yours.
This wasn't about love. This was about possession in every form. He didn't just demand the promise from my mouth, no, that wasn’t enough. The answer he sought came from much deeper. He longed to feel it in the reverberations of his flesh against mine. In the echo of my blood and bone, an imprint of him that could never be washed clean.
Brando was older than me in so many ways. But in the eyes of the world, we were both still young. Still, our love seemed older than the two of us together and it demanded that we learn.
There was no true escape for either of us.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Scarlett
My heart had always been destined to find his. It was driven by hunger, a spiritual, primal need to fulfill the connection that seemed to be buried deep in the bone. And I rode the connection on a stroke of lightning to find him.
Life.
I sighed, a deep wistful sound.
Life was oh so good.
I had spent almost my entire holiday break in a magical floating balloon with Brando. I woke up to him in the wee hours of the morning, I fed him lunch and dinner, and I snuggled up close before bed.
During the stolen moments in between we would venture, touch and discover, always finding our way to this again. Sublimely full of a satisfied heart and exerted muscles all of the time, his name was whispered in each wonderful ache, and life seemed to find me.
As per his usual, when Brando had to work, he had someone stay with me. Violet most days, and we made it our mission to go through and clean the remainder of Emory Snow’s things—his French furniture, the items packed away in plastic tubs and wooden crates. His precious memories.
With only two days left to our magic balloon, though, the air slipped, our time fleeting. When I reflected though…I became swept away, lifted…
“Scarlett?”
I studied my reflection in the master-bath mirror. I brought my hands to my lips, a slight grin playing behind them.
“Hmm?”
The way he kisses me, sometimes so tenderly, sometimes with a need like hunger and thirst, both physical and spiritual…
“Stop doing that! You’re creeping me out.”
The way he loves me, my body, kisses every inch of my skin… A soft “ah” escaped my lips at the memory. “What?” A fierce blush rose to my cheeks, scalding hot and with a pulse. The heat matched the one between my legs.
“I said. You’re staring at yourself like you stare at the stars. Like you can reach them if you stare hard enough.”
My breasts, my naval, my…and his…yesss…the way he moves…oh…and what I can do to him in return…
“Sandy took too many chill pills. Maybe she needs another kind of pill now…”
What did Brando say to me? Oh. There it is. “You make love like you move…I don’t know how I survive you.”… The pretty words he released… His eyes, how hooded, how—
“Enough!” Violet’s violent word and her crushing grip on my shoulders popped my own personal balloon. “Get ahold of yourself, woman.” She shook me a bit, but then she pulled me in for a quick hug. She set me straight in a jerky movement, but she didn’t release her hold.
I blinked a few times, bringing her into focus. Her hair was the color of her name now, perhaps just a bit lighter, with a silvery tint added amongst the purple. A wide-brimmed hat sat over the crown of her head, and her wrists were adorned with silver jewelry. Her black turtleneck dress made her hair and eyes pop like a neon sign in the dark. Just how Mitch and Mick carried their cigarettes behind their ears, she had a pencil there.
“We’re going to be late, Scarlett.”
It took a moment for me to remember…and then I felt the frown come to my face.
She smiled so hard that she almost laughed. She turned from me, grabbing something from the counter littered with makeup paraphernalia.
Brando and I had agreed to take her to a party in the country. Mick had to work—he had found employment with one of the auto body shops around town—and she was hell bent on going.
Neither Brando nor I could talk her out of it, and since we both didn’t want to see her go alone, we gave in. But with only two days left to our own balloon, the idea of joining the real world felt less than appealing.
Even though Brando had to work, it wasn’t much. For the most part, he took