Passions Page 17

  Gavin stretched out his long legs, his feet tucked under the coffee table. “When I realized that your aunt was alone, I decided to reveal myself to her. She reacted much in the same ways you did. She was scared, apprehensive. But, then she warmed to my company, and we became good friends.”

  Chloe let out a gust of breath. “Did you have any idea why she left?”

  Gavin nodded gravely. “She said everyone thought her crazy. And she began to believe the same. It was heartbreaking to hear the things that she said. She denied that I was real, saying that I was just in her mind. When she told me that she was leaving, I didn’t want to believe her. But then I woke up one night, and she was gone.”

  Chloe grimaced and finally lifted her gaze to his face. “You’ve had so many people leave you.”

  Gavin looked at her with such an expression that made every muscle quiver with longing. “You have, too.”

  It was then that she saw how similar they were; how similar they had always been.

  Gavin fled from England to start a new life in Georgia. Chloe moved from Atlanta for the same reason.

  Gavin had watched people come and go with each passing generation, leaving him alone and friendless in the end. Chloe had to suffer the loss of every friend she had ever had, as well as being estranged from her family, only to dump her abusive boyfriend and begin a life alone in the mountains of Georgia.

  But they had each other. They had this cabin. And they had their passion for writing. If only they had met in another time and under different circumstances.

  Chloe saw their stories collide like two tragic trains in the night. But instead of carnage and destruction, there was something she didn’t want to believe was possible—hope.

  Chloe turned away before she lost herself in his gaze and sipped one more time on her coffee. She couldn’t crumble under this new truth. Not now.

  She didn’t know what to do now. She could continue to sit here and endure awkward silence while the one man who understood her stared a hole through her, she could get up and write, or she could go to bed.

  But none of those seemed appealing at all. Her mind was too muddled to churn out the words she needed to form sentences and much too active to go to sleep. But sitting here in front of the warm fire and an even warmer company was too much to handle.

  “I need some air,” she stated before rising on unstable limbs to make her way into the kitchen.

  “Chloe, I didn’t—” was all she heard before shutting the back door behind her.

  The cool night air soothed her hot skin. And even though she didn’t have a jacket on, the weather was pleasant enough.

  Chloe leaned against the rough wood railing that enclosed the deck and gripped her mug between her hands, which now served as they only solid thing to ground her in this moment of turmoil.

  She realized how silly this all was. But, Chloe couldn’t get past the crippling fear. This man made her feel things she never wanted to feel again. It was all too fast and too deep. And she couldn’t find a way to slow down or climb out.

  It was easy to know Gavin from a distance. But this night proved that he had so many levels of who he really was, and she couldn’t take that first step. She knew, without a doubt, that she would drown.

  But it wasn’t only Gavin who got too close. Chloe allowed him in, and she hated herself for it. Chloe felt vulnerable, her nerves raw from the sudden exposure to the scrutiny of this man she had met less than two weeks ago.

  A single tear slipped down her cheek, chilling her skin on the way down. It was therapeutic to cry. But how much could she allow herself?

  Chloe wasn’t given the chance to find out before she heard the back door swing open slowly. She didn’t turn around and hoped that Gavin would just pass her by and slink off into the forest for another meal.

  But he didn’t. Like a good friend, he came up beside her and leaned against the railing, mimicking her posture. She was thankful that he kept his distance, their elbows at least a foot or so away from touching.

  “Chloe, I’m sorry if I upset you. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  She shook her head, tendrils of hair flickering with the movement around her jaw. “It’s nothing.”

  Then he did something unexpected. He snickered. “You sound just like your aunt when you say that.”

  Chloe met his gaze and almost against her will, she gave him a strained smile. The thought occurred to her that perhaps instead of shutting out his anecdotes about her late aunt, Chloe could have been more open to them. Maybe they could make up for the lost years she had so carelessly thrown away. Gavin was the one who was closest to her until she left, the one who she’d confided in. If anyone knew about her, it would be Gavin and her mother.

  “Tell me more about her.”

  Gavin gave her a devilish grin. “If you come back inside, I’ll talk about her all night.”

  Chloe tilted her head and found his charms irresistible. The pain, the fear, the anguish she felt before didn’t seem so intense when he was around.

  It was ironic how the man who made her feel so much could make her so calm. He was her poison and her antidote. He was the thing that could kill her, but then restore life to her tired bones. He conjured the storm and then quieted it all at the same time.

  Such conflicting emotions made no sense to her, but, perhaps in time, she could decode them and understand what this all meant.

  She nodded and they went back inside to sit by the warm fire.

  —

  It was well into the night, and Gavin was still rattling on about Mary Anne and Chloe’s ancestors.

  After Chloe agreed to come back inside, Gavin avoided any intimate conversation involving her old life in Atlanta and her abusive ex-lover. Gavin wasn’t sure he could talk sensibly on the subject as he still felt his blood boil with rage over the way Chloe had been treated. If he could have done anything about it, he would have. Gavin had strict moral boundaries when it came to killing humans, but for this, he would have made an exception.

