Pieces of the past
Violet tried.
She took slow, deep breaths, worked hard to calm the rapid erratic hammering of her heart, but she was no match for him, for the feral black eyes fixated on her.
Her flashlight rolled back and forth in the dirt by her feet, dropped seconds ago, fresh batteries drained before she even reached the sunk in iron gate of the hidden graveyard.
Deeply shaken, unnerved from within by the information she'd learned from the library that day, she did her best to hold it together.
Unlike her, Tate vibrated with fevered anticipation, feeding off her energy that glistened with youthful innocence.
It was the closest he had come to feeling truly alive in years, his liberation was a rebirth in a way, breaking from chains that had shackled him down for far too long.
But it was so much more than that, he felt connected, tethered to her, to the tragedy that draped around her shoulders up under her skin.
Her loss was like a beacon, a light in the dark, her nightmare an invitation, for which he accepted the second he felt her pass by.
He took her in like a Botticelli painting, glorious in her complexities and contradictions, he was struck with every nuance, each subtle movement pushing him to quickly to take that inevitable fall, to engage her completely, to keep her close and never let her go.
A glance in his direction could stop his heart, if it wasn't halted long ago, her spirit was free, wild shining blindly as bright as her pain.
Her body was her only sin, miles of soft curves each leading to unimaginable destinations one would surely die to discover, if one were not already dead.
She stood awkwardly with dirty converse sneakers, toes pointed in, shaky plump raspberry lips all wide eyed and vulnerable giving off a fragile vibe to those who didn't know better.
But he saw her, through her, to the real prize lying behind her expertly built walls.
A fierce heart, almost as strong as her dangerous curious soul that pushed her further than most others would dare to venture.
Fingers anxiously twisted the frayed edges of her short cut offs, while silky tresses swayed back and forth along a mouth that begged to be kissed.
Little girl lost to everyone else, he saw so much more.
Violet was brave to a fault, disregarding danger as if it were a nuisance, she was drawn to the darkness, to what hid in the shadows, to the lingering depth of misery thick in the air.
It was oddly comforting, to know she wasn't alone in her pit of grief.
Instead of running from it, she sought it out, thirsting for more of the boy with the cool touch and the inescapable charm.
Disbelieving all of what she had discovered, she longed to unlock the secrets kept behind those black eyes, from the dead boy they called Tate.
Violet drew him in, made her impossible to ignore, she was different then the rest, the mindless grey sheep that stared down at their phones, mindless in their journey, blind to the beauty and agony that lingered all around them.
Not her, not his Violet.
She felt the earth beneath her feet, took notice of the ever changing world that prickled in the summer heat, she reveled in it, invited it in, unknowingly, invited him in.
He made her wait, punishment perhaps for leaving him standing beneath her window while she bared herself to his helpless eyes, unable to touch or taste the feast laid out before him.
Such torture should have consequences he pondered, drawn out divine retribution for leaving him so unjustly unsatisfied.
Winds cooled by the approaching fall lifting his blonde waves away from his fiery stare, icy fingers twitched, inching impatiently to test her boundaries as he strained to hear the intoxicating innocence behind each breath she took.
Finally his lips parted to speak her name shattering the electric charged air between them.
"You kept me waiting."
Turning abruptly landing right in front of him she gasped, her whiskey glinted eyes wide, desperate to see him again, to take him in fully, giving all her secrets away, or so he thought.
"I know it's late… but… I have to be careful… he watches my every move."
Her words were forced, she struggled to construct a simple sentence, lost in him and his obvious urgency to touch what had been dangled before him the night before.
"The preacher, or the boy."
With a pang of jealously he stared her down circling her, suffering quietly, profoundly, holding himself back to properly scrutinize her reaction.
Frozen where she stood, her mind searched for who he meant by 'the boy'.
Then suddenly it struck her, feeling him from behind, she balled her hands into fists insulted by his assumption.
"The boy, as in Gabe? He's just a kid from church, he gave me a ride from town today, the bike I used had tires worth shit. Why? Is that a problem?"
Stepping closer Tate brushed his fingertips up along her thighs, edging teasingly towards what he had been craving ever since her scent invaded his lonely world the first day she appeared.
"I said... is that a problem?"
Her voice wavered, even with her best efforts.
Temptation can be a beautiful thing, he thought as he lowered himself to his knees rasping pointedly against her skin as he lifted her shirt.
"It can be a problem... for him... I'm not one to share Violet."
Turning quickly out of his grasp she tried to repel his clear attempt at distracting her.
"Maybe you should've warned me about the bike before I left, I mean, since you were spying an all."
Standing, he disappeared again before making his way behind her lowering his mouth down to her ear.
Violet held her breath as he purred softly.
"You're warm when you're angry, your skin it flushes pink... your blood runs hot. I can feel it ….here."
