The Taste of Lavender by Emma Shane Read Free Book Online Page A

forever,”
she said, standing with her back to me and gazing out of the library window.
Maribel remained still, patiently waiting for her words to have some effect on
me. Though I couldn’t see her face, I heard the sorrow in her voice. It was
like my refusal to answer automatically meant that she would not like the
answer.
    I sighed and sat on the edge of her
wingback chair, uncomfortably
    She turned toward me, the golden light
illuminating her wild tresses and wrapping her in star-burst halo. God, she was
an angel. 
    “What question?” Absent of a decent
answer, I tried to play it off, crossing the room and stopping in front of her.With
the back of my hand, I brushed Mirabel’s cheek softly and she tilted her head
into my touch in a very feline manner. I half-expected her to let out a meow.
    “Do not think for that you can come over
here and make me forget that we are in the middle of a conversation.” She
purred with her eyes closed, keeping her face pressed to my hand.
    I stepped closer, wrapped my arms around
her waist and pulled Mirabel closer. I stood up on the tips of my toes and
kissed her closed eyelids, one and then the other, then the bridge of her
elegant nose, her golden forehead, and laid my final kiss on her pouting bottom
lip. Yet, she remained stiff and non-pliable.
    She wasn’t giving in.
    “What do you want me to say? That I love
you, because you know I do.” I buried my head in her neck, the smell of her
lavender and lemon body lotion making me feel intoxicated. “But that’s all I
know for sure right now.”
    Maribel stiffened in my arms. “What do
you think this is? A quirky friendship... a experimentation... a diversion
from real life?”
    I held her as she tried to pull away,
panic flaring in my veins. “No, of course not!”
    She looked down at me, her own eyes
rimming with tears. “I don’t know any more than you do, but we can’t go on like
this. It is not right to the others.”
    The others. Our respective spouses. The
cuckolded ones.
    “I know, but don’t you see, it’s them
that makes this so hard. I don’t want them to know!”
    Maribel gasped and wrenched away from
me. She was like sand through my clutching fingers.
    “I knew you were ashamed of us. I just
didn’t think you would say it out loud,” she said.
    “No, I’m not... that’s not what I meant.”
I stammered and all but chased after Maribel as she circled the room while
backing away from me.
    I searched for the right words to convey
how I felt, knowing that no matter what I said I couldn’t make her understand.
But I had to try.
    “I know how I feel, and I know what you
mean to me.” I caught up with her and led her by the hand to the aged leather
couch. “But everyone else won’t understand. They are on the outside looking in.
I’ll be the liar, the cheater, the woman who lost her good sense and became a
lesbian. To some I’ll be the degenerate, the freak. And although your opinion
is the only one that matters to me, what everyone else says and thinks about
me, about us and our relationship will tarnish this beautiful thing we have.”
    “You are wrong. None of that is
important.”
    I sighed and regrouped my thoughts,
circling my thumb over Maribel’s hand. “You are right, all that doesn’t matter.
But it will affect us. This thing we have, it’s beauty and light and
pure. Once people know, then everything changes. They will tarnish us.”
    She leaned back on the couch and I fell
into place beside her. I rested my head on Maribel’s chest and she began
stroking my hair. “Believe it or not, I do understand how you mean. You cannot
keep this a secret forever though, unless we never see each other again. You
are only prolonging the inevitable, and at the expense of others.”
    Put that way, she had a point.
    But that didn’t mean I was ready for all
that came along with telling the world about us.
    “Say that I’m ready to do this, what
exactly would this encompass?” I drew little