Page 50 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
“Lanston!” She pouts and I laugh apologetically. Her body is against me, thighs brushing mine and sharing heat.
“I’m sorry. Something about your parents, right?” I look at her innocently. Her eyebrows flatten, but she lets it go.
“Yeah, they always thought I was childish.” She bites down on the licorice and tears it away, handing it to me for a bite. I eagerly take it.
It’s hard not to roll my eyes at the idea of what others consider childish. “Miserable people don’t want others to find joy in simple things. That’s all it is,” I say before taking a bite and thinking to myself that she just took a bite of the same candy. It makes my cheeks warm.
She lets her head fall in my direction. Her purple hair pools in lovely curls, haloing her face. Those brown eyes pierce straight through me.
Our lips are so close I can smell the sweet candy on her. I swallow hard in an effort to redirect my brain before I get an erection.
“They were definitely miserable,” she says with a flat expression. Her eyes lower to my lips and I watch the samethoughts cross her mind—of tossing in the blankets, limbs tangled and pressed close against one another. Our skin bare and smooth as we connect, as we fall into one another.
Her cheeks redden and she turns her head away. I reach my hand out and gently grip her chin, pulling her face back toward me.
“What has your mind so lost?” I whisper.
In the dark train compartment, alone, it feels required to speak in a hushed tone, even as ghosts. Her nose is a mere inch from my own. The floral scent that mingles in her hair and smile makes me ache for her in every way a man could possibly burn for another.
She holds her breath, not sure if she should answer. I wait, and in the few moments that pass, I know I’d wait patiently for anything she’d have to say.
“You talk about what’s inside your head so easily… I want to share things with you too, but I can’t force myself to say them. Could I maybe write them down for you instead?” She speaks hesitantly like she’s expecting to be shut down. I wonder how many times before she’s tried to open up and her words and ideas had fallen on closed, cruel ears.
“I’d love nothing more,” I say, reassuring her. She lights up and her eyes glimmer like pools of honey. “On one condition.”
Ophelia raises a brow in question.
An endearing grin spreads across my lips. The realest one I’ve felt in a long time. “When you give me a letter, I’ll give you a drawing. We needn’t ever speak about what we read or see; we only need to accept them.”
A short breath escapes her lips and she beams at me. “But should we want to?”
“Then we can talk until the sun rises.”
“And if we need more time than that?”
I laugh, taken by this sweet, broken ghost. “Then we’ll talk until our voices can no longer carry the weight of our words.”
She gives me a daring smile and says, “And if further?”
“When our voices die, I’ll trace my fingers across your skin and tell you stories with my touch.”
Ophelia is silent, studying my features briefly before murmuring, “Why are you so kind, Lanston? I’m not a good person.” The weakness in her tone betrays all the emotions she refuses to show.
That admittance hurts; it swells painfully inside my chest as death once had.
“Why don’t you think you’re a good person?” I ask.
She only closes her eyes.
“Maybe I can tell you in a letter someday.”
I lean forward and press my forehead to hers. She looks into my eyes before they softly flutter shut. My hand rises over the curve of her waist and I kiss her. A piece of my soul opens, and she reaches right into my chest.
She arches her back to get closer, our kiss deepening as she traces her fingers across my jaw. Blood flows to my core as our tongues chase each other. Ophelia’s entire body goes limp in my arms as she surrenders herself to me. Her hands trail down my neck and glide across my collarbones, sending chills up my spine. My cock throbs painfully inside my pants as we tangle in the blankets.
Ophelia lies splayed out on the floor beneath me as I break our connection and start dotting her neck with kisses, nipping her skin enough to draw soft moans from her lips.
“Lanston,” she cries, threading her fingers through my hair as I slip her dress off her shoulders and pull it down enough to expose her breasts. I draw my tongue over her plump flesh, sucking her nipple into my mouth and swirling my tongue over it.
