AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your family died in a tornado, but you call me Little Storm. Why?”
His arms tighten around me. “Sometimes, storms come to decimate everything we deem important. Other times, they come to clear our path.”
“Which one am I?”
“Both,” he rasps.
I don’t know what to do with that. Wells has a poetic side to him, the part of him that loves literature, that chooses books with lost love and unmet longings. Maybe he sees our love story as a tragedy rather than a romance.
“Both?” I squeak, the emotion finally dripping onto my cheek.
He wipes my tear and cups my chin, securing it in place so I meet his eyes. “You changed everything, Ivanna. Turned it all upside down. The moment I saw you, I knew I was lost to whatever path you carved for me.”
Sometimes, the way he touches me or phrases things, it’s like a whisper in disguise. A ripple in a pond.
It’s my eighteenth birthday party—a masquerade ball, like I requested—but I’m angry. This afternoon, my father informed me that I have to attend the local university and that my security detail will be increased. I love him, trust him, and want to make him happy, but I was hoping to go away for school.
I wander out to our terrace. It’s my favorite place, overlooking the pond. The cold December night air causes my bare arms to erupt in goose bumps, but I don’t care. I can’t go back in there right now. My hope was that the masks would add an element of mystery while also veiling how alone I always feel surrounded by people. It didn’t quite work.
As I’m staring at the way the moonlight capers off the water, a stone suddenly skips across the glassy surface, ripples bleeding out to the rim. I jerk my head up, searching for the author of the enthralling ripples.
On the other side of the terrace, shrouded in shadows, beneath a black-and-silver mask, and devastating in an impeccably tailored suit, a man peers back at me. I’m not usually afraid, nor am I bold. Socialetiquette generally has me evaluating someone’s actions before choosing my own.
But here, masked and facing an equally hidden man, I don’t feel the need to be meek. He doesn’t say a word as I walk toward him. He only watches.
When I’m inches from him, I pluck one of the stones from his palm, rubbing my thumb over it and noticing how smooth yet unbelievably ordinary it is. “Skipping stones—one of those simple yet captivating activities.” I send it to hop on the water like the one before it. “It’s remarkable how something so ordinary can skirt the surface of something so much larger, causing ripples that shake the entirety of the pond.”
He chuckles a little under his breath. “Why stand out here in the cold, alone, on your birthday?”
I lift my chin, curious to who lies beneath the mask. His voice is mesmerizing and not one I’ve ever heard before. But he knows who I am.
Not wanting to lose the mystique that I built my entire birthday around, I don’t ask him any questions and instead look back at the pond and answer his. “I was angry, but I love it out here, no matter the weather. The way the sunrise colors the water and the moonlight whispers across it. The way something as small as a pebble can change it. I always feel hopeful out here, like maybe—even though in the grand scheme of the world, I’m somewhat ordinary—I can make big changes. I don’t need to be the pond. I like the element of surprise in being the tiny pebble who shakes it.”
Even with his mask on, I can feel his eyes on me, raking over my body. My pulse races, my cheeks heat, and a pool of warmth wets my panties. I’ve never been so affected by a man. Maybe because I’ve only been around boys. Or maybe because the mask adds a bit of danger.
He moves closer, and my breath catches when his hand glides over the small of my back. He smells like smoke and alcohol and leather—a lodge. Not a combination I particularly like, and yet, somehow, it works. His lips brush against my ear. “Happy birthday. You are absolutely magnificent. ‘’Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.’ ”
“Thank you. That’s a quote by Oscar Wilde.”
He releases a hushed chortle, an audible grin, and even without seeing it, I feel victorious for having earned it.
“See. Magnificent, Ivanna.”
And poof. He’s gone.
A butterfly’s kiss.
My heart will never be the same.
“Ivy.” Wells’s voice skates across the glint of that memory. “You took a little vacation. Where’d you go?”
“I was thinking about my parents’ home, the pond. I’ve always thought of myself as ordinary, not in a bad way, but my life …”
He saves my nonsensical rambling. “There isn’t one tiny cell in you that’s ordinary. You’re—”
My lips press into his, craving his touch even more than his beautiful words. He’s a dream I hope I never wake from. He deepens the kiss, holding my face, sliding his tongue against mine, nibbling my lip, until his fingers trickle down beneath the waistband of my yoga pants and into my panties.
“So wet,” he praises.
