AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re kidding me…” she breathed softly. “Where does that go?”
“So, you are adventurous, too?” Kyle cast a smile over his shoulder at her words and slowly made his way down the rickety stairs that groaned under his feet.
She waited a few moments before starting down them too, not wanting to crash through to the floor below. This had to be a staircase hidden between the walls of the café and the hair salon next door… but it wasn’t on the floor plan, nor was anyone aware of it.
… Could her mother have known?she wondered silently, and glanced up as Kyle flashed the light towards her.
“Be careful on this step, it’s awfully bouncy underfoot…”
As she passed the worrisome step, she found herself at his back on the landing, pressed nearly against him in the darkness as they stood there.
“Does it open?” she whispered softly.
“I’m not sure I should open it. I mean, what if someone is on the other side and doesn’t want to have us suddenly appear? We could get shot or something…”
“It’s more likehairsprayedby Nadine’s shop next door…” she mumbled – and heard his soft laugh as his back moved slightly with the laughter.
“Shhh…” she chuckled and then reached out to tickle him, realizing that this was the stupidest thing she could do right now, but the need to hear his laughter was outweighing anything.
Her fingers made contact with his sides as she tickled him, only to feel him jump as he struggled to pull her hands off of him.
“Hey… HEY!” he hissed, laughing softly, and trying to keep his voice down. “Reyna… stop… hey, I’m ticklish…”
She was grinning in the darkness as he turned towards her, setting her phone down on the stairs, and grappling with her hands to stop the torture as soon as possible – only to have him grab her hands, holding them above her head as she realized just how close they were to each other.
“Oh gosh…” he uttered softly in the shadowy darkness, and hesitated.
Reyna looked up at him, feeling such a longing within her that it was almost unbearable. It was crazy to think how strangely everything changed from one simple action – that could bring them here to this moment.
“Kyle…” she whispered faintly, her voice thick with emotion as she stood before him, waiting. He was taking forever, and she really wished he would just kiss her finally and get it over with… yet nothing happened.
“I’m going to lose the sunlight to do the wiring,” he breathed, staring at her.
“There’s always tomorrow,” she countered, feeling her heart beating wildly.
“Tomorrow, I was going to install the toilet…”
“Then there is the day after…”
“We were going to try the door before you tickled me…”
“So try it and see what happens,” she invited softly, knowing just how that sounded to her own ears… and waited. The innuendo of her invitation couldn’t be any more blunt or outgoing, could it?
Kyle unbelievably released her hands, picked up the cell phone, and took hold of the handle, before yanking the doorway open… only to see brick before them. The staircase had been sealed at some point in the distant past, rendering the above floor useless as an apartment.
… And Reyna felt useless as a woman.
Why was he avoiding her so very much?
In that moment, she felt so insignificant, so worthless, that tears stung her eyes – and her pride. She’d basically thrown herself at the handsome man… and he brushed her off like a gnat.
“Are you married?” she asked bluntly, her voice sounding too loud in her own ears in the darkness as Kyle started up the steps to the apartment above.
Something had to be ‘off’ for a guy to reject her this much. She’d been turned down before, but it had never hurt so very much.
He hesitated, without turning towards her.
“No.”
