Clinton Priest

Chapter Eighteen

His lips linger close to mine, his breath, laced with wine, mingles with mine and the scent of his skin, an addictive mixture of lemon grass and sandalwood causes my head to spin and the sex between my legs to dampen in arousal.

My eyes drift closed and my body seeks to mold into him. He doesn't kiss me immediately. He doesn't kiss me at all. His fingers leave a burning trail of unquenched desires on my bottom lip, down to my neck and I fight the urge to cry. The one man who professes to want me, doesn't trully want to kiss me.

"If I kissed you," he murmurs against my ear, "there will be no way you will leave the same way you came. A kiss will simply not be enough. I don't think you are ready for that."

His velvet tongue teases my ear and a shudder runs through my spine. I never knew the ear could be so sensitive.

"Clinton," I start to say, then I pause. My head is still swimming. There is no coherent thought in my head and my lips are still desperate for the passionate surrender his mouth promises.

"I'm not a good man," he continues. "I'm not good for you. Nothing I do could ever be good for you." He pulls away from me. A chill settles where his warmth once was. "I'm a poison that will latch at your soul and when you are tainted enough, when you eventually become as tainted as I am, I will leave you to burn. I'll eventually let you fall."

"I only read a part of the book. The beginning and then I placed it down," I tell him breathlessly in an attempt to change the topic. My childish hopes have been dashed and now I only want to hold tight to my pride. "Reading it didn't hold as much pleasure as listening to you tell it.I want you to tell me the story."

I see him smile in the dim light of my torch. Strands of his dark hair falls onto his forehead completely free of gel.

"If that is what you want," he says. I nod. It isn't exactly what I want but it's what I need to keep this unholy want at bay.

"It is."

"Michael was obsessed with her from the moment he met her and with time that obsession turned to love. It was the first time he'd fallen in love with humanity, with a woman and he threw everything he had into the relationship to make it work. For a while, they were happy. But not everyone was happy for them," he starts. "Haven's owner, her father was desperate to keep her permanently silenced to save his reputation and that of his family. He had crafted a convincing story of how he'd lost his wife in a journey across the pacific." He looks at me.
"Things were different at the time," he tells me. "What sort of self respecting man has children with an african? That was what most of society thought. Isabelle was nothing like her mother. She looked everything like her father. From her pale blue eyes to her blonde hair she was the epitome society's beauty standards. Haven was different. She was her mother through and through and her father, the man who broke her into tiny sharp shards of glass, used her to ensure society knew he'd never ever associate with the help. It kept Isabelle's chances of marrying into high society high. She'd always been his favored child and he'd spill the blood of anyone to keep her happy."

"What happened next?" I ask when he pauses for too long.

"They came cloaked in the dark with pitchforks and guns ready to burn his home to the ground if it meant erasing the stain of the St. Clair family."

He stops at that point. "It's late," he says moving to his feet. He stretches his hand out to me. I place my hand in his and he helps me up from my perch on the cloth.

"Did they kill her?" I ask curiously.

"I'll walk you home," he says, as he folds the cloth, placing it in the basket after gathering up the used utensils and the empty bottle.

"You haven't answered my question," I insist.

"Careful," he says, as we walk home, "curioity killed the cat."

"I think it's funny that the family name is so similar to mine," I comment as we near the house.

"It's the same actually," he says. "The same family found their way to this island years after its founding."

"You mean..."

"Yes," he says.

I stop in my movements. It's impossible to believe that such cruelty could exist in my family.

"You're lying," I tell him.

He turns to me. His hair dances in the slight breeze and his eyes are suddenly shinning bright in the dark.

"I never lie," he says and I refuse to believe him.