they ran, or if he even intended to act on them. In his presence, it was easy to forget what Mitch had told Violet: He wanted to fill a loss in my life, become an older brother figure. “We’ll see” meant no, bringing back the crushing reality that he felt an obligation to watch out for me. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I sighed, my feeble breath not touching the already condensed windowpane.
After our moment in his room, a quiet, heated debate went back and forth between him and Maggie Beautiful (which is what he called her too), and after a few moments of tense deliberation, he threw his hands up, stalked from the kitchen back into the front room, and took his seat at the table after holding mine out.
Their next-door neighbors, Craig and Marvin, a delightful couple who seemed to marvel in Maggie Beautiful’s sequin ensemble, came over with the main course.
I watched Brando throughout dinner, partly because I was curious as to what his reactions would be to the wild things Maggie Beautiful did, and partly because, no matter what he did, he seemed to capture my attention without meaning to. I had a hard time keeping my eyes to myself. My hands, too, for that matter; they itched to touch him, to memorize his every feature.
The years that had passed had caused me to hunger in a way that had not been apparent until I was with him—I felt him in a surge, on an acute, primal level.
Dinner was good, the cake even better, but Brando became the entire meal. It seemed that no matter how much time would pass, or how many times he would do some mundane thing, my need for him had established itself as insatiable.
There was nothing for me to compare it to; still, whatever thing existed between us was unusual. I could feel him deep in my bones, just as I could feel the connection rush through my blood in heated passion and cold fear.
If our love was a book, the language was ours alone. We both seemed to understand the writing easily enough, even if he refused to read past the first chapter.
Not long after Maggie Beautiful put on an after-dinner show, Brando insisted on taking me home. I didn’t protest. I wanted to be alone with him.
The truck ride had been silent, reflective. His hand so close to mine on the seat had become almost unbearable, an awful temptation that became a need to connect.
Without thinking, I licked my lips, the memory setting my hands against the windowpane in my bedroom. The urge to move, to reach out and touch, overruled anything else. My breath came out in a rush, and my breasts tingled in a way that they never had before. They ached. The awareness that he stood just below my window made the want for him to touch me more acute.
The ache spread from my breasts, down to my lower stomach, then slid between my legs. My mouth parted at the sensation, my fingers curling, and the need for him to touch me greater than any I had ever known.
His eyes alone could command my body, its wants and desires. He already commanded the blood in my veins. It was only natural that the rest of me belonged to him too. Whether he wanted me fully or not, I was his.
Closing my eyes, I remembered the heat of his body. His touch was a hot coal to the ice of my freezing skin. As I had sat so close to him in the truck, my fingers itched to touch his, to claim his hand and hold it in mine, interlace our fingers and our breaths. Hold on forever.
And then, like riding a flash of lightning, we were at my parents’ house. We had sat in comfortable silence while the truck idled in the rain. I wanted him to tell me when I would see him again. I wanted him to confess his feelings. I wanted him to give me his word.
Bigger dreams were always better than small ones—the rejection hurts the same either way. And it was better than the alternative, nothing.
He had stared ahead, at the rain, following the direction of his lights. Droplets of rain played in the beams. “Scarlett,” he said, his voice low but filled with force, “I want you to dance again.”
The shock of his unexpected comment must have registered on my face, because he turned to me, eyes prepared for battle.