Authors: Nara Malone
“Um, no, not really.” The warmth in her voice evaporated.
“Jake jumped on me for sending you there without clearing it with Marcus or
Adam so they could check their schedules and be there.”
“Oh, well I don’t want to get you in trouble. Could you ask
Marcus?” Another doubt crept in. She still didn’t have a phone number to access
Marcus directly herself.
“Sure, I’ll ask him when I see him. Not sure when that will
be.” And there was something hedging, elusive in Maya’s voice that had Allie’s
stomach dropping to her toes.
“Okay. Well…when you can then. Maybe ask Jake. I want to
redo the shots while the moon is still close to full.”
“Jake can be as hard to pin down as Marcus. He won’t okay it
without Marcus’ approval. I need to get back to work, but…” The pause lingered
for an uncomfortably long spell. Something was wrong, off, and Allie had the
impression Maya was working up the nerve to spill it. “I’ll do what I can.”
Maya was gone.
Allie dropped her phone in her purse.
Something sane in the back of her mind warned that she knew
very little about Marcus, that her romantic experience was so limited she was
skill-less at interpreting the intentions of men.
While she’d had one teenaged lover as inexperienced as she,
she’d never had love. She’d never been loved. So she was one hundred percent
vulnerable and one hundred percent incapable of deciding how close to love
things with Marcus were getting and how far she should let her personal
feelings go.
Lila’s voice penetrated her thoughts. “Earth to Allie.
Wouldn’t I love to be a fly on the wall inside that fantasy?”
Allie’s blush heated her face. She ducked her head to
conceal the reaction. Lila slipped into the office, closed the door and leaned
against it.
“You got it bad, girl.”
“I don’t have anything. I barely know him.”
“You just hold on to that thought, Allie girl. The pretty
boys are fun in the sack, but hard on the heart. Enjoy them but don’t get
attached.” Lila slipped back out the door and left Allie to her work.
Don’t let him in where it mattered. That was the plan. Could
she stick to it?
She looked her ad over. Once she’d let her self-doubt go,
stopped overthinking, the composition had come right. She saved and closed the
file, logged the time she’d spent on it and picked up the next job on the task
list.
She needed to stop overthinking the situation with Marcus.
The relationship would work itself out in the end. He’d said he could help her.
She believed he would try, almost believed he could. She had to let the details
find their own arrangement.
Images of Marcus floated back up as she started to sketch
some ideas. A sketch of his face took shape in the corner of her layout, or
rather his eyes, the gleaming spark at the edge of a pupil, a catlike angle in
the way upper and lower lids joined, arrested her attention and she went with
it, a leopard’s head taking shape around Marcus’ eyes. It felt right, made
perfect sense. There was something of a feline aloofness about him, an arrogant
grace that could dissolve into an aggressive demand for petting and attention
if ignored.
She let the fantasy take shape, the pair of them circling
each other like big cats, stalking, studying, simmering with desire. He pounced
first, but she quickly dodged, leading him on a breathless chase through a
snow-crusted mountain forest. The tang of evergreen popping like spark in cold
air, the crunch of crust breaking under his weight as he tried to follow. She
was just light enough to skim over the surface without breaking through, and
then she skidded to a stop just at a cliff’s edge, could hear Marcus scrabbling
on the icy surface behind her before they collided and went over together. Her
landing on a ledge just below, but him hurtling past, falling. Falling.
She snapped back to her surroundings with a start. What had
just happened? She had the same sweaty, trembling, heart-hammering reaction she
had when she woke from a falling dream, only she hadn’t been falling. She had
to work for each breath, as if strong fingers circled her throat and squeezed.
Her reaction beyond what made sense.
She hadn’t been asleep. She must have been asleep, or so
tired she slipped into a waking dream. Possibly a form of the sleepwalking that
had plagued her as a child? Wake-dreaming?
More coffee, she decided. She’d need a lot—it was going to
be a two- or three-pot day.
