Page 31 of Phoenix
“What’s that? Why I became a killer for hire?” He smirks, but it’s not real, it’s just incredibly sad.
“Perhaps, but that’s not what I meant,” I try to explain, “I was talking about why you’re so sad and lost all the time.”
“I guess we both had to grow up much too soon,” he says as he finally turns to look at me. After a moment, he steps in closer, looking at me as though I can save him. His intensely blue eyes momentarily dart to my lips, causing my breath to hitch and my throat to become dry.
“I don’t regret that night,” I murmur without having any conscious thought behind those words.
“You don’t?” he asks as though I’ve completely confused him.
“Before that night, I hadn’t had any human closeness since those nights with Jake, when I had clung to him through fear. I felt safe with you, but also like I am a woman, not just a victim who’s still afraid to go outdoors by herself.”
“Do you see me like Jake? Like a brother?” he asks in barely more than a whisper as he begins stroking back locks of hair from my face. “Cos I don’t see you like Lou.”
At first, I can’t answer him, my breath has got caught in my throat, his proximity making me feel things I had never felt before meeting him. My heart feels fluttery, my head dizzy, and the need to have him touch me has become so overwhelming, I feel like I might scream.
“No,” I eventually breathe out.
Less than a second later, his lips are on mine, kissing me gently and passing on his heat to my coldness. I want more of it. His hands wrap around mine to pull me closer, and I let him, I welcome him.
“Put your arms around me, Jess,” he whispers against my lips, “I need you to hold onto me.”
With my eyes still closed, I move my hands up to his chest, over his shoulders, and rest my hands around the back of his neck. I feel his smile against mine before he kisses me with heat, and a desperation to melt into one another. His tongue reaches in between my lips, and for once in my life, I feel like the carefree teenager I should have been. I picture us in my bedroom back home, with my parents being completely oblivious to us making out when I should have been doing homework. I imagine that Phoenix, the older bad boy with tattoos who the villagers liked to gossip about, had climbed in through my bedroom window in the pitch black of night. The thought of this has me pushing my hips against his, feeling his arousal, and not being afraid of it. His hands move down to my waist where they pull me just as much as I push. I emit a small moan, but he doesn’t run like he did before, and I smile.
“I’m damaged, Jess,” he says, even though he’s still smiling, for he already knows what I’m going to say next.
“So am I,” I reply without smiling, “but you make me feel again.”
Chapter 13
Jessie
The ride home is calming, and I feel myself leaning against Warren for more than just my safety. He stays strong and rigid, only moving to swerve around corners, and I feel my trust for him beginning to seep in. I haven’t felt like this for anyone since I returned home, not since Jake. We make a strange couple, Warren and me; then again, my whole life has been one series of strange events. Perhaps Warren and I make the most sense out of everything.
The bar soon comes into view, and I feel relieved over the fact that it’s not yet busy. In fact, I can only see one lone car in the parking lot, and the bikes parked up front are only those belonging to Jake, Warren, and the other guy who works behind the bar. I begin to relax after momentarily tensing up over our arrival. With any luck, I can shuffle out back before anyone even notices.
When Warren parks up and turns off the bike, he turns to help me dismount, and the intense look in his eyes has me blushing. But it’s his smile that disarms me completely. He removes my helmet and brushes back my hair with soft strokes against my skin. I take in a breath through my nerves, but I don’t pull away. We crossed a line back in that cemetery, a line I don’t want to return to. I look right back at him when he cups my cheek with his large hand, prompting me to remember the night they had been all over my body, and I wonder if I’m ready to go back there.
“I want to kiss you again,” he says when he is but an inch away from my lips.
“Kiss me then,” I whisper back. And he does before I’ve even had a chance to take a breath after my words have escaped through my lips.
I melt against him, losing myself in his strong embrace and letting his mouth control mine. I’ve strived for control ever since I returned home, after it had been stolen from me for so many years. I’ve never done anything I haven’t wanted to since Daddy took my choices away from me. Whenever my parents tried to encourage me to go outside or to try and visit a new doctor, I would refuse and walk away from the situation. They never pushed and I never pulled for anyone. But Warren is different; he’s broken like me. He understands, and it makes me feel things I haven’t felt for a long time. He’s my Stanley, and I think I’m his.
“Er, Phoenix?” Someone calls from the door to the bar, the man from the first night I arrived here. Phoenix doesn’t pull away from me until he’s ready, and I blush for it. He smiles before he finally looks up at the man still waiting for him. When he does, the soft expression he had put on for me immediately morphs into one of tension, waiting for the man to tell him what he wants. “You better get inside,” he begins, then looks at me with uncertainty before finally saying, “You too.”
Warren immediately looks at me with just as much confusion in his eyes. Though I probably look more terrified than confused, so he grabs my hand, kisses it, and walks us toward the door with his tall, straight back, ready to face whatever it is. However, when we finally pass over the threshold, what I’m faced with both shocks and saddens me.
“Jessie!” my mother cries out as she rushes over to pull me into her arms. I remain rigid while she weeps against me, pulling me in more tightly until I feel like I can’t breathe.
“I don’t know who you are, but we’ve come to take our daughter home, where she belongs!” my father growls at Warren, showing more courage than I’ve ever seen from him, especially given how much bigger the man he’s snapping at is. “How could you take her after all that she’s already been through? You’re just as sick as that bastard was!”
“Dad –” I try to argue but he cuts me off before I can go on.
“Mark my words, I’ll be calling the police as soon as I’ve got Jess safely back inside of the car!”
“Don’t you mean Niamh?” Warren finally voices. The question prompts my mother to look at him with confusion, as though she is completely unable to comprehend how he would know such a thing.
“That is her real name, isn’t it?” he asks again.