Ominous, Part 1 by K.V. Rose

Eli

She looksdown when she reaches the kitchen island, her fingertips gliding softly over the marble. Neither of us speak. I didn’t tell her where we were going but I’m sure she’s figured out I live here, despite the lack of personal touches in the areas of the house she’s seen thus far.

As I watch her, I think of Dad and I this morning. Our fight, the shattered glass.

I wonder what she’d think. I want to tell her, but it’ll sound as if I’m looking for pity, and I don’t want her pity.

I just want her to hear me, like I heard her in the car. All the things she might not have said in the confession about getting fucked and hurt and… Fuck.

I wonder if she’s a virgin, if all these things are fantasies she’d actually hate, because there is a huge gap between what we think we want and when push comes to shove, what we really want. I wouldn’t care either way, but she’s jumpy when I touch her. Paranoid, almost, no matter the cool front she puts on.

I press my knuckles to my mouth to stop from moving, speaking, interrupting this moment when she peeks into my life and decides what to think of it all.

She pauses, drifting her slender fingers on the countertops, frowning as she watches where her green nails touch the marble, as if she’s concerned her touch will cause it all to crumble to dust.

Moving on, she drops her hand by her side and stares out the three glass doors to the back patio. In my head, I hear Dad slamming my skull against the middle one. I imagine what Eden would say, if she could see it replaying in my mind on a loop.

Would it scare you? The ways I want love?

She doesn’t look back, but her narrow shoulders stiffen, and I glance at the peak of her neck above the collar of her sheer, silk shirt. The thick roots of her hair, pulled up into her clip. In all black, with those black leather leggings clinging to the round curves of her ass, her thick, black boots, but there’s something delicate about her, even in the ways she seems to say, you can’t scare me, Eli.

You have no idea, baby girl.

I smile to myself and follow her gaze, seeing the onslaught of rain over the pool, gray pelting against brightest blue. The umbrellas dotted around the mosaic tiles, a waterfall spilling into the hot tub set above pool level, separated by green plants draped over the edges of dark stones.

Another fire pit curved against the burnished tile, built-in bench of seats. And that’s just the pool.

Even the wind doesn’t move the chairs, and the umbrellas are closed, near the sheltered bar and glass walls of the rectangular pool house.

Eden’s red lips are pressed together, and she stares with cool detachment. I’m not impressed. She says it without words.

My body feels hot, and there’re only a few feet between us, but somehow, it feels like too much, when I want her like this.

“Nice pool.” She says the words flatly, folding her arms across her chest and glancing at me, arching one thick brow. “What’re we doing tonight?”

I smile at her forced disinterest. I didn’t tell her we were stopping by, worried she’d refuse to get in the car with me, or inwardly panic the entire drive, too caught up in her own head to focus on my questions. She puts on a cool front.

It’s a lie.

“You like my pool?” I counter, still smiling.

As I ask the question, I imagine her in it.

It’s September. We have at least until November to swim. By Halloween there’s usually too much of a chill to do so comfortably, but the pool is heated, so we can stretch it out. Dad doesn’t care either way, but I do.

I want every minute I can get in it.

The hot tub is always available, and I can sit on the bottom of it, but it’s not enough. They say you can drown in a teaspoon of water, but why die in the shallow?

If water ends me, I want it to be an ocean. Something far bigger than me. Something that deserves to kill me. Hot tubs, pools, lakes, none of those are good enough.

I think of my hand over Eden’s nose. Her mouth. My body moving above hers. Wild eyes, scratch marks down my arms as she fights me, just like she said she would.

Are you sure?

Is it what you really want?

You know you can’t take these kinds of things back.

I know you’re not as tough as you try to look. Be soft with me.

The teaspoon of water doesn’t deserve my mortality. Suffocation, even if I was fucking her at the same time, wouldn’t deserve Eden’s. Besides, we’re the type of people to live forever, even if we don’t want to. Maybe because we don’t want to. I think God enjoys orchestrating a little suffering.

“It’s… pretty.” Eden shrugs, and with the movement, my gaze drifts over her shoulders again, down her slender arms, made smaller by the black of her top. The lime green of her bra. She’s a fucking tease despite her buttoned collar, and I like knowing she doesn’t seem to care. She isn’t looking to please anyone at all, she just likes what she likes.

