All He Asks 1 by Sparrow Felicity

Author:Sparrow, Felicity [Sparrow, Felicity]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Four

My skin is electrified as I mount the stairs to Erik Duke’s house.

Every step feels like it takes a decade, and every step feels like shedding Raoul’s warmth like a second skin, exposing my frozen core. It is miles from my car to the front door. Many miles and many years.

I’m replaying my last conversation with Erik as I climb. Not the words, but the gestures. The way that he drew so close to me. The smell of him. The weight of his expectation.

How badly I wanted him to touch me.

My bones are burning with expectation as the entrance to his house looms.

Erik is waiting for me at the top.

He stands back in the shadows as if he can’t bear for the light to touch him. He is tanned from his time on the lake, I know, but he still manages to look ghostly on the other side of the threshold. Waiting. Anticipant.

For a moment—a moment, or a lifetime—I pause on the top step, swaying on the stoop, one hard gust of wind away from tumbling backwards.

“He’s gone,” I say.

An invisible wall between us shatters.

Erik steps back. I step inside.

To close the door, he must move behind me, and his arm grazes my back. His head dips toward mine with that small gesture. If I lift my chin, our noses would be only inches apart. And if I inhaled, gravity might draw us together for a kiss.

The latch clicks.

The world is much darker with that door closed.

“It’s time to work,” Erik says. The words land on my nerves like the sour chords produced by slamming one’s hands into a piano.

Breathing is easier when he moves toward the kitchen, but it feels like Erik has divested something else of importance from me.

He’s muttering to himself as he walks. “Insolence. Praising you for your talent as though he has any stake in it.”

“Excuse me?”

He shakes his head. “Downstairs.”

Erik uses a key to unlock the door at the rear of his kitchen. For some reason, I’ve always assumed that’s a locked pantry door. It only occurs to me now that I’ve never actually seen him going into his office basement, and that this must be the entrance.

The stairs on the other side are steep and dark and endless.

There is something frightened and animal beating inside of me, resisting Erik as he urges me toward that door.

I am a prey animal, akin to a doe or a rabbit. I will be eaten if I go down those steps.

His hand rests on the small of my back briefly, and his palm is so hot that it burns through my shirt. The touch nearly unravels me. It certainly unravels any hint of resolve I might have had.

“Problem?” Erik murmurs.

He’s still touching me.

I can’t speak, so I only shake my head.

And I go down those stairs.

His fingers slip from my back to my waist, then to my elbow, and finally take my hand. Erik’s skin is rough from all the work he does in the forest, from those many hours out on the lagoon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.