Chapter 14 #7
“Let me down over there,” I said softly to Neil, pointing to a large tree on the corner.
We reached my suggested spot a few moments later, and Neil lowered me to the ground.
I watched him straighten back up to his full height, no expression on his beautiful face.
It didn’t seem remotely difficult for him to walk with me on his back. Neil really was incredibly strong.
“Why are we here?” he asked, glancing around. There was nothing but a single dim lamppost.
The freezing wind whipped against our bodies while his golden eyes put to shame any light from the stars that made it through the cloudy sky.
I’d always thought of Neil as mysterious and unknowable, distant and inscrutable, just like a sky full of stars.
“Why don’t we open our cookies?” I gestured to them, still closed in the palm of his hand. He smiled slightly and opened his hand to show me.
“So immature. Do you seriously believe this crap?” He handed me one. While ignoring him, I broke it in two and extracted the slip of paper from inside.
“You don’t have to be a buzzkill all the time.” I snorted as he drew closer to me.
“What does it say?” he asked, sounding bored.
“‘May I be reborn in your eyes each time you look at me,’” I read aloud. I looked up, letting his golden gaze merge with mine like the sun’s rays at dawn becoming one with the sea, taking the waves in hand and leading them into the most beautiful of dreams.
Neil was that too: every bit as intense as the sunrise over the sea.
“You should read yours too,” I said, clearing my throat awkwardly. He blinked slowly, then broke his cookie apart with a loud snap, pulling out the paper inside.
“What does it say?” I leaned over his shoulder curiously and smelled him on the tiniest breath of air, barely ruffling my hair.
“‘Kiss me like you love me,’” he read slowly, a confused frown on his face.
“‘Read aloud the request written on your fortune and address it to the person to your right,’” he continued reading, his head cocked to one side.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Why did you get an aphorism, and I got a demand?” he grumbled with an amused grimace.
“Because you’re a hot mess and the cookie thought you needed a hand?” I joked, pulling a face. He approached me slowly, all at once growing serious again. I stopped breathing when his hands came to rest around my waist, applying gentle pressure until I was pulled into him.
“So, Tinkerbell…” he said in a sensual whisper while my eyes were fixed on him, spellbound. “Kiss me like you love me…” he added, sounding both amused and seductive. Then he waited to see what I would do.
Oh, God.
“I…don’t… I mean…” I blinked dazedly, looking back and forth between his eyes and his lips, twisted into a lascivious grin.
“Kiss me like…” He drew closer still, lightly ghosting the tip of my nose with his and tilted his face. His disheveled hair tickled my forehead. “…you love me,” he finished, under his breath.
So, with all the boldness I could muster, I grabbed him by the nape of his neck and yanked him closer to me. I kissed him and let my hands get lost in his hair. I let my lips brush his, slowly, delicately.
He felt soft and hot and—for just a moment—sweet and yearning. Then I gently caught his lower lip between my teeth, and he let out a groan of desire that sent a shiver down my spine.
“Something like that, you mean?” I pulled away slightly and rested my forehead against his. Neil licked his lips and looked at me thoughtfully.
“Did that feel like a kiss to you?” he asked, sounding unsatisfied and sliding one hand up my spine until it was firmly holding the nape of my neck.
Without giving me a chance to say anything else, he fisted my hair and pressed his lips to mine urgently, demanding that I open and yield to his tongue.
And in that moment, everything exploded into color.
I felt the earth tremble.
I chased him like a high from some potent drug.
I felt him everywhere and thought no more.
My mind emptied, thoughts draining out only to be replaced with him.
He who was so beautiful and didn’t even know it; he who was the most extreme need I’d ever felt; he who I wanted to clasp close to my heart to keep him from running away again.
It felt like an eclipse, our kiss suspended there in the penumbra created by sun and moon.
His hand clutched the back of my neck more tightly while the other one traveled down to my hip, his pelvis pressing involuntarily against my lower stomach.
Neil carved his desires into me, enveloped my soul in his skillful tongue, and stole my breath.
He gasped, and I gasped with him.
We moaned shamelessly in that shadowy spot under a moody sky that seemed to be enjoying the show just as much as we were, with hungry mouths and greedy tongues.
And hell and heaven alike ceased to exist.
Along with all our chaos, his past, my accident, and Player.
None of it existed.
It was just us, if there even was an us.
We were incomprehensible magic.
An unsolvable mystery.
An inexplicable chaos.
“Neil…” I couldn’t breathe. Like always, I couldn’t keep up with him.
But he gave me no respite. He took possession of my lips and continued devouring me like he’d been waiting too long for this moment.
His hand moved under my coat, up over my abdomen, and palmed one of my breasts roughly.
I groaned, and his fingers tightened even more around my hair.
He bit my lower lip and then ran his moist tongue along it.
The dominance in him brought the angel in me to her knees.
We kept going like that. We devoured each other’s emotions and desires as though we had been starved.
Neither of us wanted to let go of the other. We paused briefly to catch our breaths and dove back in again.
He took me.
He touched me.
He intoxicated me.
He tasted me unceasingly.
He surrounded me, freeing me while at the same time making me a slave to his desires.
And we continued to make love to one another with our lips.
Our ragged breaths melting together, our hearts fluttering, and lips swollen and shining with the taste of us.
We moaned.
Wanted.
More and more.
So much more.
And I had no further thoughts when his tongue descended upon my neck, leaving me stunned while he moved back up to torment my lips like the demon he was.
Eyes closed, foreheads together, hands shaking, broken breaths.
And…
“What if I did?” I whispered, breathless, and turned completely upside down from his assault.
“What?” Neil opened his eyes and touched my cheek, looking more handsome than ever.
“What if I…” loved you, I wanted to say, but the sight of his blown pupils stopped the words on the very tip of my tongue. Neil stepped back from me, alarmed, as though I’d just transformed into a monster right in front of him.
Some of the stars seemed to drip from the sky, as though it were weeping while the rest just faded away, one by one.
My heart snapped in two like a fortune cookie, the fortune fluttering away. Neil always let his eyes do the talking, and I spoke that silent language. Right then, his stare told me everything I needed to know…