Sully’s warm sweet breath still tingles across my lips. Somehow, it’s the only place that’s staying warm. Jeremiah is no match for the things that Sully can make me experience and feel.
I’m sure most would laugh at me saying Sully is sweet. I don’t care how others see him, though. To me, everything about the man is sweet. Heck, I get jealous over Sully’s garden and sculptures that he’s always tending to with those rough hands of his. At how much attention he pays to each and every one of them.
It doesn’t matter how rough those hands of his were. His touch always looks so gentle when he’s working with them. I have to admit that I’ve gotten turned on more than a few times just watching him. Even with the few times he’s casually touched me, my body longs for more of the sweet caress. The one that shows you he can handle you with care no matter how rough the texture of his skin is. If anything, it only adds to the sweetness of it.
But now, all the sweetness I’ve started to experience over the last few months is rapidly fading from my body. Anything and everything I’ve enjoyed or dreamed of is always taken from me. Especially by the man standing next to Jeremiah. My father.
My gaze moves over to him. My father has always thought Jeremiah to be some prophet. I don’t know why Jeremiah has always scared me more than my own father, but he does. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that my father would do anything Jeremiah asked him to, which is odd because my father is the one that’s supposed to be the Prophet with the capital ‘P.’
Jeremiah has never laid a hand on me, but something in his cold blue eyes always told me that in time that would change if I was to become his. I don’t just mean physical blows, either. He’d leave scars that would not show only on my flesh but in places no one else could see. Only I’d feel and know they were there, making and changing me forever. More so than the ones I'm still trying to work my way through.
As always, they both are dressed in suits. They often do, especially if they are leaving the community to go out and do whatever it is that they do when they left the land. Unlike the rest of our clothes, which we’d often make ourselves, theirs are always so nice.
“Orchid.” My father's tone is calm. It only makes my fear start to rise. They’re going to take me. “It’s time to come back home.”
My eyes flick from him and back to Jeremiah, who is no longer staring at me but at Roxie. Unable to help myself, my head starts to nod yes. No! Orchard, you’re home already. Briarton is your new home, I fight to remind myself.
“But I was…” I trail off when Jeremiah’s attention swings back my way. His eyes roam up and down my body. He licks his lips, and something else altogether flashes in his eyes. That coldness is replaced by lust.
I’ve never much cared for how Jeremiah looks at me. More so when he thinks no one is watching. It always makes me feel gross and happy for the oversized ugly dresses we always had to wear.
Funny how when I think I catch Sully’s eyes taking me in how it makes me feel so different. Things inside me rise to the surface and tempt me to do things to see if I can get him to stare at me longer. How can I loathe something from one person but want it so badly from another? I don’t understand my own thoughts, and I can’t help but think it has everything to do with how I was raised … or maybe I’m broken inside. Maybe I’m permanently damaged.
“Have you been doing things you’re not supposed to be, Orchid? You’re my fiancée,” Jeremiah says loudly.
A few small gasps sound through the diner as everyone watches. I’m sure they’re wondering what the heck is going on. Then again, I’ve never been quick to tell much about my past. Not because some of the shame I carry that slowly–as I’ve grown on my own–has started to fall away but because I didn’t want them to find me. My fear that I’m not strong enough to tell them no. It’s why I ran to begin with.
“Jeremiah asked you a question,” Father snaps.
Jeremiah opens his mouth but shuts it as his eyes go wide looking over my shoulder.
The coldness starts to change as warmth seeps back into me. I don’t have to glance over my shoulder to know who’s there. I swallow the lump in my throat, knowing Sully heard the whole ‘fiancée’ comment. Now what’s he going to think of me? Here I am trying to lure him to kiss me, and now he thinks I have a fiancé.