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My hands gripped the steering wheel, the whites of my knuckles shining through. I periodically would run a hand down the length of my face in disbelief. I was so pissed at myself for not seeing the signs. Her multi-weekly trips to Kalispell with Ethan. Her refusing the alcohol. She told me on more than one occasion that the ranch, the people of her town, did not define her correctly. At Bridge’s doctor’s office, that receptionist asking how she was doing. Ethan and her “fight.” Ellie crying at the bottom of the stairs. Cricket’s profound thoughts of death. Her mother. Ethan and the list.
“Oh my God, Ellie,” I said, my body starting to shake.
“Yes,” she spoke quietly.
“Was Ethan Cricket’s kidney donor?”
She looked at me. “Yes.”
“Oh my God,” I said, feeling the need to wretch. “Oh my God,” I said again, my hands shaking so badly I could barely clutch the wheel.
That day, in the trailer, before their fight. You’re only in your relationship with Ethan because he’s giving you something you think you can’t live without, and you’re too scared to give up.
I pulled over, opened the door and vomited everything I had, which wasn’t much since my stomach was empty. When I came back up, Ellie had found an old t-shirt on the ground and handed it to me.
I wiped my mouth. “Thank you,” I could barely say.
She nodded and I pulled back out on the road.
I was selfish. A selfish asshole who, no matter where he went, what his intentions were, wreaked havoc on everyone he got near. I was toxic, making good people around me pay for my past sins.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I parked quickly and Ellie, still in her bathrobe and slippers, and I headed directly for the E.R. We approached the check-in nurse.
o;Hmm? Oh, yes, the Catatumbo Lightning.”
“It occurs at the mouth of the Catatumbo River,” I spoke into her neck. “Ceaseless, extraordinary bursts of lightning descend from a body of storm clouds that form a voltage arc more than three miles high. It’s magnificent, Cricket. It’s a constant barrage of remarkable light and it burns over and over. I sat at the outermost peak of the Andes nearest Lake Maracaibo and was dazzled for hours. If the sun had never risen, I couldn’t have left it. I would have been a prisoner to its overpowering beauty.” I sat up a little and looked at her. “You are Catatumbo Lightning, Cricket. You’ve caught me.”
My hand covered her throat and I let my thumb circle the side of her neck over and over. Our breaths got heavier, cumbersome. My lids felt weighted and I closed them briefly when her hands found my shoulders.
Oh my God, you’re going to kiss Cricket Hunt.
My hand slid to the back of her neck, my thumb smoothed across her jawbone. I drew near her, my heart pounding through my shirt. I let the weight of my body sink into hers.
“Am I too heavy?” I asked.
Her drowsy eyes found my own. “I like the pressure,” she sighed, giving me a greater buzz, “the potency of it.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you,” I confided. “Can you feel my heart exploding?”
She nodded. “Can you feel mine?”
My hand moved to a pulse point on her neck and I counted the beats.
“Nervous?” I asked.
She nodded again. “Overwrought, thrilled.”
I forced myself to relax and ran my hand down her throat. Lazily, I unbuttoned the top of her coat and ran my hand over the lace across her breastplate. I breathed deeply in and out of my nose. My hand followed back up her neck and gently closed around her throat once more. I lowered my face and hovered just above her lips. Ever so lightly, I ran my bottom lip across her hers eliciting a shiver. I did the same thing once more, but this time I skimmed the tip of my tongue as well, just so I could taste her, just so I could know what I was in for, and my God did she taste extraordinary.
I pulled away and she objected, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling me so close, I could taste her without touching.
“Kiss me,” she ordered, and I was helpless to comply.
I crushed my mouth with hers and she moaned into my throat, spurring me on. I moved with her and we kissed like we were made for each other. Her saccharine tongue melted with mine, and I found my hands pressing her back, pushing her deeper into me.
We broke to catch our breath and to gauge the other, to see if it was truly as powerful as it appeared. Click. It seemed it was. Her labored breaths fanned across my face and she grappled to get nearer. I drove my tongue into hers once again, and I felt intact once more, as if a piece of me hadn’t gone suddenly missing.
