The Masquerade Ball by Audrey Parker (top 100 novels .TXT) 📕

in the same pinstriped pajamas that my older brother wears to bed, and his hair lays flat on one side, like he just woke up. I long to run my fingers through it. I take a few steps closer until I’m right in front of him.
“Hey,” he says. “I couldn’t wait to see you the past three days.” His hands are stationed in his pockets and he seems fidgety.
“Me too,” I answer. “I’ve been waiting for you to come see me.” I didn’t want to go see him in case I missed him when he came.
He moved closer and wrapped his lanky arms around me like he did at the Ball. “I wanted to come so when I did we could be alone. And besides, I think it’s my turn,” Devon grins mischievously.
“To do what?” I asked.
“This.” And he leaned closer and caresses my lips against his.
After three long agonizing days without him by my side, this is the most wonderful reunion I have ever experienced.


-Devon-

The cool night air is as fresh and renewing on my skin as I’m sure it is on Kennedy’s. But we don’t feel any of it. Our skin is kept warm by the love in our hearts and in every nook and cranny of or bodies.
As it began to rain, we didn’t feel any of the icy water weaving off our shoulders and down both of our legs. My hair laid flat against my scalp for once and Kennedy’s dripped.
Our pajama’s maybe rumpled from when the other had bunched it into a fist, but our eyes shone brighter than the North Star and both of our mouths were swollen from our ravenous kisses. To escape catching a cold, we move toward the horses stables, still gripping the other’s hand.
Back

-Kennedy-

The stables took us out of the rain, but the sparse mist and nipping cold follow us inside. I wish I’d thought to bring with me the fur-lined coat that my mother had bought me.
My knees tremble so much that I’m tempted to sit down on the wooden planks and straw covering the floor, but I realize that it would only draw out the remainder of my body heat. My teeth begin to chatter, and at this change, Devon notices how frigid I am, save for the hand that he is grasping.
He grabs two of the plaid stable blankets and sets one on the floor and the end of all the horse’s stales. Devon motions for me to come closer and he wraps us both up in it like we are catipillars in a coccone. I inhale heavily. The intoxicating aroma of Devon was almost over powered by the rentch of horse menour.
Devon spoke in a hearty voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything as baad as these blankets.” He scrunches up his nose and waves his free hand in front of it.
I chuckle at his joke. “Ross could beat them at their own game. He baths only when mother forces him into the tub.” Ross is my nine year old menace of a brother.
“That’s understandable, but have you ever seen the hunting bloodhounds when they get back?” Devon counters. “They’re always all muddied up and once they trashed all of Persons Street’s compost . . .”
I smile as he tails off, knowing that there’s nothing better that he’s got. That’s’ one of the things that I love about him. even when his offense is pitiful, he never surrenders without giving it everylast defense he’s got.
Suddenly, my eyes begin to flutter and I remember my three sleepless nights that I’ve endured. I yawn and settle more comfortly into Devon’s shoulder. I close my eyes for the night, not caring that we’re still in the stable.
“Goodnight, Kennedy.” And I feel Devon lean down and press his lips onto the top of my head.


-Devon-

In the morning, I awoke with the sun. Kennedy was still nestled into the hollow of my neck and breathing at the snails pace of a sleeper. I gently nudged her with my shoulder.
“Wake up, Kennedy,” I coaxed. “We have to get back into our beds before anyone notices and asks questions.”
That rouses her.
I quickly place the stable blankets back where I found them. Kennedy had already left because she has both the cook, Dorea, and her ladies maid, Elyse, to evade. I had neither.
The elabret house that I live in isn’t too far from here but is too great a distance to walk home. I guide my chestnut horse out of the last stall, the one always left for visitors. I called my horse Jack, and my mother rode his sister, Rose. I saddled him and we trotted away as stealthily as a hoofed animal could.
As I guilded Jack homeward, I thought about all of this. Kennedy and I. The Masquerade Ball confirmed that there was something between us, thought after tonight I wondered just how deep my feelings for her ran. Every time we kiss I feell ajolt where my lips were. I’m always surprised to feel that they’re still intact, but that something important is missing that was there before. I found that the slightest brush of skin against Kennedy’s makes my insides turn to mush and I’m putty in her hands.
Anything she wants I’ll get it for her. Anything that pleases her I’ll do again. I’d said to the bottom of the ocean if it’s sunken treasure that she wants. I’d build her a house with no tools and a bare back before I’d let her be unhappy.