  Gavin was surprised when Chloe agreed to join him on the couch. He’d had the distinct impression that she was no longer comfortable with him after they came back from the creek, and he knew exactly why.

  Explaining how he became a vampire must have struck a chord in her that she did not expect. For a while, he suspected that she regretted asking the questions that weighed so heavily on her mind.

  But he was even more surprised when a few hours had passed and she scooted closer to him on the sofa. When she leaned her head against his shoulder, he was too terrified to move. If he showed any discomfort or unease, she might have moved away and taken the radiant light of her company with her.

  Gavin never wanted to be any farther from her than this. He wanted to feel her body against his, giving her warmth so freely for all eternity.

  It was a miracle that he could keep his voice steady enough to continue his stories about Mary Anne. But, he did so for hours, listening to the sound of his own voice and the crackling of the fire, intermittent with tiny giggles and softly spoken questions from the beautiful woman leaning on his shoulder.

  When he checked the clock on the wall, he was disturbed to find that it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. It had been a while since he heard anything from Chloe.

  When he peeked down, he saw that her eyes were shut, and she was breathing steadily in deep sleep. He smiled, admiring her flawless, peaceful face half nestled into the fabric of his shirt.

  With his arm slung over the back of the couch, he let his hand drop down to gently caress her upper arm and shoulder. Instead of waking her up, Chloe burrowed deeper into his side and laid her hand across his abs.

  Gavin’s lips separated as he watched her for a while, waiting for her to snap out of her dream world and realize the nightmare she had curled up against.

  An immeasurable amount of time passed, but she didn’t budge. Gavin became entranced by her heartbeat, slow and steady, but strong just like her family line. He could also
smell her blood, so near.

  It would have been easy for him to bite through her tender flesh and make a meal of her right then and there. The squirrel he had fed on before they went to the movies was satisfying enough for a few hours, but he had felt the nasty effects of hunger close to midnight. Normally, he tried to find a more substantial meal to hold him over while they worked on the novel, but there was not enough time.

  If they stayed together like this for much longer, he might do something he would come to regret.

  Being careful not to jostle her, Gavin slipped his arms around her and swept her up into his arms the way he had the night they first met face to face. With her limp body cradled against his chest, he carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and gently laid her down atop the mattress.

  Gavin then pulled the covers up over her body and tucked them tenderly under her chin, much like he used to tuck his child into bed so long ago. But this woman that lay before him held a special place in his heart that almost superseded the memory of his son and late wife.

  It was a horrible reality. His family should have been the shining glory of his human life. But the years had not been kind to his heart and their memory. With each passing day, their faces became no more than ghosts, shadows of an ancient time that he could barely remember. Only events and fleeting details were retained somehow.

  He remembered his wife’s voice and her quirks. He remembered how his son was fascinated by insects. He remembered the taste of burnt bread and salty dishes that had been ruined by his late wife’s cooking.

  But Chloe was slowly working her way through his mind and consuming his heart. The sadness of his loss became blanketed in her warmth. The bitter memories were chased away in the glow of her smile. The demons of his past fled at the sound of his laughter. Her eyes, so full of acceptance and eagerness to be with him, were all he dreamed about during the day and all he wanted to see when he awoke at sunset.

  Staring down at her now, realizing how much she truly meant to him, he felt fear creep through his body. He was growing too close.

  It was only a matter of time before he hurt her, either emotionally or physically. There would come a moment when he wouldn’t be able to control himself, and he would take her blood or worse. It had been his fear when he revealed himself to Mary Anne, and now again with Chloe.

  But what else could he do? A bond had been formed between them. She might not feel it, but he certainly did. He felt it like a tether, an unbreakable cord that grew strained each dawn when he had to crawl back into the cellar and sleep the day away while she remained upstairs in her own bed.

  Gavin ran a hand over his face and pressed his fingers into his eyes, feeling the mounting fatigue hit his system a little harder than usual. The sun was coming, and soon, he would need to leave her again.

  Looking back down at Chloe, he sighed and combed back a thick strand of hair from her cheek, letting his fingertips drag across her skin. He watched her shiver and stretch beneath the quilt.

  He quickly withdrew his hand, hoping he didn’t wake her. But she rolled onto her side and curled up once more as if nothing happened. And that’s what he should be—nothing more than a passing shadow in her life. He couldn’t linger and complicate things for Chloe.

  Gavin straightened and walked away, feeling his heart tug back towards the woman who had consumed him so quickly and suddenly. If only there was some way to cure this curse of love.

  Chapter 14

  Chloe sat in front of her laptop, staring blankly at the open document as if it were the epitome of all that was evil in the world. With her chin propped up in her hand, she sighed.

  This shouldn’t be so hard. It was just a scene. However, it was the most pivotal scene in the whole book. And somehow, in her plot notes, she didn’t detail at all how to approach it, and it was too far back for her to remember what was going through her head at the time.

