Chapter 20

THEA

I’ve never been wanted by anyone, the way Levi wanted me. It was odd to me. I didn’t understand it, and yet, I was stupidly happy whenever I was around him. I couldn’t explain it, I just felt… free.

No one outside my family knew about my secrets except for him. I had made the mistake of opening up to a few people in high school, but that blew up in my face. A few weeks later, people started whispering, and the rumors started to fly. My teachers grew worried, and it even went as far as the counselors requesting to meet with me every day. But the thing was, I had already gone through therapy. My grandmother had spent thousands on Selene and I, just so we could talk to complete strangers about how we felt, or how we perceived the world around us. But sometimes we couldn’t even speak. We just weren’t mentally ready to traverse down that particular lane of our memories. I didn't know what to say to them, and that had only made things worse.

After six years of being forced to talk to people, I swore that I would never bring it up again with anyone… until I meet Levi. From the first day I met him, my world kept changing.

“What’s wrong?” Levi asked, as he came up behind me, catching my gaze in the mirror’s reflection.

“Nothing. Where are we going again?” I asked, turning back around.

“We’re celebrating with a weekend date,” he announced with a smile.

He grabbed both my bag and his, and carried all our things downstairs. He of course, had won the case, and all the news programs were running on repeat about how the great Levi Black had done it again. He had made it look so easy that no one seemed to remember the predictions of Mrs. Nash’s case. However, some people were livid that Mr. Nash’s murder was still unsolved.

“You’re getting lost in your thoughts again,” he remarked, as he handed me my hat and scarf.

“I was thinking about the case—”

“No,” he held up his hand. “We’ve spent months thinking about the case. Now is the time to forget that we ever had any—” He stopped and patted his pockets, “Where’s my wallet?”

“In the kitchen, which reminds me…” I headed to the kitchen while he trailed behind me. Opening the fridge and the cupboards, I began grabbing apples, chips, water, and whatever else could fit into my bag.

“What are you doing?”

“You said it would take us an hour or two to get there, right?”

“And you’re going to get that hungry? I’m not judging you, but—”

“No! It’s for the both of us, have you seen the snow outside? If we get stuck somewhere—”

He laughed at me. “You watch the weather channel a little too much.”

Ignoring him, I grabbed the rest of the stuff and threw it into a bag, then I turned and handed him his wallet. He just grinned at me and the child in me took over. Twisting my face, I stuck out my tongue at him and began to walk towards the front door.

“Did you just—”

“I thought we were in a hurry, Mr. Black?” I was already at the door, putting on my winter jacket and snow boots.

“You don’t want to get a few blankets too?”

That was actually a good idea. I turned and started towards the linen closet, but he intervened and grabbed my free hand. “On second thought, there are plenty other ways to stay warm,” he said with a wicked grin. “Come on Thea, let’s go.”

Shadow stared at us as we closed the door on her, and I sort of felt bad.

“Tristan and Bethan will take care of her,” he reassured me.

He’d done it again.

“Will you please stop reading my mind; it’s disconcerting.”

“It’s not my fault that you’re so easy to read,” he pouted, as he opened the door to his black Audi for me.

In all of our time together, this was only the second time I had been in his car and by the time we got in, we were both trembling. His hand rested on my thigh, and his fingers gently traced intricate patterns onto my jeans.

“Are you sure it was alright to miss spending Christmas with your family?” I asked, as we drove past the Christmas decorations.

It was already December 29th, the realization shocked me. This entire year had passed by in an eventful blur, and in less than three days, it would be a new year…

He turned up the heat in the car. “I could ask you the same thing.”

True.

“My family aren’t big Christmas people. We sit around in our pajamas stuffing our faces and watching reruns of all the classic Christmas movies.”

“That sounds amazing,” he laughed.

“I’m serious, didn’t your mother throw a huge party?”

He had spent the day with me instead.

“She did, and I opted out. The Blacks’ family Christmas parties are more of a show than an actual family get-together. The great thing about having a high profile case, which we shall not discuss, is the fact that no one expects you to do anything. How’s Selene?”

“She’s a bag of mushy-gushy feelings. Apparently she spent the day at her boyfriend’s place… wearing a bright-colored dress. My grandmother can’t use a cell phone to save her life, but she somehow managed to take a picture and send it to me. It was green, and she looked stunning.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the headrest. My baby sister was in love, and it suited her.

“You’re happy,” he stated, and I turned to look at him.

He leaned back into his seat, and kept one hand on the steering wheel, and the other on my thigh. His five o'clock shadow looked like it was now on its ninth hour, because he had been “too tired” to bother with it. I noticed he was wearing the watch I got him for Christmas, which was ridiculous when I stopped to think about it, because he had much better ones.

