A sob escapes me then.
Which I’m not happy about.
I’m not happy about it at all. That I’m crying when I should be firm with him. When I should make him understand that he can’t hate who he was, who he used to be. He can’t hate that little boy, because that boy needs all the love in the world. That boy needs all the care, all the attention.
That boy is him.
That boy is my Alaric, the man I’m in love with, and God, please, I can’t stand it if he hates him.
But I can’t say all these things to him now because I’m crying like a lunatic.
I’m sobbing and he has to shush me now. He has to hug me and hide my face in the hollow of his throat. He has to caress my back, kiss my forehead and tell me that it’s going to be okay. That I shouldn’t cry. That I am his baby and it kills him to see me cry.
“You can’t…” I say into his throat. “I won’t let you, okay? I won’t…”
He shushes me again. “Stop crying, Poe. Please, baby. Just stop crying. I’ll do anything, all right? I’ll do whatever you want. Just stop crying.”
I look up then, my chest heaving. “I’m putting my foot down.”
He frowns. “What?”
“I’m putting my foot down, Alaric. I’ve had enough. I’m going to be with you,” I tell him, going back to glaring at him. “You and me, we’re together now. I’m taking you and you’re taking me, do you understand? And I’m going to pamper you and spoil you and love you. I’m going to do everything that I can to make you happy and you don’t have a choice. I’m not giving you a choice here. Because I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what people think. I don’t care that you’re my guardian or whatever. I don’t even care if you don’t love me, because I do. I love you enough for the both of us and —”
“I do.”
“What?”
At my quiet question, he tenses up, finally losing his relaxed demeanor.
His body bunches under me, his fingers flex over my face and I see things moving on his features. I see rigid lines appearing and disappearing but I don’t know why. And neither do I get the time to analyze them because just like that night, it’s his turn to overpower me.
It’s his turn to push off the bed, his abs flexing as he carries me with him.
Then in a flawless, breathtaking display of his strength, he twists his torso and changes our positions, putting me down on the bed. So now I’m lying under him, my hair scattered around me and my hands clutching his shoulders, and he’s leaning over me, propped up on his elbows and his body settled between my spread thighs.
And God, for a second, both of us simply breathe.
Both of us simply absorb the other.
The feel of our skins, the heat of our bodies.
The fact that we’re once again locked in a position so intimate, so familiar to us. So heavenly and wonderful.
But then I guess the respite is over. It’s time to say things and I’m so scared.
I’m so fragile right now. So vulnerable. So open under him.
“The moment,” he begins, his eyes staring into mine, “I said that I couldn’t go to the party, the one that you’d so lovingly and carefully put together, it felt like someone had taken a knife to my chest. It felt like someone had stabbed me, my heart, because your pretty blue eyes had dimmed. I could see that. I could see what I was doing to you but I couldn’t stop myself. And then I couldn’t stop myself from walking away, but every step that I took to my car, Poe, it felt like I was walking on broken glass. And then every second I sat there, in that conference hall, staring at your gift, it felt like I was burning. Like someone had set fire to my body, to my soul. And then I thought about all the other meetings that I’d sit have to sit through, all the other projects I’d have to handle because that’s what a Marshall does, and I realized that I’d been burning ever since you walked out of my bedroom that night, a week ago. I realized that I’d been walking on broken glass, bleeding from my chest for a week now. And I couldn’t sit there anymore. Not because of the pain, this excruciating pain, that I was feeling, but because I knew that there was a girl out there who was feeling it too. It was in her eyes, see. Her pretty blue eyes.
“I knew that there was a girl out there who thinks about me. Who dreams about me. She pines for me and longs for me and she was brave enough to tell me. She was brave enough to say it because she didn’t want me to be unloved anymore. She didn’t want me to be alone. And so I wanted to go to her. I wanted to say thank you. And I wanted to tell her that she isn’t unloved either. She can’t be, see. Because there’s someone, a man — a deeply flawed man — who thinks about her too. He thinks about her smile, her laugh. He thinks about her midnight hair and her milky skin. He thinks about her obsession with the color purple; her glow in the dark nail polish; her purple lipsticks with weird-ass names. He thinks about her suede skirts and her polka dot dresses. He thinks about how imaginative she is, how creative and unique. How she names everything around her, her dresses and her hats.