinned on mine, and I’ve never seen a face more forbidding.
