The Haunted - Jessica Verday [122]
I crossed the room and reached for the phone just as it stopped ringing. My foot kicked something, and I reached down to pick it up.
It was the bottle of lotion I’d had this morning.
Caspian stood by the door, and he slowly came toward me. I scooted backward, dropping the lotion, and felt the hard wood of the headboard at my back. “Lie down,” he commanded, with a slight tremble in his voice.
My knees turned to jelly.
I inched my way down onto the bed, stopping when my back was flat. “This isn’t, um, fair, you know.”
“No?” He leaned over me, and I blinked several times, trying to keep my thoughts straight.
“No, it’s not. You use that sexy voice and I go all melty.”
“Mmmm, melty? Is that the technical term?”
I could barely breathe. He was wreaking havoc on all my senses.
“We can’t… do anything,” I finally said.
“We can’t?” He whispered in my ear, “Let’s find out what we can do.…” I closed my eyes.
“Are you cold?” he said. “You have goose bumps on your arms.” His gaze fell to my hair, and he lifted one hand, almost as if he was going to touch it. “I like seeing you like this. Your hair is all wild.”
“And witchy?” I teased, remembering prom night. When I babbled about my wild and witchy hair.
He smiled. “I’m thinking, yes. You definitely cast a spell on me. It drives me crazy.”
“There you go with those pickup lines again.”
He shook his head and lowered his face. We were nose to nose. Lips to lips. “You have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now,” he whispered.
“How much?” I taunted.
He licked his lips. “Very, very much.”
“If you had to choose between kissing me once right now and then dying, or living forever without my touch, which would it be?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “I’d die a happy man, with the taste of you on my lips.” I tried very hard not to blush. “I’d make the same choice too.”
“You would?”
I nodded, then closed my eyes.
The hotel phone next to me rang loudly and completely broke the mood.
Caspian groaned. “Ignore it,” he pleaded.
“It’s my dad. I know it is.”
“He’ll call back.”
“He already called once and I missed it,” I argued. Truthfully, I was feeling a little bit of relief at the interruption. I was getting completely carried away.
Caspian sighed, and sat up, moving away from me. “You’re right,” he said. “You should probably answer it.”
I reached for the phone, trying to compose myself before saying hello.
“Hi, Abbey, it’s Dad.”
Yeah, like I couldn’t tell. “Hi, Dad.”
“I called earlier, but you didn’t answer. Were you in Ben’s room?”
“No, Dad,” I sighed. “I wasn’t in Ben’s room. We went to get Chinese food for dinner, so that’s why I wasn’t here to pick up.”
“I’m trusting you, you know,” he said. “Both your mother and I are. Speaking of, she wants to know what you thought of the college.”
I so wasn’t in the mood to talk about that right now. “It was okay.” I tried to think up something to tell him. “I wasn’t really all that impressed by it, honestly.”
“Did you meet the dean? What did you think of the campus? What’s the curriculum like?” How could I answer those questions? “Like I said, Dad, I wasn’t really happy with it. So it kind of all passed by in a blur.”
“Oh.”
Inspiration hit. “I think I’ll tour some more colleges closer to home. Maybe I’ll find one there that’s more to my liking.”
“Oh, yeah?” He sounded happier. “That’s a good plan. I’m sure your mother can arrange something.” He chattered on for another twenty minutes. Finally I told him I had to get to bed, and I’d see him soon. He agreed, and I hung up the phone with another warning to “be good” ringing in my ear.
I glanced over at Caspian. He seemed to be waiting for my reaction. “That was fun,” I said.
“I could tell.”
“Do you mind turning out the light?” I asked him. “I really need to get some sleep. Long drive home tomorrow.” Sort of true. But mostly I wanted the light out because I felt awkward that our moment had been completely interrupted