“What?”

“I’m happy.” I said simply, as I placed my hand on his and looked out the window.

“So am I,” he smiled.

Christmas carols played on the radio, but neither of us was listening. His hand felt like it was burning its way through my jeans and he was actually touching my skin.

“Thea,” he said softly, as the car stopped.

Turning back to him, he kissed me, cupping the side of my face. He gently sucked my bottom lip, and I opened my mouth for him in response. He deepened our kiss for only a moment, before the deafening sound of a car horn behind us drew us out of our bubble. Grunting in frustration, he broke away from me. Suddenly the inside of the car felt as though it were a hundred degrees. Taking deep breath, I took off my scarf and turned down the heat by the time he started driving again.

He didn’t say anything, he just shifted in his chair and I could see why. At least it wasn’t only me.

“Why are we like this?” I laughed.

He smirked as he glanced at me, and then back at the road.

“Good things come too rarely for either of us to question it.”

I was a good thing.

LEVI I still don’t know what it was about her that turned me on so much. Yes, she was beautiful, smart, dedicated, loyal, funny, and so fucking sexy…

Well then, maybe I did know.

But it was like everything about her effected me. She didn’t even have to do anything. Just watching her paint her nails got me hard. It was the lust between us that had brought us together in the first place, but with time even lust fades. Being married once, I remembered the first few weeks being filled with lust, but after sometime, that faded. We were childhood friends. We hadn’t got married because we were passionately in love but because everyone expected it from us. I felt fine around her. It felt like it made sense back then. But looking back on it, we were always better off as friends.

With Thea, everything was so different. I felt like for the first time someone had given me glasses. No longer was the world a blur. I could see so clearly I wondered how I ever lived so blindly before. I was well aware that she was thirteen years younger than me, but even that didn’t seem like a good explanation. We were magnets to each other, and once we were close enough, we couldn’t help but get stuck together. I was captivated by her.

“Wow,” she whispered, as we pulled up to the cabin, “it’s beautiful.”

Turning off the engine, I sat back and watched as she looked around in amazement.

“Why don’t we get stuck in here for a while?”

She nodded, and I reached across her, searching for the lever that would allow her to recline in the seat. We were so close that our noses almost touched, and then I found the lever and pushed back her chair until it was flat. Doing the same to mine, we both lay there gazing at the night sky through the sunroof.

“The stars are so beautiful here. You can never see them like this in the city,” she mused.

“There’s going to be a meteor shower tonight,” I told her, taking her hand in mine.

“Wait,” she said as she drew her hand back. Pulling off her gloves, she slipped her warm hand back into my own. We lay like that, each in our own seats, holding hands and gazing at the stars above.

The silence settled and it was comforting. Suddenly a low, gurgling growl echoed through the car, and with a laugh, I turned to her and asked, “Where are those chips again?”

“It doesn’t seem so silly now does it?” she chuckled.

Rolling my eyes, I sat up and reached into the backseat, searching for her little bag of munchies.

“Levi!” she gasped, pointing as she caught sight of the tail end of a shooting star.

The sky was still for a moment before one another shot across, and then another until it looked as though it was raining streaks of white light.

“Wow,” I murmured, falling back against my seat.

“How many wishes do you think we can get out of this?” she asked, but I couldn’t tear my eyes way from the sky.

“How many wishes do you need?”

“Three.”

That got my attention, and I turned my head to look at her, but she didn’t look away from the sky.

“A penny for your thoughts?” I wanted to know.

“Just this once,” she smiled, and closed her eyes. “Wish one; I get my dad out of prison. Wish two; Selene stays happy. Wish three…”

She stopped.

“Wish three?” I prompted.

She wouldn’t look at me, but she squeezed my hand. “Wish three is that I stay with you.”

There was a lump in my throat, and I squeezed her hand as I looked back up at the sky.

“Star light, star bright, the many stars I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, keep this girl for the rest of my life.”

She was silent for a second before throwing me the chips.

I looked at them, and then at her, before we both broke out into a fit of laughter.

THEA

Shifting over onto my side, I watched as he slept… which was kind of creepy, yet dazzling all the same.

“You’re staring,” he said, not bothering to open his eyes as he burrowed his head deeper into the pillow.

“Sorry—”

“Just ask whatever it is you want to ask.”

I sat up and I tried to lift the sheets with me, but he just pulled them back down. I tried again, and again, he pulled them back down.

“Levi.”

“My eyes are closed, you don’t need to cover up.”

“Firstly, why does it matter if you can’t see me? And secondly, I’m covering up because I’m cold.”