  It was a gap that she wasn’t sure how to fill.

  But not only that, she was exhausted. The night before, she had stayed up listening to anecdotal stories about her aunt and her family before she was born, and all the families that came before.

  She was amazed at how much Gavin could remember. But she was even more amazed how fast time had flown. Before she knew it, somehow she had fallen asleep and woke up in her bed the following afternoon by her rumbling stomach. She hadn’t eaten the entire evening before, so she went all out to prepare a meal she could snack on all night.

  However, this scene was not what she wanted to linger on all evening. But here it was, a little past sunset, and she still couldn’t figure out the right approach.

  Chloe didn’t want Gavin hanging over her shoulder while she typed out this scene, either. It’d be far too embarrassing. But, it appeared that it might be unavoidable. Gavin had already woken up and left through the backdoor for his “morning” feed a little while ago with very little ceremony.

  Chloe hoped that nothing was bothering him. With the way she’d leaned against him last night without invitation or permission, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was a little upset. No woman in the era he grew up in would have engaged in such behavior.

  The stories he told last night were merely a diversion from the awkward and sensitive discussion that came before it. Chloe welcomed them. It kept her from speaking too much, and he never asked her to share childhood memories in return. She had shared too much as it was.

  Chloe hated the way she behaved, but at the end of the night when she apologized for reacting the way she did, Gavin brushed it off as nothing. It took a lot out of her to open up the way she did, but he still understood somehow. Either that or it wasn’t a big deal to him.

  He would be back soon, and she still didn’t know where to start. And Gavin would come in, asking her about what came next in the plot like he always did on the nights they spent writing together. It was a conversation she didn’t want to have, but there was no way to skip this scene and carry on.

  She’d downed two cups of coffee, but the solution still eluded her.

  Then the back door opened, and she knew it was too late. A gust of cold wind swept into the living room and ruffled a bit of her hair. Gavin shut the door loudly behind him.

  “It’s quite windy outside,” he informed her. “I’m glad they decided to show the movie last night, rather than tonight.”

  Chloe made a muttered sound of acknowledgment but continued to glare at the computer screen. Her efforts to focus were to no avail, especially when Gavin came up beside her and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

  The scent of pines still clung to his clothes, but it did little to mask his otherworldly fragrance that made her head light.

  Chloe debated on asking him to build another fire in the fireplace tonight but decided against it. Wrapped up in her flannel pajamas and sitting so close to him, she was warm enough.

  A few moments passed before Gavin finally broke the silence.

  “Something troubling you?” he asked, his southern English accent shining through once more to make her heart beat a little harder.

  Chloe groaned and rubbed her cheeks in despair. “I can’t figure out this scene.”

  There was a hint of a laugh in Gavin’s throat when he asked, “What scene is that?”

  Instead of speaking it out loud, Chloe pulled up her plot document and pointed to the bullet point that was not crossed out. Gavin leaned over and peered at the words.

  Then, as he read them, he nodded in understanding. “Ah, that one. I was wondering how you would approach it. I didn’t see any connecting points.”

  “Exactly,” Chloe said, her tone laden with exasperation. “I don’t remember what I was thinking when I made it, but everything afterward hinges on this scene, and everything before it seems to lead up to it fine. Like you said, I just don’t have a connection.”

  How could she possibly make her characters kiss when she didn’t even know the circumstances that would lead up to it?

  “Well, let’s
think of how it could happen.”

  Gavin walked away and began pacing the floor, very slowly and methodically as if each step led him closer to an answer for them.

  Chloe turned around in her chair and draped her arms over the back. “I could have them in the middle of a conversation, and from the content, they decide to kiss.”

  “Or,” Gavin added, “It could be spontaneous. Like one grabbing the other in a moment of intense passion.”

  A blush rose to her cheeks at hearing Gavin speak that way. To him, this must be just another scene; something to get through and move on so the book could be finished. But to her, it meant much more.

  This kiss scene would seal their bond, in a way. It was the moment when Ben and Alleia would realize their true feelings for each other. It meant that the rest of the book would be focused on fueling that relationship and working towards a common goal.

  Chloe refused to take it lightly.

  “But, do you think either character would act so impulsively?” she asked. “I mean, Alleia is a little too shy for it, and Ben thinks that she doesn’t love him back.”

  Gavin scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “It would certainly be out of character for both of them. Alleia would not make that move without coaxing, and Ben wouldn’t do it for fear of rejection.”

  “Then it has to be as a result of a conversation. They both like to talk. It’d make more sense.”

  Gavin nodded in agreement. “Yes. So, where are they when this scene starts?”

  Chloe glanced back over her shoulder at the computer. “It’s set on the beach. She went out to think, and he happens to be walking his dog out there.”

  “Very good. Who will initiate contact?”

  She shrugged. “I guess he would since he found her. What would he say?”

  Gavin paused and stood between the sofa and coffee table, his chin tucked down on his chest, deep in thought. Chloe knew this look well. He did this when he was getting into character.