I loved him with all my heart. Many would believe that my love was a foolish game of inane self-punishment, but I knew better than they did for they did not know the beauty of the blue-eyed boy that I love. A boy who turned into a man in such a short time. My love for him was a beautiful pulsing emotion that made me ache in need for him, and in longing… And constantly, I longed the impossible impossibility. To be with him. And still The aching of one’s heart Pushes me further away As I am lost within the emptiness Of a broken soul ----------------------------------------------------------- Kiss From a Dream By Eternal Angel stargazing12@h... Chapter 3 – Seduction of the Dream ----------------------------------------------------------- She busied herself typing as the elevator doors opened, a savvy blond entering the room. She smiled at him, instantly knowing who he was. Andrew was Callahan’s best friend – which really surprised her. Callahan didn’t seem like the umm, well, best-friend type of person (more like girlfriend type of person, she added with a frown). But she guessed everybody needed someone … or something like that. “Hey beautiful,” Andrew greeted her, his greenish-blue eyes sparkling. He leaned against her desk with a grin. She paused at her workings and looked up at him. “How’s it going?” “Busy,” she said with a reluctant sigh, as she indicated to the chaos of papers all over her desk. “Trust Darien to work a pretty lady to such a morbid extent,” Andrew said, tsking. Serena shrugged, “we have a crucial deal we’re trying to close up. Usually I don’t have so much work…” “You don’t need to make excuses…” Another vibrating voice filled the room. “Excuses for what?” The two turned their heads to see the dark haired man glaring at them. “You two seem so cozy,” he practically sneered, his eyes shooting daggers at his friend. He threw a wad of paper onto Serena’s desk. “I pay you to work, not flirt, so get to work!” She cringed at the cold loudness of his voice. “Ah chill Darien,” Andrew said, “She was only telling me about work, nothing else. Anyways, I was going to see if you’re going to be free tonight but since you seem to be busy, I’ll guess I’ll catch you some other time.” He departed then, saying goodbye to Serena and entering the elevator once again. Once the door closed, Darien turned his wrath towards his PA, who attempted to organize the papers. “Leave them!” He barked at her. Her blue eyes stared at him, surprised. “But you said…” “Forget what I just said!” She stared at him puzzled. He groaned. “God woman, never have I found someone who could push me so far…” He pulled her out of her seat and into his arms. “Do you know what I was feeling when I saw you and him so close like that? Do you know…” His eyes pulsed with raw emotions. “How I want you…” he whispered, his lips pressing against hers, stealing another breath defying kiss which was short yet all so very sweet. “Whatever,” he told her huskily, “infatuation you have with blonds, get over it because you’re never ever going to be with anyone else…” She buried herself within his arms, red faced and filled with passion. “I… will…” “Good.” “The deal was set,” he told her firmly as she grinned widely, slumping down into the chair with a sigh of relief. The chaos of the past couple of days made her want to dig herself a hole and jump within it so she was more than glad to find out that this insanity was over. It was almost as pleasuring as her victoryt against the evil blush monster! “How about a celebration dinner?” He asked her, his eyes twisting into a sly, heart melting smile. . . . . . . . . . She cursed. The evil monster was back in action, to her utter annoyance. “Hmmm Serena?” He was now using the little ‘come on, this is a cute look and you must adore me’ look, but surprisingly enough, it effected her more now than when Thurston gave her that look. She sighed again, ‘Be still my beating heart.’ With a soft sigh, “I guess…” “Good,” he said with a grin, his eyes sparkling with a beautiful mirth. She whapped the evil blush monster on its head with such a fury. “I’ll pick you up at eight.” She nodded. “It’s formal too.” Nervousness hit her as he went back into his office to finish some last details in his deal. She looked at her watch – 6:49. How in the world was she going to get home and get ready by EIGHT?? She panicked. She hit traffic while she went back to her flat and she cursed the world and her ill-fated luck. ‘Why are you panicking?’ She asked herself, frustrated. It wasn’t as if she had anyone to show up and dressing up would only make him think that she really did want him… But… She did. Another curse, another honk of the horn. Why would she want him so? It was confusing, these emotions that danced around her, swirling her into its grasping mist, making her lose her breath. How had she fallen so hard in so little time? It was… and… befuddling, that’s what it was! She struggled to get control of her emotions and her feelings for him that seemed to bloom like a desert rose, so wild, so free… so beautiful… A break within the traffic lights, her exit on the right. She pulled her car into the parking lot, her mind still pondering, her soul still captivated… but… where was her heart? She wondered this while getting out of her car and into the parking garage. She had lost it within his eyes. He gave her one of those looks. You know, one of those looks that a scientist would give specimen from Mars, if they ever found one. Not only that, but he was also giving her one of those full lookdowns. The one that would start from her toes to the top of her head and then back down to her toes… She shuddered from the intensity and pleasure of his eyes looking at her with such interest. The verdict was in as he then smiled at her, “You look even better than you did when I first saw you.” She took her purse and whapped the evil blush monster to kingdom come. It was the most annoying, most idiotic, most frustrating monster she ever had to deal with! Why couldn’t she have been one of those super heroes on those cartoons that could take some stinking wand and dust them? Oh the wonders of wonders. “Thanks.” He held out his hand to her, “Shall we go?” She took his hand. “I guess so.” The mystics of the beautiful restaurant captivated her. She never had been to such a majestic-looking restaurant before, and the food was for the gods. She savored each bite as Darien watched her with utter interest at the way she sighed with each bite. Her eyes grew wide as she looked up to see him staring at her, she looked down again, nervously embarrassed at the way she was acting. He lived with such divine food for so long, while she ate food just for the fulfillment and not for the actual taste. “You’re so different from other women,” he told her, as he sipped his wine. She nervously moved her food around, “Is that bad…?” He shook his head, “No, not at all. It’s refreshing. You’re somewhat of a puzzle.” “I see…” She really didn’t see though, but men were like that. She didn’t understand why they always talked about women and their confusion over them for it was a mutual feeling that she had towards the male gender… it was probably because of the fact that they were so different from one another… and… “So… tell me about yourself,” he asked her. Well, not that much different after all, she thought with a stifled giggle. She could feel the restraints of the relationship that she had once with Lucian not applied to this relationship at all. She didn’t mind him knowing anything about her; in fact she was more than willing to tell him about herself. “What would you want to know?” She asked, as he shrugged. “What makes Serena Roberts, Serena Roberts. What makes you be the way you are, act the way you act … what makes you so different…” She stared at the blush monster right in the face, scolding him, “Don’t you even DARE!” He dared. She groaned inwardly, declaring war against the evil monster. She looked down at her plate then, taking another bite of her food, the sweet ambrosia tasting like nothing as she contemplated his questionings. To tell him about herself… about the distant, painful past that brushed against her vengefully. She tried to grasp for an anchor in this reality, but was lost within the painful memories of the past. The memories that were still so fresh even though they were already so far gone. She looked away from her plate and to Darien, whose beautiful blue eyes met hers in a curious glance. The beautiful deep blueness of them captivated her soul, pushing her into a disparaging trance. How beautiful they were, like a deep dreamlike daze that pushed her to the brink of pleasuring pain as she tried to grip back to reality but was lost within it. Just like she was lost within these memories. He waited patiently though, knowing that she’d eventually tell him. She closed her eyes and took a deep strong breath. Telling him… “I lived with my parents and my younger brother when I was small, but our relationship wasn’t what you would have expected a parent-child relationship to be like,” she said slowly, her mind already conjuring the past memories. She already began to recall the bouts of the neglect, the aching, that she and her brother had received when they were young. The days when their parents would go off and leave them alone in the dark house with the monsters under the bed knocking at their sides. She could remember the times when she saw her friend’s parents come to a violin recital and she had no one there to clap and tell her she was wonderful. They were always too engrossed with their own lives to be tied down to two children. He nodded, as if to tell her to go on. “I went to college and worked part time as a secretary after I moved out of my home.” But… the house that she grew up in never did feel like home, she thought. Home. Home was a place of belonging, a place of wanting … but, she was never wanted or longed for there. Especially not in a place filled with such an empty silence and hollowness that it reeked with the ice coldness of the passing days of mindlessness. “But I couldn’t afford to go to college when my brother got out of high school. He had high hopes of being a doctor, and my parents …” she looked far off, remembering her parents’ relief of having no more children in the house. ‘You’re his sister,’ she remembered their words, so striking and clear, ‘You should take care of him. We took care of you two for so long now…’ But she couldn’t help but feel like screaming ‘but you two were never there to take care of us! How could you say you were!’ But silence was her companion then, pushing her to make no protest. It was not as if she minded anyways; she wanted to take care of him, the brother who looked up to her, who would come to her late at night because he heard a noise outside of the window. It was the right thing for her to do, even if it did mean that her dream of being something more than just a secretary would be destroyed … But it didn’t matter; her brother’s dreams would be enough for her. “I then got a job at Thurston’s company as a secretary. And soon the PA got married and he needed another PA … and, I guess they picked me for the position.” She said, as she took the glass of wine to her lips. She could remember the joy of being upgraded to a new level… that meant a higher wage and status … it meant being something more than just a secretary. She took this job as seriously as she could, doing all she could do to maintain her job. And when Lucian started to notice her… Was it just another way for her to secure her job? She didn’t know. Her emotions were never one that revealed themselves to her so easily. “There’s nothing more of my life, only work.” Work. The only thing in her life. His eyes gazed at hers, now knowing why she was so naive to men, why she blushed every time he stared at her. She never really had a true relationship until Lucian, but even that was not truly a real relationship. No, not when he had his thoughts on another. She was too busy with trying to succeed for someone else’s benefit. He couldn’t help but find this fit perfectly into his image of her. The strong angel that did anything for a person she cared about. He wondered what she would do for him if she cared about him… He wanted to show her how it felt to be cared about too … “Serena-” The waiter came and brought out the next dish. “What is it?” She asked him, as he shook his head. “Never mind.” They silently ate the next dish. Rain poured down from the crisp of the beautiful darkened sky. She could feel herself become giddy at the downpour’s beauty that was presented before her, the sweet smell of the beautiful freshness and the sounds of the clinkering, pattering and fleeting rain. Darien, unlike Serena, cursed at this sight, breaking her out of this fanciful state. “I have to get the car,” he said, as she mentally cringed. His beautiful, sleek, black Porsche was parked two blocks away. He then slowly took off his jacket, and turned to her. “Wait here Serena, there is no use for the both of us to get wet.” With that he ran off, his jacket high above his head as a petty shield against the whisking rain. She stared after him, her eyes watching the retreating figure as she then sighed and closed her eyes; the pitter-patter of the rain softly rang against her ears as she crossed her arms, trying to keep warm. She lost herself in her thoughts. She found his consideration a very captivating experience, as she felt refreshed by his caring. She tried to sort out her emotions that she had for him, the raging ones deep within her heart, but only knew that they had become so deep, too deep. She could no longer just pass it as a simple infatuation that she could get over whenever she wanted. No, she didn’t think she could ever get over this infatuation. But it was confusing – how could she have grown to have such affection for this man. She should have known not to fall into such a predicament after what had happen with Lucian … But still … There was something about him, the distantly familiar emotions that stirred deep within her whenever he appeared (with the blush monster in toll). She heard a soft honk as she opened her eyes and looked at the car that waited in front of her. She pushed all the thoughts away from her mind as she ran towards the car and got in. He pulled his car into the guest parking lot of her apartment, insisting that he always walked his dates to their doors. She sighed as she watched him from the corner of her eyes as he walked aside her, dripping wet. The rain from the storm still pattered down onto the earth as they stood in the elevator, the silence between them loud. The soft ping of the elevator rang, as the two of them exited with slow ease They walked to her door and stood there, staring at each other. She broke the silence, “You want to go in and have a cup of coffee? And maybe even dry yourself? I’d hate it if you were to get sick.” He gladly accepted. The apartment was small and comfortable, with