He reached up, placed his hand on my breast and lightly flicked my nipple. “You are cold.”

Pushing his hand away, I took the sheets, and this time, he didn’t stop me.

“What’s your question?”

“What do people do up here in the middle of nowhere?”

With a smile, he opened his eyes and looked at me. His eyes were wicked and his expression mischievous as he took me into his arms and kissed my neck.

“Not that,” I giggled—because apparently I was a giggler now— as he kissed my neck.

He laughed along with me, and sat up against the headboard, fully awake now. “We do whatever we want to do. We can walk into town, or the forest. We came here a lot when I was younger, with my father, so I know all the trails. You brought your ice skates with you, right?”

“I brought them. Yes. Do I know how to use them? No.”

“How can you not know how to ice skate? You’re from Boston.”

“Well, I spent most of my life in Maryland. People there hate ice; we don’t dance on it.”

“I could have sworn the youngest American athlete to compete in the Olympics for ice skating was from Maryland.”

He was such a know-it-all, and the smug look on his face—why did it make me want to smile too?

“How do you know that?”

“I read,” he said, as he stood up.

I followed the lines of his body until he snapped his fingers. “I’m up here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie, you were checking me out!”

“I need to get dressed,” I said, as I grabbed some clothing and headed into the bathroom.

As I closed the door behind me, I leaned against it and I found myself looking up at the wood paneling that made up the ceiling. Everything was so rustic, and yet it still managed to have a contemporary feel to it.

After getting out of the car, he gave me a tour of the cabin, which took a total of about ten seconds. It was small and cozy, with a stone fireplace and an old fashioned stove. He had said that it was technically his father’s cabin; however, his father had given it to him simply because Levi had loved the place so much.

He and his father had initially purchased it to get away from the women of the house. They would come up here to just get away from it all and just do manly things such as hunting or fishing— though, according to Levi, he was horrible at it. He claimed that he didn’t have the patience, but if Levi didn't have the patience for something, I’m not sure how anyone did.

Levi said that he came here to “escape” the madness of the city, and I could understand why. It was like being on your own little island.

“Take your time, the lake will still be frozen whenever you decide to come out,” he teased, as he stood outside the bathroom door.

On second thought, he only had patience when he wanted to.

“I’m done,” I said, opening the door.

He looked me up and I grinned.

“Who’s checking out who now?”

“Come on,” he grumbled, handing me my jacket before taking both of our skates.

Taking my hand, we walked out back into the fresh snow. It was amazing; the ice formed on the tips of trees, and the deer that stopped to stare at us before jumping back into the forest. It felt as though I were in a Disney movie.

It was a short walk from the cabin to the lake, and the moment I saw it, I wanted to turn right back around, but he was already changing his shoes.

I sat down on the log, and reluctantly slipped into my ice skates.

“This doesn’t look safe,” I said, wobbling as I tried to stand up.

“It will be fine, I promise.”

He took my hands and backed up onto the ice.

“Levi.”

He let go, glided back, and jumped right onto the ice.

“What are you doing?”

“If it can hold me, it can hold you,” he said as he skated back to me.

“Okay, what about me, plus you?”

He picked me up this time, taking me with him into the center of the lake.

“Don’t—”

He jumped and I shut my eyes.

“We’re still alive,” he snickered.

He put me down, and my legs wobbled and slid apart, forcing me to grab onto him once more.

“Yep, this is not going to work.”

“Thea Cunning, quitting? Blasphemy,” he joked. “Come on, just hold on to me, and we’ll take it slow.”

“Where did you learn to skate?” I asked, trying to distract myself as we started moving once more.

“Hockey. The only time I ever got on the ice was to make sure someone else fell off.”

That’s reassuring!

“Aren’t you supposed to be more focused on scoring, instead of knocking people over?”

“We were little boys, it was fun knocking the guys around like we saw on TV. I lost my first tooth that way too.”

Why didn’t any of this surprise me?

“You’re doing it again,” he said to me.

“What?”

“Look down, you aren’t wobbling anymore. You were just over thinking it.”

Sure enough, my legs were straight.

I grinned. “Yeah. I guess you were right.”

“So, can I let go?”

“No!” I shrieked, as I grabbed onto him in a panic.

My legs slid forward and slipped out beneath me, and as I fell onto the ice, I dragged him down with me.

“Ah!” he grunted, laying in a crumpled pile with me on top. “Thea, Thea, Thea.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to have to let go, or you will never learn,” he said solemnly, as he stared up at me.

“Worse comes to worse, you’ll be stuck holding on to me forever.”

He thought about for a moment before kissing my nose. “Good point.”

Yeah, I didn’t mind that either.