I drop my gaze to her ass, not small at all. If anything, bigger because of the leather of her pants, the high waist.

She turns fully then, stepping slowly toward me, and I flick my eyes upward to meet hers, a jarring mix of blue and green and brown, I don’t think I’ll ever get them out of my head, no matter where we go from here.

With me. Wherever we go, come with me. It’s crazy to think these things, and yet I can’t stop.

“Pretty?” I counter.

She rolls her eyes. “Your dad…” She clears her throat and I wonder if she’s thinking of my mom. Any other parents she might think I have. “He’s not going to be here, right?”

I kind of want to make her squirm, drag out the answer. But instead, as if I’m compelled, as if I couldn’t deny her if I tried, I just tell her the truth. “No.” I wonder what she’d think of my dad. I can tell she’s nervous to meet him, she started bouncing her leg with his voice through my car speakers. Does she not want any kind of permanence? Is she worried she won’t be enough for him? She’ll fail to impress him? What kind of man does she imagine raised someone like me?

I see relief in the set of her shoulders, even though she tries to keep her expression blank.

Smiling, I nod my head toward the hallway which leads to the foyer which leads to the dining room, which leads… who fucking cares. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

Thunder rumbles outside, and the rain hasn’t let up. I wonder if it will in time for me to take her to eat or something. My low-profile tires aren’t great in rain, but it’s the risk that makes the reward. Driving too fast, taking a turn over the speed limit, slipping and sliding on wet pavement, it does something to me. Maybe it’ll do something to her, too.

As she follows, I lead the way through the foyer, the massive double doors in the entranceway. Thinking of her meeting Dad, the memory of the last time Mom was in this house echoes in my head.

Mom and Eden are both very hard to outwardly impress. I wonder what they’d think of each other.

I discard the thought, the memory too, because like many things, it doesn’t matter.

Eden and I come to a stop just before the formal dining room.

She walks past me, and the scent of her—dreamy, in a strange way, soft, like violets—envelopes me, like it did in the car. I could smell her sweat, too, and while it was musky as sweat is, to me, it smelled good. My nostrils flare as she stops, just in front of me, and I catch the scent of something else. Maybe peaches? Her shampoo?

I want to reach for the clip in her hair and let it all spill down her back.

I don’t move.

I just cross my arms and lean against the doorway as she gazes at the silver table in the living room. Pleated gray chairs, a chandelier of varying shades in the same color hanging overhead, emitting a soft golden glow. Gray tile, curtains, a dresser with a mirror over it that stretches to the ceiling so if you sit in my dad’s seat, you can watch yourself chew steak or pass the potatoes.

I don’t remember the last time we had a meal in here. The silver and white warped bowl in the center of the table is collecting dust, the housekeeper not bothering, flitting through a place for ghosts.

“This is…” Eden trails off and I eye the clip again, keeping her mass of dark hair held up. I want to wind my fingers in the length of it and pull. I want to know how seriously she takes the fantasy she told me about in my car.

I want to know how far we could go.

“A lot,” I finish for her.

She shakes her head, almost like she wants to laugh as she spins around to face me. With my gaze, I trace the loose fit of her shirt, the ouroboros on the silver pendant around her neck as I resist the desire to grace my fingers over my choker, back on after the tournament. Her shirt would rip easily. The choker would take more work.

My dick swells, thinking about it. Her fighting me.

Glancing over her shoulder, toward the curtains pulled closed at her back, seeing a sliver of darkening gray sky, I ask, “Do you want to come upstairs with me?” I gesture down, toward my clothes. “I need to change.”

She arches a brow, disdain, but even in the low lighting, I can see her summer tan turn pink. “Why? Where are we going?” She tries to mask her nerves, but she sounds uneasy.

I kind of like it, throwing her off. I don’t have any definite plans for us, but I wore this between matches and I want something without my sweat on it.

I smile at her, then turn and head upstairs without a word. I know she won’t follow me. There’s a softness to her, wrapped in a sharp edge. She agreed to come watch me wrestle all damn day, and she got nothing out of it. She didn’t even look at her phone. She paid attention. I saw her eyes too, when she caught sight of my bruises at school.

She tries to hide her kindness in barbed wire.

But when I reach the top of the stairs, one hand on the bannister, I glance over my shoulder to see her staring right up at me.

I’ll cut that fucking wire.

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