Shoes. I needed to get on my tennis shoes. I scrambled through my things on the floor and found them, shoving my feet in and tying the knots. Of course Kaidan Rowe would know what freesia smelled like. He probably had to take a flower course during lust training.
“Going somewhere?”
In my peripheral vision I saw him standing in the bathroom door. I wouldn’t meet his eyes, afraid they’d be as stormy as they were after our kiss.
I stood and looked at the clock. It was nine. “Yeah, I’m going for a run.”
“Mind if I join you?”
I huffed out a determined breath and looked at him now. “Only if you’ll do something for me.”
He raised his eyebrows in response.
“Teach me to hide my colors.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HIDING EMOTIONS
The silence between us as we ran was comfortable. It didn’t take long to adjust our strides to fit each other. We passed a nearby strip mall and headed for the hills. Other than the occasional passing car, we were alone.
We came across a cluster of rocks and boulders and climbed them as high as we could go. At the top, Kaidan lay back, hands behind his neck. I stayed sitting up with my legs crossed, next to him. I stared up at the unobstructed sky, fiddling with my shoelaces.
Kaidan was so quiet and still I thought he’d fallen asleep. I peeked down and found him staring at the stars. One of his hands rested on his abdomen, and the other was at his side, close to me. It was a strong hand with long fingers, masculine knuckles, and short nails. Possessed by some basic instinct to nurture, I slipped my hand into his. For one horrible second I expected him to pull away from me, but he didn’t. He continued to stare up, though his breathing seemed to slow. I slid my fingers between his. It felt nothing like when Patti and I held hands or when Scott held my hand and led me through the party. This felt intimate, yet sweet.
So much for my healthy fear.
Something scurried below us in the dirt, maybe a lizard. I liked lizards. Or it could have been a scorpion or snake. Those possibilities made me shiver.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No, just thinking about poisonous reptiles.”
He chuckled. I hoped he had a knife on him, just in case. I wondered how our bodies would react to poison.
“Are you really going to teach me to hide my emotions?” I asked him.
He lifted his head up and looked at me.
“All right.” As he sat up, I reluctantly untwined our fingers and was rapt with attention.
“You mentioned that you can block the emotions you feel coming from others,” Kaidan said. “How do you do that?”
“I kind of ignore it when it comes at me and force myself not to think about it.”
“This might be similar. Imagine each emotion as something physical in your mind, an object of your choice, and then imagine yourself physically pushing it away or throwing a blanket over it. Anything that works for you. Or as you said, flat-out ignore it, pretend it’s not there. Be the boss of your mind. Let’s concentrate on a positive emotion first. Think about Patti.... Good, I can see your love for her. Start with that.”
I imagined my love for her as a physical thing, a fluffy pillow. I compacted it into a light pink dodgeball and I kicked it with my imaginary foot as hard as I could. Kaidan ran his eyes over me and his mouth pulled back in an impressed expression.
“Did it vanish?” I asked.
He nodded, and I was shocked. Maybe I could do this! It was different from blocking others’ emotions, because I had to concentrate harder. Deflecting something from the outside was easier than capturing what was inside me and managing it.
“That was fast. You’re good. Now for something a bit more unpleasant. Something that makes you angry or sad.”
I thought of my father and the words he spoke to me on the day of my birth. I realized now that it must have been pure sarcasm. He couldn’t have meant for me to stay away from drugs if that was supposed to be my job, could he? Why hadn’t he tried to make me work all these years?
“Whatever you’re thinking of, it’s not making you angry. Try this. Think of that git who drugged you and tried to take advantage of you. Think of all the girls he was likely successful with.”
“You think he’s done that to other girls?”
“People who get their kicks that way are usually repeat offenders.”
My stomach tightened. What if Kaidan hadn’t been there that night? How far would Scott have taken things? All the way? I thought of rape victims, how they often felt guilty. I knew I would have blamed myself.
“Good,” Kaidan whispered. “Now.”
Anger surged inside me and I channeled it into a spiraling baseball. I swung and batted the emotion away. It was a home run. And it felt good.
The anger toward Scott still lived somewhere inside me. I wasn’t making my emotions disappear. They were simply being hidden from the part of my brain that would display them.
I spent an hour practicing as Kaidan prompted me through emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anxiousness.
“This is almost too easy for you, isn’t it?” Kaidan said, leaning a little closer. “I’m very impressed.” He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, and my heart gave a rapid series of bangs.
Ignore it. Deflect it. Oh, crap, this is harder than the other feelings.
“You know, for the record, Anna, I won’t think any less of you if you change your mind about doing the things my father expects.”