I tried to protest, pulling back on his arm. 'Liam, no. I mean it.'
'Oh, yeah?' The grin grew and I forced my best scowl.
'I swear, Liam. This is my house with my rules. You are not going in there.'
I pushed all my weight onto the back of my legs and leaned in the opposite direction, but it was no use. He easily dragged me lightly by my arm.
'Not alone. No. You're coming with me,' he said.
He tickled me under my arm, making me drop to the floor.
'No. You can't make me.'
His fingers moved across my ribs, making me laugh despite myself. Knowing the others watched embarrassed me. Gritting my teeth, I pushed through the onslaught of tickles, and scrambled away.
I stood up and crossed my arms around my chest. 'I am not moving one more inch. You can't make me.'
'Oh, yeah?'
'Why? What are you going to do?'
I should have known better.
I screamed as Liam grabbed me, lifting me up over his shoulder. 'Put me down. I swear, I'm going to kill you.'
Everyone stared, but Liam quickly twirled me around and opened up the sliding door to the dining room. Once inside, he kicked it closed. 'Wow, you weren't kidding. This place is a mess.'
'I told you.' I groaned. 'Can I get down now?'
'I don't know,' he said, pausing as if he actually had to consider this. 'I kind of like you up here.'
'Liam!'
He chuckled and then carefully placed me down on top of a large moving box.
'I can't believe you just did that,' I said. My temper flickered.
Liam ignored my comment. 'You guys have a lot of unpacking to do.'
Heaps of various boxes and furniture lay haphazardly around the room. Some half opened, some not. Clothes littered the dining room table, the only thing resembling the actual use of the room. A good thirty or so books had fallen out of the container they had come in, the beige rug now littered with a thin line of dust and pages.
'You don't say.' I groaned and rolled my eyes. 'It's not like my dad's the quickest un-packer and I do have school. Honestly, I'm surprised we pulled off a decent kitchen this soon.' I didn't add the fact that the kitchen had been my doing. I just couldn't stand searching for dishes to eat off of out the dirty boxes.
'Are these pictures?' Liam picked up an old photo album off the floor. My face went hot. A room heaped in a mess of everything known to mankind and he finds that. Go figure.
'Give me that.' I grabbed the large leather book from him.
'Oh, come on. I want to see.'
I stood on the box, holding the album away as I stared back at him. A wisp of his musky scent filled my nose and a strange urge to run my fingers through his hair engulfed me. I inwardly screamed.
'I told you I wanted to get to know you.'
'Yeah, you did.' I gave up and joined him, sitting down on the edge of the box. 'Go ahead,' I said, handing over the album.
He hesitated and I nodded for him to go on. 'Oh god,' I said, my hand clamping down over the picture the moment Liam opened the thick leather cover. 'I forgot this was in here. This is so embarrassing.'
Liam chuckled and removed my hand to reveal a picture of a six year old me singing show tunes in a hot pink tutu. I buried my face in my arm. My cheeks probably matched the color of the ridiculous outfit.
'You like to sing?'
'Kind of,' I said, guarded.
'Do you still sing? What kind of songs do you sing?'
'I do.' I shrugged, half waiting for him to make fun of me, but he didn't. 'At my last school I was in the choir. Now I just mostly sing in the shower.' He didn't laugh and I nudged him in the shoulder. 'That was a joke, Liam.'
'You should join the choir at your new school if it's something you like doing.'
'I don't know. We'll see.'
'Why do you say that?'
I looked at him, wondering his intentions. 'You ask a lot of questions.'
'Why are you so guarded all the time?'
His question caught me by surprise. It burned. The wall I didn't know existed suddenly teetered and I felt disoriented. My pulse sped up. 'I don't know. A lot of things make me nervous. I don't know you. I'd rather just stick to myself, although Ty's cool. No one...' I stopped myself.
'No one what?'
My fingers trembled and I tucked them between my legs. I wanted to scream it, to let him know that I'm being followed, but fear over-road that. It always did, and even though I sat with him so close, I felt alone. No one understood. After the attack, when I first saw them on the edge of the woods, watching me, I would tell my parents. That had gotten me a year of therapy for posttraumatic stress and pills that made me feel half unconscious. I never spoke of it again.
I shook my head. 'It's nothing.'
'Charlotte, if it's something that bothers you, it's not nothing.'
The depth of the conversation made me uncomfortable. The tone of his voice and demeanor, so empathic, tore at my defenses. I hadn't seen this side of him before. He tilted his head to the side as if trying to read me. Funny how that little behavior bothered me in the woods, but it didn't now.
'People don't understand me. I feel different.'
He regarded me for a moment and then spoke. 'I think I know something about that.' He glanced down at his faded jeans and shrugged.
'What do you mean?' His openness, even more disarming then his concern, made my chest tighten. 'But you have all those guys in there you hang out with.'
His gaze, taut with sincerity, met mine. 'I mean other people. That's why we stick together. We're different.'
I swallowed hard. 'I know,' I whispered. The words barely made it past my lips.
Liam's eyes grew wide and his shoulders and arms started to tremble. 'How do you know?'
My pulse quickened, but I didn't move. 'I can feel it. I don't know what it is about you and your friends, but I can feel it.'
Liam slowly tilted his head the other way. He leaned in closer to me and openly inhaled the air around me. His lips parted as a small sigh escaped. I froze to the box. If someone pushed me, I probably would have cracked into a thousand pieces. 'You smell so good. The pheromones on you...it doesn't make sense.'
Pheromones?
'Who you are?' I asked, my voice barely audible as he continued to lean closer to my neck, smelling me. 'What you are?'
He pulled back just enough to speak. 'I can't.'
'Why?'
'I'm sorry,' he whispered. The scent rising from his skin intoxicated my senses and I almost wanted to do the same thing he had just been doing. 'I shouldn't be here. I usually have this rule about mingling with...people. I don't know what I'm doing.'
'What are you talking about, Liam?' His words made me nervous, but every pore on my body tingled with excitement. His proximity stirred something inside me, something dormant, and very much alive. Flashes of woods snapped by my line of vision, along with the crackle of the rhythmic soft thump of a paws on the fallen leaves. The breath of a wolf pumped onto my tender skin through his sharp teeth as he closed in around me. The others followed after.
I trembled and blinked, bringing reality back to my senses, Liam the only one here.
'There's something about you, Charlotte.' His voice lowered with a rough hoarseness. I couldn't seem to breathe as he brushed his cheek gently against mine. I shivered.