He curled one hand around her throat while the other slid inside her shorts, over her white panties.
"You don't like being caged in, owned, like a possession… do you Violet?"
Unable to answer as he swept aside the thin layer of cotton, she gasped under the slow steady pulse of the tip of his finger on her clit.
"Ahh… but, you do like this… oh god… yes… god damn it you're close already."
Her head had fallen hard on his chest, her body rested trustingly against him as he angled her mouth close to his.
His kiss was demanding, with each stroke he flicked his tongue along her lips as the temptation to truly taste her became too much to fight.
Suddenly her hands clasped onto his wrist struggling for more, harder, faster, anything, but he remained in control making the climb torturous in its ascent.
Giving up she reached back driving her fingers into his mass of blonde hair.
Releasing her neck his hand cupped her breast tenderly rolling over her hard peak immediately making her cum harder than she knew was possible.
His hands lost their gingerly touch as his control fell away.
Spinning her around he ripped open the zipper of her shorts, the button tore away ricocheting off a nearby gravestone.
Two cold hands slipped under her cupping her bare ass rutting her hard against his cock that strained to be released.
He seemed out of control, growing more frenzied with each second.
Soon he had her bare hoarsely whispering muffled words of need as he worked his mouth over her breast.
It was all going too fast, he was gone, lost in the life that rushed through her, in the moment of when he'd feel her finally tight and warm around him.
"Stop… Tate… please."
"Please!"
Somehow in his madness her voice managed to reach him.
And just like that he was gone, with a rush of ice cold air skimming her bare skin, he let the night envelope him leaving her spinning around lost.
"Wait!"
Dressing herself she could barely hear a thing beyond her heart hammering inside her head.
With a clouded moon and a starless sky above her, Violet was blind, dizzy as she reached out to the headstone to the side of her for balance, remembering the treacherous root system that pierced the ground beneath her.
"Tate!"
"I'm here."
He was calm again, controlled… nearly.
His penetrating gaze settled over her, a willing audience to her struggle between defiance and desire.
"I'll always be here… Violet."
Crossing her arms around herself she stared at her sneakers.
"I'm sorry… I've never. I'm not - "
"You're fucking beautiful Violet, very hard to resist, but that doesn't mean that I'd hurt you. I can be patient... just don't leave ... stay with me awhile."
His voice alone was enough to make her come again.
Deep in tone, velvet in execution, the implications were obscene wrapping around her body steadily working their way towards places he would soon be.
Straining to see him, Violet hardened her voice forcing herself past his not so subtle needs.
"I went to the library today."
Studying every inch of her he braced his head against the hovering somber angel weeping for the body that laid beneath his feet.
"Knowledge is power, but I can think of more interesting ways to spend your time."
Stepping closer towards his voice, she urged him to continue for no other reason but to find him.
"I was looking for information, for the truth about the boy who once lived in my room, the boy with the box hidden in the floorboards of the closet."
Lowering his head, forcing himself to push her words from his mind, he made his way towards a lofty cross with the name Benjamin Lee Thames engraved across it.
With little regard or respect he lazily hung his arms over the intersecting marble, whispering calmly, admiring her from a distance as she clumsily stumbled in the wrong direction.
"The newspapers claimed the boy was guilty of a heinous crime, said he drove a pitchfork into his father's chest, stated he beat his little brother beyond recognition, leaving him in a well on the edge of the woods, to drown to death."
Causally Tate grinned skimming his gaze along the inside of her thighs as if he hadn't heard a word she said.
"You didn't look too upset by Gabe's attention, his flowery simple minded compliments, his pathetic peck on the cheek."
His avoidance of that horrific night only caused her to be more driven to get the truth.
"It was your name etched on the box, your image in the pictures I found there… as it was in the article that was over fifty six years old."
Jumping out of the darkness he stretched tall, flush behind her resting his frozen hands around her slender waist pulling her back against his hardened stiff body.
His once pacifying tone was now heightened with angry inflections.
"He wants you, he stares, when you're not aware, his eyes change, one that is far from gentlemanly. Make no mistake Violet, his intentions are far from wholesome. That boy is itching to fuck you."
Taking a deep breath she shoved her hand in her back pocket hooking the picture of his family between her fingers.
"I read they had planned to send you to the electric chair even before the trail, but you ran… then you -"
Vanishing again, she found him sitting on the ground, he knees pulled up tight to his chest, his black eyes concentrating as if witnessing something right in front of him that wasn't there.
"Stop… please."
Kneeling beside him she noticed a simple rectangle marker covered by brush, set aside from the rest of the elaborate headstones.
"Tate, the police had it wrong didn't they? You were just protecting your brother that night."
Lifting his tearful eyes to her, he wiped away the dirt and leaves revealing a name in small letters.
Jack Edward Langdon
"I still am."