-Kennedy-

I leave with the dew in the grass. The day’s sun evaporated the water dropplets as I trutched through the grass in my slippers. By the time I reached the back doorway, those and the hems of my pants were soaked and scraps of debris were stuck to them. I sigh lightly in the doorway and rolled them up and clutched my slippers in my hands. I scurried toward the stairs.
I didn’t make it half way before I heard a raspy throat clearing. It was undoubtedly from Dorea. She was a hunched, old woman who didn’t take anything from anybody. I respected her for that. Her hands were knarled and the joints were swollen from age old athretist, but they were always there to comfort me when my mother wasn’t.
I’ve always trusted her with all my secrets. I wish Dorea hadn’t caught me during this one.
“Where have you been, my child?” Dorea inquires. She was stationed in a plain kitchion chair at the table, across from the one that I sit at to eat my breakfast every morning.
“Coming in from the stables,” I replied, somewhat smoothly. For some unexplainable reason, I wanted to keep my fairytale night with Devon a secret even from the one adult I am the most honest with.
But she suspects I’m not explaining to her the whole story. “Come here and sit down, and tell me why you were in the stables.” Dorea kicks my chair out from under the table, signaling for me to sit down in it. Figuring I have no other option, I do, and stare down guiltily in my hands.
“Why were you in the stables?” she prompts.
The story of last night spills out of my mouth in one big waterfall. Admittitly, I leave out the kissing bits, saving those memories for myself. And I tell her how we got trapped out there in the rain.
Nodding, she understands and ushers me up to my room, with just enough time to get into my four-poster bed and to shutter my emerald eyes before Elyse enters. She draws me my usual bath and roushes me up. In keeping with our routine, I shoo her out.
I undress and lower myself into the comfortably warm water. I feel my muscels uncurl as I breathed in the lavender sprigs floating around.
After a while, I pull the plug and emerge from the tub. A full-length, golden guilded mirror hung opposite it and I find myself looking into thepolished glass for the first time. I finally see what all those people at the Ball saw; what Devon sees.
Fair skin, toned muscles, a small but curvy waist and rounded breasts. My hourglass figure is something that girls are envious toward. But before the Ball, I’ve never wanted it, barely noticed it. I would’ve given it up if I could, to spare myself all the admirers.
Now I’m glad for it. It gives my something to impress Devon with, something that I want to be proud of.


-Devon-

I got back into my mansion smoothly, not encountering a single face. I wasn’t ecpecting to see one, but worry kept mechanically ibbling at my stomach that we would get caught. Though I understood that someone would eventually figure out that Kennedy and I were not in our beds last night, I’d rather that happen later and not sooner.
The duvet on my bed is still rumpled from when I was tossing and turning, waiting for the mansion to be still. The sheets are twisted between the bedposts. The light was scarce because all the lamps are out and the curtains are draw across the windows, though coals still burned re in the fireplace. My eyes skimmed over my crowded desk in the corner and two doors, one leading to my closet, the other to a spacious bathroom. Maids clean the rooms daily, though I prefer to have my desk unorganized.
I cross to my closet and pull on my outfit for the day. My trosers are stained with mud and my shirt has holes along the seams. I would have to change when I return home for dinner, but my wreaked clothes are perfectionate for what I plan to do today. I plan on riding Jack.
When I go to saddle him up, he is prepped to go, despite the late night ride I took him on. He doesn’t fidget when I lead him out of his stale and outside, or when I mounted him. he quickly trotted when I nudged him forward with my knees. We cantered onto one of my favorite trails to take through the woods, easily.

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