BROWN SKIN | BOOK 1

|| C H A P T E R . 27 ||

Before we could even get to the Dales house like he promised over and over again, he pulled over to a curb by the side neighborhood near someone's dwelling. The vehicle came to a halt and before I averted any attention away from the rich-luxuriant lifestyle of trimmed grass and white locked gates; a part of my heart missed all of it after being tucked away in a looming darkness. 

Stripping my mind apart from Beau's American dream and the spoiled upper-class, I really got a good look at him.

Him who drinks up the trouble-making scenery and spills blood on his clothes, never able to wash away the sins or nefarious stains. They always seem to be worn on his limbs and in the lines of his palms that tell future fortunes. Him, who could be considered a bad boy, but did things worse than any human could imagine with good pink lips. Him, who will never be able to count the number of bodies on toes and fingers that defined who he was as he reached to touch me as I flinched. 

Him, who made soft and vicious eye contact, a change in behavior like the weather as he mouthed, "are you scared of me?" 

"No. Why are you scared?" I was more than scared, I was terrified. 

The white-sand colored hand that bent on the top of the steering wheel scratched the back of his neck in a lazy distress, avoiding my gaze to view something else like nature, more heavenly and pretty, out the window. 

"Only a little. . .because I don't want you to forget about me." 

  You mean stop loving you , and hating what you do? because that is where I am right now. I'm so in love with you and I don't get it, I don't understand it. It's never felt so good. I wish I could say my heart stopped a little, but that wouldn't be the proper exaggeration. I was frozen. Frigid and numb. My heart did more than stop it was pumping blood from bottom up, until it slowed into an icy-chill and heartbeats were paralyzed rhythms. My lungs turned black as the rest of my organs tried to remain mildly hot but I wanted to touch you. Physically. And kiss you over and over again, and everywhere so I could stay warm. 

Beau pinched his bottom lips collectively with his fingers to pursed them profusely and fully lushed and stared at the radio that was at a volume of zero. He then made some eye contact with me or attention I deserved as a woman. 

"I'm not necessarily in danger Ebonee, I'm the danger. Only because people do bad things when they're trying to survive." The weight in his faint green orbs detailed the amount of pain and burn he approached by escaping and just living. Sore arms and bruised knees will never be able to tell the same story as a hiking trip compared to our experience, making it unbelievable, but I'll make them believe lies I spew for our sake. 

My palm probed over to the side of his cheek, easing and massaging the burns that might never erase with my thumbs. Beau's jaw embraced further into the warm touch and drew in closer. I met him half-way analyzing the berry shade cuts that will take weeks to heal, not wondering whether or not someone will believe the hiking trip to how much damage is illustrated over his face. Far deeper than what's on the surface. Although Beau was hurting pretty bad, his eyes still shined bright. 

Holding his cheeks in a gentle lock, his mouth of the shade salmon were pouting and plush but I couldn't help kiss them three times like it was for luck. Pecking short butterfly kisses, I slowly dropped my palms away, getting ready to lean back and go to a place that wasn't what I called home either.

But Beau attracted me back to where we left off to hook his fingers as they diffused down the slope of my neck. Just so we can magnetize as two opposite tend to act on us, iron and steel. Enticing and alluring as it was when he deepened it, one of us pulled away because everything good comes to an end.