Forbidden Fruit (Shannon Cheney) - By Ann Aguirre Page 0,14
he answers. I’m already snuggled down on my futon. Low-level arousal percolates through me as I picture him doing the same. In my head, he’s in bed and shirtless, listening to my voice.
Mmm, yeah.
“Here I am,” I say.
“Shan…” His voice is rich, the drawl pronounced, and he imbues my name with a kind of longing I’ve never heard before. “You can’t make me feel this way.”
“Are you sure it’s me and not you?” I ask.
“That’s the problem. I’m never sure.”
“You would be with me.”
Silently, I replay his words in my head. Is he picking up how I feel, from all the way across town? I don’t know much about empathy, but that’s an enormous range.
“How do you keep from drowning in other people’s emotions?” I ask, before I can think better of it.
“It doesn’t work like that. The distance is more of a gauge,” he mutters. From his tone, it’s clear he doesn’t care to elaborate.
And that makes me even more determined to get an answer. “Of what?”
“How much I care.”
“So you care…a Laredo-sized amount about me?”
“Shan,” he whispers. “I doubt you could go anywhere that I wouldn’t feel you.”
Oh. My. God.
He goes on, “I haven’t felt like this since high school. You’re burning me alive.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“Said the flame to the moth.”
He must be wondering how he’d explain me to his friends and family, his work colleagues. I won’t change for him. If he wants me, I come with Gothic splendor. He has to love me enough not to care what other people think or how they feel about us together. I don’t know if Jesse has that much of a lawless streak in him.
I sure hope so.
And it’s not like I’m jailbait. I’m just not the girl anybody would pick for him.
“You seem to think I’m bent on your destruction.”
“Sometimes it feels that way. No matter how many times I tell myself it’s a bad idea, I close my eyes and see your face.”
“I’m good with that.”
Then I disconnect the call because I’m ready to turn it into something filthy, and I don’t think Jesse’s ready for that. I suspect he’d feel guilty if we had phone sex, which would set us back. I text him a good night, and then I handle my own needs, all the while conscious that he’s probably feeling everything I do. I consider how he might respond, and that’s enough to make me arch and quiver. Afterward, I’m glowing when I get his texted reply to my emotional message.
God, that was good.
For obvious reasons, I start all over again.
On Friday, I’ve been working for about four hours when I straighten up too close to the drink machine and whack my head. There’s a line of customers, and a few of them act like they might slip behind the stand to help me. Mark would throw a fit and probably fire me; I can hear him ranting about liability. God, training with him sucked so much.
Through sparkling vision, I mumble, “I’m fine, just give me a few seconds.”
I stumble through their service, and they’re all humane enough not to whine. I probably give them the wrong food and beverages, but I’m barely conscious. Afterward, it’s like that impact shook something loose—or broke it more likely—but now I’ve got this picture sitting in the front of my head.
From the outside, it looks like an Oriental trading company, a shop where they sell rugs, fans, and cute imported things. I see myself walking into the store, through the front, and into a private room in back. Here, it’s clearly an arcane supply house with wards, runes, wands, herbs, athames, and other rare spell components. Since I’m pretty sure I can’t cast spells, I can’t fathom what I was doing there. I get flashes, too, of the woman who accompanied me, but there’s a blank spot where her face should be, one I just can’t fill—and pushing ends with me crouched on the floor, cradling my head. Bumping it was painful, and I’ve got a lump rising; this is more of an iron spike through my frontal lobe.
Felix comes jogging over. “Damn, you okay? I heard that bang from across the way, over the whir of the milkshake machine.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“You don’t look good. Come on, sit down for a minute.”
I let him help me up and lead me out to the nearest table. Unless my vision clears up, there’s no way I can finish my shift. Which is unfortunate because the manager’s on vacation