Love's Forbidden Flower Read Free Page A

before I throw caution to the wind and spill my guts. My new tone reflects that we should talk about something deeper. “It is, and it isn’t. But if I have all the information, even if it's something that hurts, I can face it.”
    Donovan peers down at his assignment, his fingers caressing a pen that sits on the desk. “What if you're in a situation where you've always been able to talk to someone, and you have something you want to share, but you're afraid if you do it could ruin the relationship?”
    I pull my chair around next to Donovan's, taking his hands into mine. Intimate conversation was mastered years ago, but it somehow feels different now. “You and I have always shared everything, no matter how personal or awkward, and there's certainly no reason to stop now. There's nothing you can possibly say that would damage what we share.”
    “You can read me like a book.”
    “You always have that same power with me. I can only do it most of the time.”
    “Why? Because when you get emotional your inner voice shuts off and your real voice loses it filter? I'm well aware of what happens when you get emotional. It ain’t pretty,” he says while pretending to resume his studies.
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Given that little fact, I guess I don’t have to tell you what I wanted to talk about.”
    “No. Act-ually... you do. I'm a little blocked right now.”
    Squeezing my hand, he raises his eyes so they peer straight into mine, as if in search of the very depths of my being. “There is something I need to talk to you about.” He takes a poignant breath before dodging the subject and sporting a huge grin, which I quickly remove from his face.
    “I'm not finishing your trig homework.”
    Donovan scrunches his eyes with a groan. “Damn it, Lil! I thought you said it's turned off.”
    “Some things are still obvious. Like how you’re such an ass.” My annoyance with him propels me away, but I am more irritated at myself.
    Pulling me back down onto the chair he leans in as if the empty room has ears. “Really, there's so much more to say. I just don’t know where to start, or even if I should. It's all pretty overwhelming.” He gazes down at my hand and strokes it before raising and kissing it gallantly, pressing it against his cheek, and looking at me with puppy eyes. “But seriously, can you help me with my trig assignment?”

Chapter 4
    The carnival ride started a fortnight ago, and a decent slumber still evades me. If I could just put the puzzle together maybe peace wouldn’t be so fleeting. But I've no idea how the completed picture is to look. Uncertainty over if I have all of the pieces, or that they go to the same conundrum, also surrounds me.
    But seriously, whom am I kidding? This labyrinth of perplexity shows I'm falling in love. No matter how wrong anyone says it is, my feelings cannot be altered. I wish it were merely lust. I could accept that and move on. But love complicates it. Not only does it ensnare me, it makes me want to jump into its clutches and surrender.
    The worldview of my feelings being gross, evil, and deviant are pushed away for self-preservation. Traumatization by a moral situation is pointless if the condition does not exist. Without verbal confirmation, it is still possible Donovan's end is entirely a fabrication of my distorted perception.
    Again looking like an accident victim, I enter the kitchen in my bathrobe. Donovan is alone eating breakfast and is far kinder this time as his eyes caress me. “Lily, are you all right? I mean it. Do you need to talk about something?”
    While shaking my head I reach for the coffee. Does he not see his actions? Frequently he touches me only for the sake of doing it. Often it's accompanied by a sheepish grin that conveys he's deriving pleasure from the simplest brush with my essence, so he has to know what the problem is. If he doesn't I've been misreading all of the signs over the last two weeks, meaning I'm a moron of epic