Song of a Sophomore

CHAPTER 43 - Tonight, Tonight

"I thought we were going to the farm?" I asked.

"Oh, we are. I just thought it would be fun to give you an official tour first. A legal one."

"I want to see it," I said, the memory of the dark abyss ready to swallow me whole flashed in my mind. "I really do, but—"

"But, what?" Zach slowed to a stop and put the Firebird in park.

"Well, Katelyn said this is where you took her when you...uh, you guys, um—"

"Katelyn, huh?" Zach looked down and shook his head. "Did she give you a hard time tonight?"

"Kind of."

"You know, what? Screw Katelyn. Our relationship is over. I'm starting a new chapter tonight, and am so glad it's with you."

My flesh tingled with goosebumps. "Really?"

"Yes. You are so different than Katelyn. So sweet and good. It's like that poem we read in class, 'She Walks in Beauty.' That's you."

Then Zach recited the second stanza that he read out loud that day in English class. He knew it by heart. Mine practically stopped beating.

"One shade the more. One ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace, which waves in every raven tress."

Zach placed his hand the side of my head and caressed my cheek, I couldn't help but lean into his touch.

"Softly lightens over her face," he continued.

His mouth inched closer to mine. I closed my eyes in breathless anticipation as the warm nearness of him tantalized my senses.

"Where thoughts serenely sweet express, how pure their dwelling place."

At long last, I felt the searing heat of Zach's lips squeezing mine in a fierce embrace. The tip of his tongue pushed ever so slightly into my mouth, tasting me. Teasing me.

So this is a real kiss? It felt strange and beautiful. I hoped I was doing it right.

Zach swept up my bottom lip with his, gave it a swift tug, then let it drop slowly and pulled away. I blinked my eyes open and fought to catch my breath. The dash board lit up Zach's face in fiery glow, just like that night at the bonfire. A new song by the Smashing Pumpkins played softly over the speakers. Zach turned up the volume. With eyebrows raised he loosened his bow tie and let out the top button of his tuxedo shirt. Zach's pupils swallowed up the blue spheres of his eyes, and he lowered his gaze, like a leopard about to pounce, but to my complete surprise, I pounced first.

Rushing forward, my mouth found his as the music reached a fevered crescendo. Each kiss swept me away into another reality. One where I was beautiful and desired. One where passion, not fear, lit up the recesses of my mind in flashes of red and orange. There was this need. A desperate void of insecurity to be filled, like Zach had the missing pieces to my heart and being with him could bring the fractured shards together again. I so wanted to be complete.

Instinctively, my hands found their way to his soft hair. I pulled away from his lips and found the smooth, vulnerable skin of his neck, leaving a trail of kisses along his hairline. His scent, so intoxicating, filled every cell of my body. Something switched on inside of him. Urgent. Primal. Zach grabbed me by the waist, and pulled toward him until I maneuvered out of my seat, my bottom resting partially on the carpeted hump between the seats and his lap. He kissed me with a hunger and desperation that made my heart ache and threaten to burst right out of my chest.

"Rose, this feels so right," Zach nearly growled between kisses.

"It does," I whimpered.

"What you said that night at the bonfire... did you mean it?"