* * * * *
He didn’t say he would drop by tonight, but she believed he
would. That’s why she took more time choosing what to change into after work
than she had before work. That and a fresh supply of choices. Allie lifted a
simple lilac sundress from the cardboard carton. The color vibrated in her
hands. Lila had pressed a box on her when they were leaving work.
“I’m never going to wear this stuff, but it suits you and
someone should enjoy it.” Allie hadn’t wanted to be rude, but the idea of
wearing all the color Lila loved made her skin hurt. As she sorted through the
items, making a pile of possible and a pile of impossible on her bed, she noted
that while there was color, it was of the soft pastel variety, often on a pale
charcoal or white background. Delicate clothing in soft, flowing styles meant
for spring weather. The lilac sundress landed in the impossible pile. She
couldn’t bring herself to go that far from the familiar. She settled on faded
jeans and a loose, feminine white top sprinkled with tiny lavender blossoms. It
showed off her shoulders, a little more skin than she was comfortable
revealing, but she decided it would do.
She sniffed a flowery perfume, too dainty for Lila’s taste,
and set it aside. She wasn’t agitated by perfume in the same way color
agitated. Eddie’s assertion that her nose was so sensitive she could smell
trouble coming was misguided. She didn’t smell trouble, she tasted it. To her
flowers emitted a flavor, the same way she might taste coffee lingering in the
air, or soup simmering on the stove. She’d licked Marcus all over last night,
and she still couldn’t decide if he was trouble.
Danger was definitely a spice used heavily in the brew that
made up Marcus. But dangerous to her wasn’t a conclusion she could make.
Dangerous to anyone should be a non-starter. And yet he was the only spice
she’d allowed into the bland life she’d put together, like a splash of Kahlua
in a cup of black coffee. How much could a little splash of Marcus now and then
really hurt?
A light flutter stirred her stomach when she looked at her
clock. It was seven, the time he’d met her for dinner the other night. Surely
he would turn up soon. She’d take a book out onto the porch, read casually as
if she did that every evening.
She finished the book three hours later in the faint yellow
glow cast by the porch light. Closing the cover and hugging the book to her
chest, she went inside and closed the door on hopes of Marcus showing up. She
refused to let herself consider it a bad sign. He hadn’t said he’d be there.
Maya said he was out of town. Obviously he hadn’t returned yet.
She busied herself putting the sorted clothes back in the
box and sliding it all under the bed. When that was done, she had to face the
other reason she’d been hoping Marcus would show up. A familiar wooden box, what
she thought of as the lesson box, sat on her desk where it had been when she
woke up that morning. She still hadn’t looked inside. Hadn’t had time that
morning. Hadn’t had courage this evening.
Given where they had already gone, what could he possibly
ask next? What could be more extreme than what had happened last night? Or the
night before? All the reasons she was afraid to look were the same reasons that
she had to look.
She ran her fingers over the intricate carvings of animals
on the lid. In the center was a strange seal, a triangle and wreath interwoven,
a tiger’s eye inlay in the center. She summoned her courage and lifted the top,
the fragrance and taste of sandalwood enveloped her senses. Her fingertips
savored the red silk lining. The contents were concealed by a folded sheet of
buff-colored stationery. The paper had a rich, heavy quality that demanded
respect. She lifted it gently, turning it over to discover a wax seal, stamped
with the same image in the center of the box.
She plucked at the seal with a fingernail, trying not to
think about the wax she’d plucked from her nipples…had that been yesterday
morning? It felt as if she’d done a month’s worth of living in the three days
since Marcus had planted himself in her life.
The seal broke. She smoothed the paper flat on her desk.
Touching Marcus’ handwriting was a lot like touching him, the twist and angles
of lines was electric, as if a remnant of his energy lingered in the lines on
the page. She pulled her hand back. Even without touching, the writing held
power, turning and dipping in curves and loops that replayed his voice in her
mind.
Turn off your thoughts. Be still. Be present.
She turned back to the contents of the lesson box, wanting a
clue where his words might take her before she read further. A stoppered glass
bottle drew her attention next. She worked the rubber stopper free and smelled
trouble. Trouble that made her mouth water. An aromatic blend of cinnamon,
ginger, anise—Marcus in a bottle. In addition to the bottle, there was a moss-stained
marble candlestick that brought to mind the patio in the moon garden.
