Secrets Abound (Supernaturally Bound Book 1) (18 page)

We didn’t say much on the drive back. We were both still processing what had happened and what it meant. I know
I
was confused on what it meant after all the hot and cold signals he’d been giving me, lately. I wondered what he thought about it, as well. I was further confused by his silence. I mean, I knew he wasn’t the best at communicating his feelings, but he could at least give me
some
clue as to what he was thinking. The car ride wasn’t so much awkward as merely quiet.

“I’ll see you later.” I told him as I opened the door to get out.

“Do you still need help studying tomorrow for our chemistry test?” He asked me right before I slid out of his truck.

“Oh, right, yes, I do. I haven’t even started studying, yet.” I admitted.

“Okay, see you tomorrow then.”

When I was in bed that night, I had too much on my mind to fall right to sleep. I tossed and turned a while for my second night in a row. Except tonight, Aiden was the only thing on my mind. I kept picturing his blue eyes gazing down at me. I remembered the way his lips moved with mine and how it felt to have his strong arms hold me against him. Before I knew it, I was asleep and dreaming of Aiden. We were kissing again, but then suddenly he jerked away and said, “I don’t want this.”

“You don’t want to be with me?” I asked feeling confused and hurt.

“We should go back to being friends.” He announced.

I woke up disoriented and confused. I was relieved that it was only a dream but worried it might be closer to reality than I’d like. The dream had played out what had been stuck on replay in the far back of my mind. I was always skeptical of positive things in my life. It never seemed worth getting my hopes up for something only to be disappointed. My thoughts slowly faded until I fell back to sleep.

I woke up the next morning to Clarissa bouncing up and down on the end of my bed. She was fifteen but still seemed to act like a young child at times.

“What time is it?” I growled.

“It’s already eight.” She informed me like that was late or something.

“Are you kidding me? Go away! I didn’t even get home until after two last night.” I told her.

“I know. I heard you moaning last night in your sleep about Aiden. What did you two do that made you dream about him?” She pried.

“Nothing.” I answered too quickly. She could tell I was lying.

“OH MY GOD! You totally hooked up with him, didn’t you?” She exclaimed. “Well, it’s about time. I knew you two had the hots for each other.”

“Please, go away.” I covered my head with the blanket.

“Fine, I’ll just ask Aiden when I see him.” She threatened.

“No, don’t do that.” I told her. “We didn’t have sex, okay? We only kissed, that’s it.”

“Could you
be
any more boring?” She rolled her eyes and left.

I laid there for a second hoping I’d be able to fall back to sleep but no such luck. I crawled out of bed and went to make me coffee.

By the time I showered and got dressed, it was time for me to head over to Aiden’s to study. We always studied at his house because mine was so chaotic all the time. It was usually only the two of us at his house. Ash was there sometimes, but he worked so many hours that it was a rare thing.

I knocked on Aiden’s front door and almost instantly he opened it, startling me a bit.

“Hi.” I walked in, setting my books down on the coffee table in the living room.

“Hi.” He smiled.

I flopped down on the couch and opened up my chemistry book to the chapter the test would be over. A few seconds later, he slid down beside me. He glanced at the book to see what we were going over. I could feel his face close to mine, and my heart began to flutter.

I read the first paragraph aloud from the textbook. I went to turn the page and my hand brushed Aiden’s. I glanced up at him and noticed he was staring at my mouth. All thoughts of studying fled my brain. I thought back to last night, and I wanted him to kiss me, again.

“Aiden?” I bit my lip.

“Yes?” He asked without looking away from my mouth. He inched closer to me, and I lost all train of thought. He reached his arm around my back and tugged me closer to him.

This time when he moved in to kiss me, there was no hesitation. I knocked the textbook from my lap and heard it fall with a thud to the floor, but I didn’t care. I reached my arms around his neck and guided him down until I was lying underneath him. His kisses moved from my mouth down my jaw. He began kissing my neck with soft, hungry kisses. Need coursed through my body. His hand moved from my leg to my side and rested right below my breast. He reached down and slipped my shirt over my head.

His lips had only been away from my body for a second, but he kissed me again like it had been years. Our tongues were entangled with one another and moved to a rhythm that made them seem as if they were dancing to music only heard by us. His hand moved around to my back and had my bra off in less than a second. He stared at my exposed chest before I twisted us around to where I was on top of him.

He seemed surprised by it, so I took the chance to remove his shirt, too. This time, I found myself staring at his chest. He was so ripped, and yet I never saw him working out. The black ink of his tattoo stood out on his slightly pale skin. I began to wonder if I would finally get to see the rest of it.

I lowered my face to the edge of his pants, right over his tattoo. My lips skimmed across the skin of his stomach before I pressed them against the hard outline of his muscles. He let out a moan that fed the desire inside of me and caused it to grow with exponential speed. I trailed along the path of the sharp v-line of his hip.

He tugged my face back to his and we began kissing, once again. I moved my hands over his chest and his abs, feeling all the indentations of his muscles. His hands moved up my back and around to my chest.

He caressed my breast gently, but his kisses became more vigorous. My skin hummed in pleasure under his touch. He branched out spreading his attention to suckle my ear and nibble his way down my neck. His lips gently massaged the side of my neck. It felt so good I leaned my head more to give him better access with a moan of approval. His hot mouth seemed to cover more territory as his teeth grazed my tender skin. I felt him apply more pressure and with it came a minute amount of pain. As if to make up for it, Aiden began to massage the area with his lips and tongue.