beautiful bright decorations in it. The paintings on the wall were splashes of pain against the canvas, none having a true purpose but to have the observer sit there and smile. She handed him a cup of coffee, which she had just brewed. “Tell me about you now Darien,” she said, her eyes staring at him with a soft gazing look. “Since I told you about me … it’s only fair.” He looked at her, tilting his head, “Me… There isn’t anything really interesting about me. I exist, that’s all that there is.” She frowned, “Exist? One can’t just exist … they live.” “No, I’m pretty sure I only exist,” he said with a nod, as she didn’t fall into his humor. She fed one of these types of lines to Lucian already so she wiser than to fall into his little game of ‘let’s skip away from this subject’. “You must have done something,” she said flamboyantly, throwing her hands up in the air. “You must have lived! Dreamt! Don’t you have any dreams?” His expression turned stony, as he took another sip of coffee. “Dreams don’t exist.” His words were icy, bitter, cold. She could feel something pulling deep within him that caused him to feel this way. “I gave up dreaming a long time ago…” “What did you dream?” She asked in a hushed whisper. He looked up at her, a bitter smile on his face. “Of a beautiful princess, one that was always there for me, one that loved me…” He shook his head in disgust, “I was a fool to believe in such fancy things. She always told me, ‘I love you’ or ‘I’ll be here with you soon enough’ but the years slowly turned, and never was she here.” She reached out and touched his shoulder, as he continued on, “She’s always telling me we’ll be together soon if I get the crystals…” “The crystals?” He nodded, “There are seven of them … I found five of them almost immediately … but the other two … I searched and searched and searched… it soon became an obsession… but never did I find it. It was always ‘We’ll be together soon when you find the crystals’.” Bitter laugh, “But I will never find it!” “Darien…” “See this man I have become? All because of her! I tried to forget her! I did everything in my power too! I have gone out with dozens of women in hope that these dreams that haunt me each night will stop! But still, they come to me, asking me, pleading me … ‘find the crystals’… And I wake up each day wondering if it was not a figment of my imagination or is it my only chance of happiness…” “Why can’t I forget her?” He said that with a broken groan and suddenly she knew why her heart told her this emotion for him wasn’t an infatuation. It was because it was much more – it was love. This man that sat broken in front of her was the man she loved, the man who was haunted by dreams that he couldn’t grasp. It was a man that needed her. She then wrapped her arms around him, her eyes staring deep within his own. “Let me help you forget.” She whispered as he stared at her in surprise. “Let me help you forget all about her…” He stared at her then, his eyes gazing into her own. This wasn’t his princess. This was his angel. She was a beautiful angel, here, right now, her blue eyes gazing at him, demanding that he’d see her for what she was. Golden brightness that lit up the room, a person who constantly asked for nothing, but gave everything. Just like for her brother, she’d give up her hopes and dreams for her lover… “Serena…” he let out a groan, as her lips then clamped on top of his own, silencing him. He surrendered to her, his arms locking around her as they continued this heart-aching bliss that captured them in a railroad of emotions. That night he had no dreams of his crystalline princess. He woke up in the softness of the bed, feeling a warm figure tucked on his side. He gazed up at the ceiling in wonder. She was a selfless person, he thought as he stroked her hair. She sighed and stirred slightly, her eyes fluttering slightly, “Hmmm…?” He kissed her gently on the forehead before he slid out of the bed and headed towards the restroom to wash up, only to have his eyes catch the gentle glimmer from the small glass compartment in her dresser. Curiosity rose through him as he walked towards it, seemingly beckoned by this reflection of the sunlight. His eyes widened as he finally made shape of the object staring back at him with such eased innocence. Two beautiful crystals that were almost exact replicas of the five crystals that he had… A sleep-filled voice his ears. “Darien…?” He turned around and looked at her in horror. “What’s wrong?” She asked, confused. He shook his head in disbelief. “You have them … after all this time… you have them…” She stared at him, uncomprehending. “What? Darien, you aren’t making any sense!” She exclaimed, understanding fleeting as he then laughed, the irony of everything truly getting to him. “When I thought I truly could forget her…” “The crystals Serena…” He said, his eyes glowing with nothing in general, just an uneasy pulsing of bittersweet aching that vibrated deep within him, “You have them.” She stared at him in shock.