I knew how best to touch him, where to stroke, how hard and for how long. I knew his moans, the way his breath would catch if I traced his nipple with a fingernail. How his belly would clench, the muscles rolling against my hands, or my lips, like the lap of a river against the shore.
I buried my face in his neck, drew in the scent of him, one that always caused competing waves of peace and lust. Jimmy was safety—or at least he had been. He’d protected me; he’d killed for me.
But he was also sex and danger—a lethal, irresistible combination. As teens, we’d had to hide what we felt, definitely what we did. Ruthie would have killed us. So we’d had sex in closets, on countertops, against the wall in the upstairs hall while Ruthie and the little children had put away groceries downstairs.
Hey, I never said we were smart. We were hormone-driven kids.
I suckled his neck, teased a fold with my teeth. He tasted of summer and salt, the only warmth in a world that had become so damn cold.
Blood, whispered the demon. You know that you want it.
And I did. So badly I could almost taste the flow.
You won’t hurt him. You can’t kill him.
That wasn’t true and I knew it. So did the demon. Sneaky, lying bastard.
I took a deep breath and lifted my mouth from Jimmy’s skin. It was a lot harder than it should have been.
I imagined shoving the demon—which in my head was a misshapen, cloven-hooved monster—behind an iron door. I slammed it shut; the sound made my ears ring. The demon began to fling itself at the door, screaming and pounding, throwing a tantrum like a child. I turned my back on that door and tossed away the key.
Ah, that was better.
The mist had thickened further; I couldn’t see anything but the shadow of Jimmy’s head so close to mine. Mist that thick didn’t exist.
On earth.
“Remember the night we snuck out?” Jimmy’s voice was disembodied, though his breath brushed my cheek.
I gave a short, sharp laugh. “Which one?”
“Close your eyes,” he whispered as his lips skimmed my temple, then each of my eyelids before skimming over my cheekbone. “See if this rings any bells.”
His teeth grazed my chin and memory flickered. A chill in the air—October—the scent of just-fallen leaves from a pile beneath the big maple tree in the yard, the crunch of my bare feet across a few that had been torn free by the autumn wind. Me cringing at the sound, which seemed as loud as thunder in the secret navy-blue night.
“You gave me a note,” I said as his fingers crept beneath my tank, his palm against my stomach large and hot. I rubbed myself against him and tried not to purr.
“Meet me at midnight.” His face to my neck, he licked the throbbing vein, pressing his tongue to the pulse, scraping his teeth back and forth to the rhythm of my heart.
I wanted him to bite me; I wanted him to drink from me as I died.
“Shit,” I muttered. We were both so fucked up. But then we always had been.
We might lie to ourselves that the demons within us were new, but Jimmy and I had always had demons. The only thing new was our letting them out.
“I thought Ruthie saw,” I continued, voice more breathless by the minute. “I flushed the note, just in case.”
He laughed, the movement brushing our chests together. I ached to feel skin on skin. Maddened, I leaned back and yanked the tank over my head. Before it even hit the ground, he’d released the catch on my bra with a deft twist, then lifted my breasts into his palms, cupping and caressing, lowering his head, letting his breath trickle over the gooseflesh raised by both the mist and our memories.
“Touching you made my hands shake.” He pressed a kiss to my collarbone, skimmed his fingers there too, and I felt him tremble. “It still does.”
My throat felt funny—thick and tight—and my eyes burned. There must be something in the mist besides water.
What had happened down here? The Dagda was supposed to have released Jimmy’s demon. Instead he seemed to have brought back the Jimmy I’d lost. The boy who’d needed me and loved me, the almost man I’d adored.
“The moon was full,” he continued, “but it was foggy. Like this.”
“No,” I corrected. “It was warm that night. Clear. Indian summer.”
“And then a front came through.”
Funny how memories can be both the same and completely different. I remembered the heat, the sky and Jimmy. But now that he mentioned the front, I could almost feel the cool, autumn wind and the fog that had padded in, twirling around our ankles like a smooth gray cat.
“You wore that skirt I liked.”
“You told me to.” Another reason I’d flushed the note.
“I didn’t tell you not to wear underwear.”
My lips curved; I leaned forward and put my mouth against his ear. “Some things I can figure out for myself.”
His fingers flexed, the pressure against my breasts just short of pain; his thumbs stroked over the tips.