I don’t want to. I’ve lost all my strength. I have nothing left in me but… him.
He’s running in my veins and beating in my chest.
“I’m in love with you, Blue,” he whispers, his thumbs working on wiping off my tears. “You were right. But it didn’t start that day. It didn’t start in that detention room. It started long ago, probably in that hole. Maybe even before I was born. I haven’t just loved you for years, I’ve loved you for lifetimes. Because I don’t love you with just my heart. Heart’s just an organ. It can be ripped away from the body, stomped on, squashed into a pulp. I don’t love you with all my heart. I love you with all my soul. You’re in the core of me. You’re in my fucking essence. And no one can take that away from me. Not even death.”
He drops his forehead onto mine and I’m outright sobbing.
I’m a mess.
I’m such a fucking mess that it’s embarrassing.
It’s so bad that Zach has to clutch me to his warm, hard chest, and I wind my arms around him, clinging to him like I’m drowning.
I have no idea how long I slobber all over him but finally, my tears have dried up and I move away to look at his face.
Tracing his cheekbones, I whisper, “It’s cold out.”
His lips twitch. “I know.”
“Why aren’t you wearing a sweater? A jacket.”
He looks at my jacket. It’s blue and puffy, the first thing I bought for myself the day we arrived. “I guess I forgot.”
I fist his uniform. “You’re an idiot.”
“I am.”
“I ruined your uniform.”
He looks down at the wet splotch on his chest. “I made you cry.”
“You’re always doing that.”
At my statement, he bores his eyes into me before stepping back.
And then, he takes my breath away as he comes down to his knees.
“What are you…” I ask. “What’re you doing?”
Looking up, he says, “Making a promise to you.”
“What promise?”
“I know I fucked up. I know I’ve fucked up a million times over the years. I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to breathe the same air as you. But if by some miracle, you give me a chance, Blue, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove to you that I can be better. That I’m the guy who wished for you on a night long ago and he realizes that.”
This isn’t the first time Zach’s been on his knees in front of me. This isn’t the first time I’m looking down at him.
But it feels like it.
All those other times were for sex, because he wanted to taste me, but this is… subjugation. This is role-reversal.
This is him asking me, begging me to give him a chance.
I take in his wind-ruffled hair and his magnificent face. The sun’s bare minimum but still, his bronzed skin shines under it.
Even on his knees, he looks like a prince.
My prince.
“Okay.”
His eyes flare. “Okay?”
A smile blooms on my face. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Are you kidding?”
Something about that makes me laugh. My coat hits me mid-thigh and my bare limbs graze his chest as I step closer to him. “No. Get up. The ground’s cold.”
Still, he doesn’t move. He’s watching me seriously, like his entire life depends on it.
“I love you, Zach. I’ve loved you forever. I don’t know how I lived apart from you when you were gone for three years. Maybe it was easier then because I didn’t know I loved you. All I felt for you was this deep-seated passion that I thought was hate. But now? Now I know how it feels to love you and it’s hard. It’s so much harder to survive without you.”
His hands come up to my waist. “I’ll never put you through anything like that again. I’ll never leave you.”
Bending down, I kiss him lightly. “I know. But you gotta get up. My break’s over and you have to kiss me thoroughly.”
“I have to?” he teases.
“Uh-huh. I’m dying here.”
Chuckling, he presses a kiss on my mouth before getting up and heaving me in his arms in that typical way of his.
And then he kisses me. Thoroughly.
They call him the Dark Prince.
Rumor has it that he has the blackest pair of eyes anyone has ever seen. And equally black hair.
Although, no one can say for sure because he always has his helmet on – it’s a big, black thing that hides his entire face, and he leaves right after the show. He isn’t much for the fanfare or stuff like that.
Nope. He’s all about the bike.
The bike he calls Blue.
He can do a wheelie with his eyes closed and he can fly over holes. When he’s in the air, he flips his bike like it weighs nothing. The crowd goes wild over him, chanting and screaming out his stage name.
Tonight, he’s going to take a ride on the wall of death.