Naturally, Marcus included a fresh black candle to go with it. Inside a velvet
bag she found a slim gold lighter, etched with the same seal that decorated the
box and note. Together the items were a combination of old and new—something
from each previous lesson woven into the new element.
She held the bottle close to her mouth, sipped the scent by
inhaling through pursed lips, flavors of cinnamon and licorice played over her tongue.
An image of Marcus in the park wearing that red shirt flashed in her brain. As
it had that first morning, the shirt lured her now.
She still had it. A lone spot of color in the rickety
wardrobe that contained most of her belongings. She took it out and held it to
her cheek, certain the sense and warmth and safety she drew from it were
related to its connection with Marcus. She continued to hold it against her
cheek as she returned to the desk to read the rest of his instructions.
To begin, he wanted her naked and kneeling in front of a
mirror, imagining it as a window to wherever he was, allowing him to watch her.
She could swear sometimes that he had compiled an idea file labeled “Things
Allie Would Never Want to Do” and everything he asked her to do was based on
that file’s contents.
The candle was cool and slick in her hand. It was licorice
black hair she was thinking of when she set it on the holder. It was the fire
Marcus ignited in her that she thought of when she touched flame to wick.
She turned off the overhead light, undressed, and knelt.
Sitting back on her heels in the center of her rag rug, she duplicated the
position he’d shown her previously—knees wide apart, backs of her hands resting
on the tops of her thighs. Closing her eyes, she could see a clear image of a
candle, the rise and fall of flame with her breath. As he’d instructed, she put
her fingertips gently over her eyelids, stilling eye movement and lightly
pressing her thumbs against her throat until she felt the faint beat of her own
pulse against the right thumb. The candle was just in front of the rug and the
instructions beside it. Without opening her eyes to look she could see a
perfect mental image of the listed steps, the sweep of Marcus’ handwriting.
She inhaled the scent of wax and recalled his presence the
night he’d taught her to see with her skin. Her mind repainted a picture, not
of his face, but of his hand holding that candle.
She reached for the stoppered bottle and opened it again. As
instructed, she tipped a drop onto the tip of one finger and placed in on her
forehead. Opening the third eye he called it. She could use all the visual help
she could get. Next she placed a drop on her tongue, thought of that moment in
the moon garden when he’d kissed her to silence, the moment when his lips
lingered over her, their breath mingling and the taste of cinnamon, a hint of
the fire to come. Fire and shadows.
The room was growing warmer.
She faced away from the mirror. Unable to bring herself to
completely ignore his instructions, she’d left the wardrobe door open so that
the mirror inside could reflect her image, but she kept her back to it. She was
looking at her front door instead, where the mirror reflected the light of the
candle, casting a warm glow over the peeling paint. In the center of that glow,
a vision of Marcus took shape. Just his face. Those silver eyes drilled into
hers. Her jaw dropped and her heart hit her tonsils.
She slammed her eyes shut, put her hands over her face. It
had been so real, detail beyond anything she’d ever managed to assemble when
she tried to recall his face, or anyone’s. She half expected to hear him speak.
She peeked through her fingers to find the vision gone.
She didn’t know what to think. A mental phantom of some
sort? Was this how memory worked for normal people? Did misty clones of people
they were trying to recall appear in front of them?
If so, she wasn’t sure this was a skill she was willing to
develop. She wished Marcus were there beside her, telling her what to expect,
telling her what to do. She picked up the instructions. He had told her. She’d
just follow it one sentence at a time, as if he were there tossing out orders
in that imperial tone of his. She smiled. She didn’t know any royalty, but
there was an air of royalty about Marcus. A dark prince accustomed to being
obeyed.
Running a finger down the page, she picked up at the spot
she’d left off. In her head she could hear Marcus speak them as she read.
Pour the oil in one palm, then rub your hands together.
Slide those hands lower
,
over breasts, over that taut belly, down
between those soft thighs.