Page 12 of Possession

“I’m not very hungry.” I sat my plate onto the coffee table and stood.

“I’m sorry. Just sit, eat. Watch hot vampires with me.” Lana’s green eyes glittered and for a second I thought she looked tearful. “I’m sorry, really.” She waved out her manicured hand at my empty seat.

“I know.” I rubbed my hands down the front of my jeans then pushed my hair behind my ears. The nervous tension in the room reeked. “I should look at what Clark sent me. Save me a slice. I’ll be right back.”

I didn’t give her time to protest before I rounded the coffee table and headed back to my room. The bright white of my comforter was interrupted with a small sized cardboard box. Clark’s address, my address, my old life was on the label. I searched my dresser for something to open it with, and I found my nail clippers. The small, attached metal file ripped through the packing tape with little struggle. My breathing was uneven as I lifted the flaps and removed the butcher paper from the top.

My heart fell into my stomach.

He did this on purpose.

Sitting on top of a shoe box, my memory box, the only item I’d kept of my relationship with Declan once I married, was a piece of paper. I’d kept the box hidden in our closet, and when I’d left in a hurry I hadn’t had the time to grab it. Clark had opened it. He’d found the only piece of concrete evidence of my damnation, and placed it front and center. I lifted the piece of paper and it shook in my grip as I read the business name on the letterhead in a whisper, “Women’s Wellness Center.” The date stamped below, August Thirteenth. My signature was at the bottom, my payment agreement, my deal with the Devil. Big, wet drops of water plopped onto the paper. Tears. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. I dropped the paper to the bed and lifted the shoe box from the package.

The lid was brittle from years of being opened, years of me rifling through a time I’d never get back. My skin crawled as I thought about how Clark would have touched everything in here to find that paper. It had been at the bottom. His fingerprints fouled the history I had never wanted him to see. My breath caught as I looked through the mementos and found the only picture I had of Declan. I raised it from the box with trembling fingers. He was wearing a tight, white shirt and worn jeans. He was covered in paint. His head tipped down, his hand running through his hair, his smile lopsided as he avoided the lens. He was just seventeen years old, but he looked every bit of a man. I let out a staggered breath and brought the picture to my chest as my knees sank to the floor in grief. My forehead rested against the edge of the bed, my shoulders shook with suppressed sobs, and my heart broke all over again, like it did every time I let myself see what I had destroyed.

“Tell me again,” she whispered. Her head rested on my chest and, even though I couldn’t see her face, I could hear her smile.

“You make me better… and I love you.” The palm of her hand splayed across my bare stomach and the muscles twitched.

“I love you, too.” She turned her head and the tip of her nose grazed my skin. She inhaled and my lips spread into an involuntary grin. “So much.”

The sound of my arguing brothers barging through the front door made me jump, and Paige’s body stiffened as I pulled her closer.

“They won’t come in here, will they?” she asked, her voice strangled with worry.

“Nah, they know you’re here.”

She pushed away from me and raised up onto her elbow so quickly she almost seemed inhuman. She smacked my chest and I laughed. “What do you mean? Oh, my gosh.”

She tried to pull the blanket over her naked breasts, but I pulled it back down and let my eyes run along her skin until she blushed. I played with a piece of her hair before I gently placed it behind her ear.

“They knew you were coming over tonight, not that we… this…” I lifted my hand and cupped her cheek. “…is between you and me.” She closed her eyes and leaned into my touch as I sat up. My lips pressed softly against the lid of each of her eyes and, as I pulled away, they fluttered open.

“I know how close you guys are, you trust them with everything, and I figured you’d—”

“Paige, two years ago you sat next to me on that fucking hallway floor and opened up my world. You gifted me back my sanity, and today…” I wanted to kiss her. To create that electrical, expectant pulse again. I wanted to hear her breathe deeply, sigh, and to recreate the moment when we… our bodies finally aligned. Recreate the moment she took every piece of me and turned it inside out, and I exploded into more than just a sixteen-year-old boy. “Today… you gave me you.”

“You already had me, Declan.” Her lips parted into a shy smile.

“You gifted me your body. Those idiots out there, yeah, I trust them, but with you… our trust, it’s different, you have faith in me when no one else does.”

She leaned her forehead against mine and raised her hands to my face. She exhaled and her warm breath tickled my cheeks. She smelled like mint and soap, and when she brought her mouth to mine, I groaned. The world outside my bedroom door didn’t exist as she sat astride me, filling herself with more than just my body. She filled her lungs with my heartbeat and tasted my soul with her sweet tongue. It didn’t matter how loud Liam was shouting at my drunk father just a few doors down. Our breathing, hurried puffs of sex and desire, clouded the room, and all I could hear was what I was feeling. Heated skin, silky against my chest, the building fire in my stomach burned low as I gripped her hips.

She is meant for you.

She is yours.

The needle dug too deep and my eyes opened. “Shit.”

“Buck the fuck up, Dex. I’m almost done. I saved the worst part for last. It always hurts like hell on the ribcage.” Liam shook his head with a grin. “You know this.”

I decided to get the quote by Galway Kinnell,“Never mind. The self is the least of it. Let our scars fall in love.”,tattooed on my left ribcage.The Book of Nightmareshad always been a book I could relate to, the crazy as hell imagery he’d created seemed to fit my warped brain. I never thought too much of myself. Paige had been the only one to build me up, but she’d also left me scarred and wounded, so the quote, it fit.

“You going to Bellows tonight?” Liam wiped at my skin and it stung.

“Yeah, but I have a studio session I booked for tomorrow, so I won’t be around long. Tana going with you?”

His eyes darkened with regret. “Maybe. I don’t know. I told her I needed space.”

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