Chapter10:

Everlee ended up searching through her Aunts things, unable to sit and wrack her brain any longer. Her hands touched along the many lush and expensive fabrics- some obviously out of date, and from her Aunt's youth. They had at one point in time been the same dress size, she had found out with a sad discovery.

The entire closet was still holding her Aunt, Everlee could almost feel her life flitting from dress to dress, memories and experiences had were washing over her in a quiet, almost hypnotic way. She sifted through them all, occasionally stopping to admire or laugh at her Aunt's curious taste.

One dress in particular made her stop completely, and examine it as it hung there almost silently saying, "I know, I'm beautiful."

The satin-like fabric was a cross between emerald and olive green, so unique against the surrounding evening gowns of foamy sea-breeze and soft lavender. The smoothness of it pooled in a long dramatic train onto the ivory carpet, the drape of it on the hanger showed that it was elegantly backless, and dipped almost demurely in the front to contrast. The sleek and ingenious seaming curved just the smallest bit in toward the waist and then flared back out along the skirt- it was obvious the make and fit had to be impeccable. Almost on reflex she searched for the tag, assuming she'd find a rather big name claiming it's importance- only, there was none. And the dress looked like it was in perfect condition.

For a moment, she dropped the dress and stared around herself, a thought striking her with a blaring reality: Who was her Aunt Helen really?

She had thought she'd known so much about the witty and effervescent older woman- that they had been born as niece and Aunt but felt like the best of sisters. Of course Everlee knew that she traveled like mad, and had all of her money from an inheritance, but she had never seen this side- the one that had a mansion and life in Russia of all places, who somehow had known she was reincarnated and abnormal. The one where glorious gowns and intrigue coated her closets. Where Roger had been the love of her life.

Why did she hide so much of herself and act as if she and Everlee were kindred spirits? Roger had yet to answer that in his impromptu 'lessons'.

In fact, the more she thought about it, irrational or not, the more angry and hurt she felt. Unconsciously, Everlee brushed against the cool silken fabric of the green dress. Without pause, she decided she would try it on. Aunt Helen had said in her will that everything was hers anyway, and even though she paused for a moment before removing her dark jeans, she carried on.

When she stood in just her underwear, she gently took the dress off of it's fabric hanger, and instantly it puddled into her arms, and lay there cool against her skin, almost in glee that it was to finally be worn.

Everlee felt a strange charged atmosphere, and glanced around herself, praying that no one was in the room about to come in on her-she hadn't been able to find a lock to the heavily carved wooden door leading to the closet. In haste to at least be clothed in a dress rather than her underwear, Everlee slid the dress up her body and shoved her arms through it's elegant straps, ducking behind an over-sized plush royal-blue armchair just as she heard the distinct sound of the door's handle creaking.

As she crouched, she almost smacked herself- what on earth was she going to do if the person found her hiding behind the chair in an evening gown? Obviously, her jeans and sweater were out in the open and not a usual centerpiece to this extravagant closet.

It was probably just a maid, and she was going to look like an absolute nut bag when she was inevitably discovered.

In order to preserve some of her pride, Everlee stood up abruptly, hoping she looked like she had bent down to retrieve something instead of been hiding like a grade school child.

Almost immediately, her eyes focused on Edik, who stood in his usual powerful stance, and with his hair wild and tangled. His bluntly chiseled face caught shadows in the soft lighting of the closet, and his eyes seared over her, instantly causing a raging blush to erupt all over her body in total mortification.

He had to have known she was hiding in here to escape him.

And she must have looked so strange and ridiculous to him, jerking up from behind a chair, and wearing a glamorous dress.

He walked toward her, speaking haltingly, "I found you," he smiled softly, her heart clenched guiltily, "there is food ready for-"

He had walked around the chair and when she was fully revealed to be wearing a floor-length gown his sentence stopped, and his eyes swept over her again. His hand rested near hers on the upper part of the chair, and his body remained almost a foot away, but she knew that he wanted to be closer, to see how her body felt with the dress covering it. She didn't need to hear him speak his desire, just by looking at him watching her, she knew it.

She shifted her feet with the tension, biting her cheek for a moment, and anxiously let a self-mocking smile creep onto her face, "I was trying on her old dress." Captain Obvious.

He moved his hand to rest over hers, the rough calloused palm not clutching, but nearly trembling not to, "Beautiful. Color is pretty on you Eva."

He had begun calling her that, 'Eva'. It was a development that had just one day happened, and stuck there as if it was her real name. He would wake up in the morning, catching her gaze and smiling, "Good morning Eva."

His kindness and desire were weighing on her like a cross. She let her eyes meet his for a moment, trying to conquer her shyness, and then she gave up, and turned to begin collecting her clothes. She murmured inaudibly, "Thank you."

Almost directly after, she felt the most curious and soft of caresses touch between her bare shoulder blades. It was Edik, who was entirely serious as he caught sight of her completely bare skin.