We heard a car door shut outside and we could hear his brother speaking loudly on his phone as he strode up to the house. We jerked apart instantly and struggled to find our clothes. By the time Ash opened the door, we both had our shirts on, but my bra was stuffed into my bag, and I was breathing heavily. It had to have been obvious what we were doing two seconds prior, but at least he didn’t see me half naked. Ash’s eyes bounced from Aiden to me with a disapproving expression. He inhaled deeply and stared Aiden down.

“Aiden, we need to talk.” Ash said in a serious tone and left the room.

“I better go.” I said to Aiden.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He handed me my book.

Once I got home, I headed straight for the bathroom. I figured after all these heavy make out sessions with Aiden, I was in a real need of a cold shower. Feeling calmer, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around me.

I had the room to myself, so I stood naked in front of the mirror. The first thing I noticed was the mark Aiden left on my neck. It was like a mix between a bite and a hickey. It was going to take a lot of concealer to cover this up.

The second thing I noticed was a mark on the front side of my hip. I licked my finger and rubbed at it, but it wasn’t coming off. It was a thin black line that had never been there before. I didn’t know where it came from, but it seemed to be a part of my skin, almost like a tattoo. I shrugged, deciding I’d keep an eye on it in case I had some bizarre skin disease.

Aiden

Aiden wiped his mouth and followed Ash into the dining room. He braced himself for the lecture of a lifetime.

“I’m disappointed, Aiden. You know what this mission means and you are possibly compromising everything.” Ash scolded.

“I’m sorry.” Was all Aiden could muster. He knew what he did was wrong, but he found that his self-control tended to vanish when he was around Bridget.             

“What were you thinking? What if you revealed yourself to her? It’s too soon. She’s not ready. It would have ruined everything, and you came so close today.” He paused, his eyes gripping Aiden’s. “I could smell the blood.” He accused. “Do you need to be reassigned?”

“No.” Aiden said quickly. Panic crept up. Aiden knew he was the only one who could keep Bridget safe. He knew her best and had a great advantage that someone new wouldn’t have. “I’ll fix it. I promise.”

Bridget

I didn’t see Aiden again until the next morning when we walked to school together.

“Last period is a pep rally, today.” I reminded him.

“Yeah, do you want to meet in our usual place?” He asked.

Our usual place was the roof of the school. I used to go up there to smoke and be by myself before he moved here. Then, one day, he found the secret way to get up on the roof a week after he’d been here. That was the first time we had talked at all. From then on, it was the place we went to skip pep rallies, assemblies, and anything we didn’t want to attend including class sometimes.

“Okay.” I said.

He was quiet the rest of our walk to school, but as we got closer, we saw the reporter from the local paper outside of the school. We gave each other a sideways glance knowing exactly what story she was here for. You see, in any other town, a school prank would never make the paper. But in Waverly, hardly anything ever happened. This would probably be front page news.

We waltzed by nonchalantly, trying to avoid suspicion. Inside the school, the janitors were already hard at work, cleaning everything up. Students were gathered around discussing what had happened. School started like normal despite all the excitement.

Aiden was AWOL for the rest of the day. We had three classes together, but he didn’t show up to any of them, and he wasn’t at lunch. I wondered if he had left early. I guess I’d find out if he didn’t show up on the roof later.

I was called to the office during chemistry. Anxiety pulsed through me as I wandered through the empty hall. I told myself there was no way for them to know I had any involvement, but different scenarios kept running through my mind. Maybe I dropped something while I was decorating Principal Heckler’s office that pointed to me. I had to push all that out of my mind and stick with my story.

“Have a seat.” Principal Heckler ordered when I opened the door. “I’m going to give you one chance to confess, and I won’t have you arrested for destruction of property.”

“Okay, I confess, it was me.” I took a deep breath. He got a smug look on his face like he had won some war. “
I
put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop. I got to say Principal Heckler, you are
good
. Man, it feels terrific to get that off my chest.” He gave me a cold look to say he was
not
entertained. I noticed a spot of slime on his neck that he missed. It took all the will power in the world not to laugh at that moment.

“Listen here, you little delinquent. I am getting awful sick of your blatant lack of respect. I
know
you had something to do with this, and when I prove it, you
will
be expelled. You can count on that, missy.” He said, gesturing it was time for me to leave.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the pep rally. I snuck over to the janitor’s closet that had the panel in the ceiling leading to the roof. I climbed up a few shelves and pushed open the door on the ceiling. I hauled myself up onto the roof through the opening and closed it behind me.

I could already see Aiden sitting on the cement block that acted more as a bench to us than whatever its original use was. I smiled to myself thinking about everything. He twisted around to look at me, and my smile faded. Something appeared to be bothering him. I got that pit in my stomach that told me something dreadful was going to happen.

“What’s going on?” I slid down next to him.

“We need to talk.” He said in low voice.

“Okay, then talk.” I said, already knowing what was coming.

“This last week has been a mistake. It never should have happened. We’re friends, and I shouldn’t have crossed that line.” He said in almost a whisper, as if it were a struggle to even get the words out.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“We work better as friends.” The words came crashing into my ears like firecrackers. This was exactly like my dream.

“Is this about something your brother said?” I asked.

“He made some excellent points. I’m graduating in a couple of months. Then, I’ll be going to college in the fall. Where could this honestly lead?” Everything he said made sense, but I still felt betrayed by the words.

“What happened to ‘we have six months, let’s just enjoy our time together’?” I asked him, getting aggravated by the situation.