分节阅读_97

  ;bella, i've already expe deal of perso this
  point to keep you alive. i'm not about to let you behind the wheel of a
  vehi you 't even walk straight. besides, friends do
  friends drive drued with a chuell the
  unbearably sweet fragraning off his chest.
  ”drunk?” i objected.
  ”you're intoxicated by my very presence.” he was grinning that playful
  smirk again.
  ”i 't argue with that,” i sighed. there was no way around it; i
  't resist him in anythihe key high a,
  watg his hand flash like lightning to catdlessly. ”take it
  easy — my truck is a senior .”
  ”very sensible,” he approved.
  ”a affected at all?” i asked, irked. ”by my presence?”
  again his mobile features transformed, his expressio, warm.
  he didn't a first; he simply bent his faine, and brushed
  his lips slowly along my jaw, from my ear to my , bad forth. i
  trembled.
  ”regardless,” he finally murmured, ”i have better reflexes.”
  ===========================================================================
  14. mier
  he could drive well, whehe speed reasoo admit.
  like so many thio be effortless to him. he barely looked
  at the road, yet the tires ed so much as a timeter from
  the ter of the lane. he drove one-handed, holding my ha.
  sometimes he gazed iing suimes he gla me — my
  face, my hair blowing out the open window, our haher.
  he had turo aion, and he sang along with a
  song i'd never heard. he knew every line.
  ”you like fifties music?” i asked.
  ”musi the fifties was good. much better thaies, or the
  seventies, ugh!” he shuddered. ”the eighties were bearable.”
  ”are y to tell me how old you are?” i asked, te
  wanti his buoyant humor.
  ”does it matter much?” his smile, to my relief, remained unclouded.
  ”no, but i still wrimaced. ”there's nothing like an unsolved
  mystery to keep you up at night.”
  ”i wo will upset you,” he refleself. he gazed into
  the sues passed.
  ”try me,” i finally said.
  he sighed, and theo my eyes, seeming tet the road
  pletely for a time. whatever he saw there must have enced him. he
  looked ihe light of the setting littered off his skin
  in ruby-tinged sparkles — and spoke.
  ”i was born in 1901.” he paused a me from the
  er of his eyes. my face was carefully uient for the
  rest. he smiled a tiinued. ”carlisle found me in a
  hospital in the summer of 1918. i was seventeen, and dying of the spanish
  influenza.”
  he heard my ih, though it was barely audible to my own
  ears. he looked down into my eyes again.
  ”i do well — it was a very long time ago, and human
  memories fade.” he was lost in his thoughts for a short time before he
  went on. ”i do remember how it felt, when carlisle saved me. it's not an
  easy thing, hing you cet.”
  ”your parents?”
  ”they had already died from the disease. i was alo was why he
  e. in all the chaos of the epidemie would ever realize i
  was gone.”
  ”how did he… save you?”
  a few seds passed before he answered. he seemed to choose his words
  carefully.
  ”it was diffiany of us have the restraio
  aplish it. but carlisle has always bee huma
  passionate of us… i don't think you d his equal throughout
  all of history.” he paused. ”for me, it was merely very, very painful.”
  i could tell from the set of his lips, he would say his
  subject. i suppressed my curiosity, though it was far from idle. there
  were many thihink through on this particular issue,
  things that were only begi