To him, her back was the most luring, womanly thing he had ever seen. The softness and the pronounced dimple sitting low on her spine, were capturing. All this time, she had never seemed to be capable of such a grown thing as she was making him feel at that moment. Yes, she was always wonderful- beautiful to him, but just now she was also the memory of the lover she had been before. The intensified femininity that her back alone displayed made him gulp quietly, and suddenly without his own command, he saw his own hand reach and touch her skin. His mind began firing oddly, somehow as if he were underwater, and yet fully hyper-aware of even her smallest movements.

His hand felt the graceful rise and fall of her breathing- and he was lost to her, she could cut off his very arm, and he would never leave her still. His eyes, unbeknownst to him, dilated.

Everlee straightened, not quite tense, but unsure of what he was going to do. She would not move away for some reason- she felt she owed him some kind of physical acceptance, or allowance. With one careful breath, she moved just the slightest bit back towards him, bringing his body closer, and feeling vulnerable.

Edik did not waste his good fortune, knowing her tentative response was something that could at any moment be taken back, and she alone held that right.

He let himself envelop her, his chest against her back, his arms wrapping around her front, until his hands could glide over the shimmering green fabric where her ribcage was rising and falling in a sort of stuttering repetition. His mouth let out warm breaths that swept across her neck and shoulders, his nose tracing lightly the soft skin closest to him. Nearly drunk with her scent, he rumbled deeply, smiling when she didn't quite flinch but showed her surprise by the hitch in her breath.

She squeezed her eyes shut to keep herself grounded. His touch made her feel like she had to jump out of her skin, as if it were incapable of containing the anxious energy coursing through her. She had to focus her gaze somewhere, or she would combust.

Everlee, stared down at his hands, wrapped around her wrists and littered with scarring, but somehow long and refined. She wondered how they had become like that, if he ever looked at the scars and saw them with memories, or was blind to them in their oldness.

"Edik," she spoke, shifting her weight to lean into him, and lightly grab his left hand with her right, "where did these come from?" She traced a particularly raised and deep line running in a slanted line over the top bones of his hand.

Still in his trance-like reverie, Edik took a long minute to think of how to translate for her in short what had happened when he had gotten the gash she was tracing, "My brother Artyom, fight with me. We both were selling drugs to a baron . We worked together sometime, and I talked to the royals better, so I always got pay first. One day he thought I was cheating him with the money. He took out knife yelling at me, and before I can get mine, he get my hand." The story stirred no emotion, having happened so long ago.

Edik's free hand moved to cup her breast, just barely applying pressure, and he let his head drop into the curve of her neck, gently kissing her- unrushed and doting. She was the softest, most unforgettable body he would ever know- had ever known.

Everlee's mind pitched forward into a torrent of thoughts- he was a drug dealer? Or -had been- a drug dealer? What kind of relationship did him and his brother have? When did his brother die, or was he too a strangely immortal being cursed that way by mother nature?

When she came up from her pool of thoughts, she realized the placement of his hand, and the attention he was paying her neck. A raging blush consumed her, and a melting, completely foreign shudder passed through her chest.

What was she doing? Was this real, was she leading him on? Everlee turned around to face him, his hands easily moving back at his sides, his eyes wide with question- apprehension at what he was sure would be her putting a stop to his exploration.

When she did not do anything but stare at his chest blushing, he took his chance to question, "Eva…?"

As if slapped from a day dream, she lurched forward toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands easily sliding into his dark hair, and her body solidly against his. Her mouth went to his jaw, her eyes closed with the very new and excited passion she wanted him to feel. Her thoughts swirled into a blur and it was as if something had finally released from her- she wanted to discover him, know all the scars and stories. She couldn't even contain herself, and never before had she done something like this- it was wild and scary. She felt hormonal, ridiculous, and caught up, but it was intoxicating.

The sudden, aggressive force she embraced him with was so unexpected Edik's eyes widened and his posture went rigid for the briefest of seconds with the shock- this was not something she had ever done before, his calm and blushing deer. He barely knew how to react when it wasn't him being the one to control the intensity. Her soft lips felt so good they almost hurt him.

Just as he began to clutch her back, a creaking sounded from the closet door, and a maid's back came through, pulling with her a cleaning cart.

Everlee sprang away from him with humiliation. Her heat instantly vanished and a horrified realization hit her at what she had just done. Did that really just happen?! Oh my freaking God!

Edik nearly groaned with his annoyance at the untimely entrance of the maid, until he caught sight of how embroiled Everlee looked. To spare her of her mortification, he cleared his throat loudly, causing the maid to jump, and turn.

They exchanged a quick conversation in Russian, and blushing herself, the maid bowed her head in a polite and smiling gesture, pulling back out of the closet she had come in to dust, apologizing.

Not able to stand it any longer, and not caring how awkward it might seem, Everlee grabbed her clothes from the floor and fled from the closet in a haze of silken green and lithe grace.

Edik stayed there, realizing for perhaps the first time since she had come back to him, that he had no idea how she wanted to be loved.