And to think that I never really paid attention to him before that day. I mean, I knew who he was and even me, with my hyper-focused and anxious brain, could admit that he was extremely attractive.
But that was it.
That was all I had the capability of processing.
Not anymore though.
Now that my mind is relatively clear and I’m relatively better than what I’ve been all my life, I can see. I can admire.
I can dream.
I look down at the ground, my eyes stinging with tears. “So, thank you. It really meant a lot to me. I won’t ever forget it. Your kindness and… I was so awful tonight. I was so… I’m so bad at this. Thanks for waiting for me. And for dinner and for agreeing to tutor me even though I know you didn’t want to. Everyone says that you’re rude and you are but you’re also so good and…”
I swallow my words when I feel him, his hand, on my face. His big and warm and scrape-y hand, with which he makes me look up.
I only get a second to notice that his features have a harshness to them, an intensity, a ferocity, before his mouth is over mine.
His mouth is enveloping mine.
So warm and wet and plush.
It happened so suddenly that I don’t get the time to react, only hold on to him. Only open my mouth under his. And when that hand of his on my face slides up and buries itself in my hair, pulling me closer to his body, I realize that there couldn’t have been any other reaction anyway.
I couldn’t have not opened my mouth under him.
I couldn’t have not moved my mouth in order to kiss him back.
God, I’m kissing him back.
Because he’s kissing me. He kissed me first.
And it’s… it’s wonderful.
It’s fucking wonderful.
His mouth on me. His tongue in me. His fingers maneuvering my face to the side so he can go deeper.
Which is even more wonderful.
Because then I get to taste him too. I get to peek my tongue out and swipe it against his. And when I do taste him, his tangy flavor, I get to pull him closer as well.
My own hands grab onto his shoulders, and I swear my fingers breathe out a sigh.
They’ve been dying to touch him ever since that first time.
They’ve been dying to feel his strength, his warmth.
His muscled power.
Actually, my entire body has been dying to feel him and now it is. I am.
I’m plastered to his front. My chest is pressed up against his ribs and my belly is flattened against his pelvis, and I’ve never ever felt more heated or more alive or more needy.
I can’t believe I’m needy.
I didn’t even think anyone could be this needy.
So much so that I start to rub up against him. I start to drag my breasts, as meager as they are, against the hard planes of his chest, and I swear they twitch, his muscles. When I press my belly against his stomach even harder, his abs hollow out.
Even his fingers in my hair grow tighter. His lips on mine grow more urgent.
At one point, I think he even bites me, pulling my lower lip into his mouth and sinking in his teeth. And it’s so wonderful, the most wonderful thing to happen to me ever since he started kissing me, that I moan.
I hold on to him tighter, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
But then, everything stops.
Because he breaks it.
The kiss.
As abruptly as he’d started it, and my eyes flip open. It takes me a few seconds to get my bearings, to clear up my vision and focus on him.
On his green eyes, his wet and parted lips.
His gorgeous, symmetrical face.
I go to ask him why he stopped but he rasps, “What’s my name?”
“What?”
His fingers flex in my loose hair and in response, my own clutch his shoulders tighter. “Say it.”
“Atlas,” I whisper, feeling a current go through my body, clenching everything inside of me.
His eyes drop to my tingling, swollen mouth for a second before he looks up and says, “It wasn’t a kindness.”
I frown with confusion. But he doesn’t explain.
Instead, he does something horrible: he lets go of me.
He takes his hands off my hair and steps away, leaving me with a craned neck and a cold body. And then, he leaves and I repeat his last words in my head: It wasn’t a kindness.
My heart drops down my chest and hits my belly when I realize he said it in reference to my earlier statement: I won’t forget your kindness.
Chapter Four
Atlas
Her light brown hair was the first thing I’d noticed the day I saw her.
Which is strange because there wasn’t anything unusual about her straight brown hair. Except that she kept tucking it behind her ear, playing with the ends of it as she sat at the desk, somewhere in the middle, waiting for the professor to arrive.