Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 27 Don't Fear the Reaper

Ava wanted to tell her friends a little about her childhood, not everything, but something pivotal — told them she'd heard voices when she was little... that was how desperate she was... Ava had anxiety over the bond that had been created between her and Layton the night before and the dependency for him that only grew, so she wanted to reach out elsewhere. Her friends all looked terrified at what she told them, furthering the disconnect from each other.

But then Ava second-guessed how she thought Layton had reacted to it.

She was determined to push him from her thoughts to spread the distance. But she had imagined him on every street corner on her way to work. Her heartbeat slowly rose, and her feelings shifted before her thoughts did. Her heart remembered its intense yearning for him as her eyes flickered around, as her mind thought it feared to see him. Until she heard a noise behind her, somewhere in the far distance, then another one, and she recognized it beyond any shadow of doubt. Her heartbeat pounded away at the confirmation, and she was excited, forgetting everything but the fact that her body, mind, and soul were taken over completely and happily, and the only thing that mattered was he was near, and the world was right again.

He came out of the shadows after her, making noises again, and she was running away and laughing wildly, all her fear sucked up by the thrill and a feeling of completeness. He caught her and swung her around, and she couldn't breathe.

At the bell tower, she sat on the ledge, trying and failing to do her homework. Her eyes glistened darkly as they were carried away with him standing on the ledge, the ledge she would only dare to hang from, and she soaked in every moment with him, her mind reeling at the fact that she had the chance to do so. Her gaze was stolen by his pants hanging on his hips, his cheeks filling in the jeans as he stepped carelessly, the bare skin just above his pants showing when he reached up to climb, and his muscular forearms flexing as they wrapped around the columns to come closer to her, his daringness turning her on.

Wearing her tight black jeans, boots wrapped up to her knees, and a cropped tight black shirt, made Layton extra hungry that night. His eyes flickered over her body admiringly.

He reached his hand down for her, daring her to come up with him. With heavy-lidded eyes shining, she grabbed his hand, and he pulled her in front of him. Her life seemed to whip up into the air coiling around them. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She felt his hands wrap around her, and she let go. His lips pressed against her outstretched neck, and he pulled her tight — right now was always.

His hunger feasted and devoured her on that ledge. It had driven her up high into sharp exhilaration at the height above the town and the openness beneath the sky, and then brought her back down to him with a soft tongue, doting fingers, and an ever-tightening grip that said he was never going to let her go.

For weeks, it had felt like they were stuck in some vortex of time that wasn't measured by pm or am, but instead with him or without him, night and day.

Days she would wake in her room, realizing Layton must have carried her home. The clock always ticked away slowly as Ava waited with urgency for the sun to lower. But they did have lives outside of each other. And her life was growing more difficult to manage, as it was growing more difficult to understand her place in it. Her friends noticed a difference in her. She was trying though. Always just as the sun would begin to rise and it was time for Ava and Layton to let go, it was so difficult they had to tear their fingers away. Even knowing as night fell, they'd be back under the night sky, free again, just him and her.

Nights they lay around lazily when they stayed in, sketching on each other's drawings and smearing black chalk tiredly over each other. A cold draft wafted through and the candles burned their ethereal movements over the room, and nothing distracted the two of them from their deep comfort in each other. The liminal space they'd created around them was beginning to grow to a tangible thing; one day no one would be able to penetrate it. Deep into the night, when she should sleep, it was difficult. She couldn't willingly let go into a sleep where he could disappear. It was painful to try. But all anxiety washed away as they lay there on her bedroom floor, the room pitch black since the candles had burned out, and as quiet as it was dark, except for the soft purring somewhere close. But still they lay there, facing each other and looking at each other without eyes, hands sliding over each other. Quiet. Calm. Forever.

Sometimes when he arrived it was beautiful. It thundered outside. The lightning lit up the sky behind him as he lifted her like a dark angel, a savior from her own destruction, and laid her on the soft satin sheets. Old brass candleholders of different sizes and shapes littered the bedside tables, glowing and lighting ghosts around them. They took their time removing every piece of clothing between them. In a swift movement, he had her turned over and pushed on her stomach as he continued removing her skirt. His fingers trailed back up and over the scar on her back hip, where she'd been dragged by a car, and he softly laid a kiss on it. In an instant, her head was in the pillow and she was crying hard. She hated when he did things like that, and yet she appreciated it so much; she didn't know how to reconcile that. He continued kissing her scars on his way up, and she only cried harder, until he rolled her back over and he kissed the tears on her face. Their lips met, their bodies mended together, and they surrendered to the ecstasy of magic, dark and light and powerful. One soul. One Heart.

Other times when he arrived it was unsettling, even scary. When he stood outside in the dark and would not come in, his words clipped, breath uneven; the only thing she could see were a pair of red eyes, which her fear must have confused her into hallucinating. When he came after her and pulled her in his arms so that her toes left the floor, but he could not speak; his hold around her was so rough, so powerful, yet so desperate that she'd never felt anything so intense in her life — it felt like she was going to burst into flames right there and be reborn from the ashes; she didn't know why, but she wanted to cry in that moment. He was the most terrifying when it did not seem like the Layton she knew was looking back at her; his soul swayed beneath his gaze like a lonely branch about to fall off a tree; the black holes inside his eye sockets wanted to suck her dry, from the grips of her body and into its dark depths; he was domineering, difficult to pull back from where he was lost. Or when his tongue ran over a bleeding wound of hers and began to suck, sending her into a moment of dumb shock, being appalled and confused when arousal began to wave up in his overbearing blood kink; his grip turned to steel and a frenzy undulated through his features and in a frightening gaze; her mind reeled in every direction.