Deadly Little Games Read Online Free PDF

stool, when he pressed himself against me, and then kissed the nape of my neck. I close my eyes, almost able to feel his fingers glide up and down the length of my arms.
    “What are you making?” Svetlana asks, snatching me out of my daydream.
    I open my eyes and manage a shrug; my face feels completely flushed. “I’m not really sure yet. Sometimes it’s best to just go with your impulses—to see where inspiration takes you. It’s good to remind students that, so they don’t always feel pressured to produce something concrete.”
    Svetlana nods, but I’m not sure she gets it. Instead, she copies the shape I’ve got going. “Like snake, yes?”
    “Yes,” I say, rolling my snake up into a snail and giving it two long antennae that stretch wide, as if the snail were sensing something, too.
    “So cute!” she raves, doing the same. “Good for kids.”
    I nod, happy she’s happy, knowing that I probably haven’t sculpted a snail since I was a kid myself. But for some reason, this is what my mound of clay wants to be. So, who am I to argue?
    After work, Ben is waiting for me on his motorcycle, parked just outside the studio. Wearing dark sunglasses and a knowing grin, he looks just like a movie star.
    And he kisses like one, too.
    He revs his engine, and we drive off down the street, around the corner, and past Salt Marsh Beach. The sea air paints my skin and makes me feel more alive than ever.
    Still, I wonder what Ben is feeling. He scoots forward a couple of times on his seat, as if the intensity between us is too much to bear. Maybe he’s having a hard time concentrating on the road.
    Or maybe he senses something else.
    Once we get to my house, we find my parents in the living room. Mom’s torturing Dad with a limb-tangling session of couples yoga, though it appears he almost enjoys it. He’s lying on his back with his legs extended upward, and Mom’s doing a back bend of sorts, while balancing on the balls of his feet.
    Ben and I exchange pleasantries with them, forgoing my mom’s less-than-tempting offer of compost parfaits, and then we head off to my room. Ben slips off his jacket and sits down on my bed. It’s all I can do to hold myself back from joining him, but part of me is afraid of what he might sense.
    I’m just about to ask him about the bike ride here—if, through two pairs of jeans, or the layer of his jacket, he was able to pick up on my Adam thoughts at the studio. But before I can, his hand falls on my aunt’s journal, sticking out from beneath my pillow.
    “What’s this?” He runs his fingers over the faded red cover.
    “It’s my aunt Alexia’s,” I say, “from when she was our age.”
    He grasps the book harder, as if able to predict some of what’s inside.
    “My aunt and I have a lot in common, I think…with art and psychometry, I mean.” I proceed to fill him in on some of the things that are detailed in the journal.
    “Where is she now?” he asks.
    “At a mental facility in Detroit. My mom’s going to visit her this Friday. It’ll only be for the weekend, but I was thinking about asking her if I could go, too. Maybe I could get a last-minute flight.”
    “I don’t know. Two days without seeing you?” He takes my hands and pulls me close. His kiss tastes like salt and honey.
    I slide onto his lap and run my palms across his chest, but after only a couple of seconds he draws away. His breath is heavy and quick.
    “Are you okay?” I ask, standing up from the bed.
    Ben rebounds after a moment, but his whole demeanor’s changed. “You were thinking about Adam again today, weren’t you?”
    I give a reluctant nod, wondering if I should tell him about the phone call. “But I didn’t sculpt anything about him this time, so I’m thinking it was just a fluke.”
    “You’re sure it isn’t because you miss him?”
    “Is that what you sense?”
    Ben hesitates, staring into my eyes as if trying to read something there. “I trust you,” he says