Still leaning close to eye what he’d done, when I turned, scant inches separated us. His attention remained focused on the table, his hand wrapped around mine, forgotten. The shifting silver pools of his gaze swirled with green and brown and his lips curved in a satisfied line. Not quite a smile.
Seeing his lips, I couldn’t look away. I’d never looked at a boy as closely as I looked at Morik. Why? I think deep down I’d always known I couldn’t choose a boy knowing it would ultimately be the cause of his premature death. But looking at Morik, I began to wonder things. Such as, what it would be like to be kissed. I’d wondered about it before, but not too seriously. It’d always been associated with choosing, which had been a bigger focus. If what Morik said was true, kissing wasn’t choosing. My heart and mind had to agree to the choice. I’d already decided it should be Morik. Since I didn’t have visions with Morik, no glimpses of my future to sway my heart, maybe a kiss would help.
He pulled his eyes from the beads when I didn’t immediately look away. I noticed his shift in attention right away and started to blush. Chickening out, I turned my gaze to the table and then mentally scolded myself for not having the guts to steal a kiss. Maybe it would have been great. My stomach might have even done that crazy flip thing it did like when we were on the motorcycle and I’d touched his skin. At the thought, my stomach did the funny little flip again and my cheeks heated further. I needed to stop thinking about kissing and touching. Hard to do when he still held my hand. I tried taking it back, but he didn’t release it. Instead, he slowly pulled it closer to him forcing me to turn toward him again.
Knowing my face glowed bright red, I hesitantly met his gaze, hoping he couldn’t read minds as well as see in the dark and hear really well. In those few moments when I’d looked away, his eyes had gone through a drastic change. The silver was completely gone, engulfed by a black void. The now black irises set against the brown yellow of his sclera sent a shiver trailing down my spine. He looked intimidating like that.
“Never fear me,” he whispered noting the shiver. He leaned close touching his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. “Tell me. Please. What were you thinking just before when you were looking at me?” He didn’t move, waiting for my answer.
I closed my eyes as well trying to hide from my embarrassment and his question. Despite the quiet of the room, I was certain we held Aunt Danielle’s undivided attention.
“Can we talk about this later?” I begged in a whisper opening my eyes to glance quickly at Aunt Danielle. She sat in her chair watching us with unabashed amusement.
Morik caught my look and pulled back from me, still holding my hand, to address Aunt Danielle. “We’ll be back in a moment. She is safe.”
One moment we sat in my kitchen at the table, the next we stood in an unfamiliar living room. The abrupt change, to go from sitting to standing without feeling my legs move, left me slightly dizzy.
“Now tell me,” he coaxed wrapping an arm around me to steady me.
I looked around the room. Large and open, it connected to a kitchen on one side and an open stairway on the other. Everything looked neat and new.
“What just happened? Where are we?”
“My home. I apologize for taking you here without asking. I thought you didn’t want to speak in front of your aunt.”
His voice usually deep and smooth now had a roughness to it, almost a growl. I focused on his eyes. They remained black and the ochre from his sclera seemed to be blending with it. It was a new color combination and I wasn’t sure how to interpret it. I felt fairly certain brown meant he was happy or at least content while orange and red were anger or upset colors. Was Ochre then the middle ground between the two color groups? What the heck did that mean? He was neutral?
“Are you mad at me?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t afraid of him even when his eyes unnerved me a little, but I didn’t like the idea of him being mad at me either.
“No, Tessa. You are frustrating me.” He let go of me only to gently cup my head in his large hands. “Stop stalling and tell me what was going through this precious head of yours.”
“I wasn’t stalling,” I said before I could stop myself. More ochre pooled into his black irises. “Okay, okay…”
My face, which had cooled slightly during my confusion, flared scarlet again. Four days wasn’t enough time to really know someone, I thought in a panic. Why had I even thought about kissing? Because I’d made up my mind to think of him as my choice. As my choice, wouldn’t it be natural to wonder?
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes not wanting to see how my next words would affect his eyes. “I was wondering what kissing would be like.” I swallowed hard and added in a whisper, “With you.”