Chapter Aspen #3
“I didn’t tell you, and I should have. I should have told you, but I didn’t know what to do.”
“You were fucking scared, Aspen. I know,” he promised firmly, a spark of temper lighting up the words. “If I’d known what he’d done, then I would have…” He stopped, letting his breath out in a slow shudder, like he could hardly contain his anger. “I wanted to kill him when I found out.”
When my brain finally processed and came to the conclusion that Caelyx’s anger wasn’t directed toward me, a tiny trickle of hope sprouted through all the bad feelings.
I raised my head to stare up at him, unable to stop the pathetic little whimpers from bubbling out.
I was sure I looked like a total mess. Red and blotchy, with gross swollen eyes.
“You’re not mad?”
“Not at you,” he clarified. “He and I already… We’re working it out. He will never, ever put you up to anything like that ever again. I promise.”
“I didn’t take it,” I blurted out, somewhat hysterically. “He tried to give me money to make me date you, and I told him I didn’t want it. I wouldn’t do that to you. Not even… Not even back then, before we were… Together.”
Despite the stormy look in his eyes, the corner of his handsome, sculpted mouth perked up just the tiniest bit.
“I know, Cupcake. I know you wouldn’t.” He dipped down a little, pressing his lips into my hair.
“I wanted to tell you that I knew, but… I was planning the thing with your mom and I knew if you found out about that, you’d stop me and tell me you didn’t want it, so I thought it’d be better if we could just wait and get everything out in the open all at once.
I didn’t know you were suffering so much. I’m sorry.”
He kissed my hair again, cupping under my chin to tilt up my face so he could kiss along my temples, then down my cheeks and across my nose. I knew my face was disgusting, sopping wet with hot, salty tears, but he acted like he didn’t even notice.
“I can’t believe you did that, Caelyx. How did you even…”
“I hounded Ren about it after you fell asleep on me that one night. I pretty much forced him to tell me, and he made me swear I wouldn’t rat him out, so you can’t say anything to him.
I’m only telling you now because there can’t be any more secrets between us.
None. Ever,” he said firmly, pulling back to stare into my eyes again. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, reaching and swiping the back of my arm across my eyes. “I won’t hide anything else from you. I promise.”
“I won’t hide anything from you either,” he swore. “No more secrets.”
“Okay.” The relief of being in his arms again, knowing that he didn’t hate me and wasn’t going to dump me because I’d broken his trust, was so palpable I could have cried again.
It was quiet for a few seconds, with just the pitiful and intensely embarrassing sounds of my sniffles to break up the stretch.
“So… You love me,” he finally voiced. My breath huffed out, my stomach clenching for a brief moment. I’d never said it to any guy before. I’d never even been tempted.
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeated, his tiny smirk stretching into a wide, delighted grin. “It feels like I’ve been waiting a really long time for you to say that.”
“It hasn’t been a long time,” I argued. I wanted to look away from him, up at the ceiling or down at the floor, but I couldn’t. I was pinned, the intensity of his gaze sending shivers up my spine. “It’s only been, like, three months. I’m pretty sure I’m fucking insane for feeling like this.”
“You’re not insane,” he said, with all that familiarly gentle amusement in his eyes and voice. “I am so completely fucking in love with you. I’m so in love with you I can’t imagine not being with you. I don’t want to imagine it.”
“It’s too soon,” I said, even though he was echoing all my most secret thoughts.
“The time doesn’t matter. We just work, Aspen. I know it’s weird because we probably shouldn’t, but we just do. I would do anything to make you happy. That’s why I…”
“I know. You… You have no idea what it means to me. My mom is… I wanted to help her so badly, and I just couldn’t, and I thought she’d…”
“Shh,” he hushed me, stroking his fingers over my hair again.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about any of that now.
My dad let me use some money from my trust fund to take care of it.
He said that I’ve shown him I can be responsible, so he’s open to negotiating some things.
And that was the most important thing to me.
Making sure that you didn’t have to be stressed over that. ”
“I love you,” I said again, surprised by how intense it was now that I was letting myself actually feel it. “You know, your life might be harder with me in it.”
“Yeah, well, your life’s going to be a hell of a lot easier with me in it,” he countered, and I snorted, pressing my fingers into my eyes. Only he could make me laugh at a time like this.
“That’s not why I’m with you.”
“I know. That’s what’s so great. You really love me. Annoying, loud, impulsive, needy, clingy me.”
“You forgot whiny.”
He threw back his head and laughed, before tugging me in close again, squeezing me tightly as he pressed his lips to mine.
It felt so incredibly right with him. It had never been like that with anyone before. Nothing and no one else would ever feel right. In what was surely the most shocking twist of my young life, I belonged to Caelyx Vane, heart, body, and soul. And it didn’t scare me at all.
“Hey,” I spoke up, once he’d pulled back from our long, drawn out kiss. “You said there can’t be any more secrets between us, right?”
“None,” he promised.
“You sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”
“There’s nothing.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding a little as I stared up at him. “So… Do you want to get some breakfast? There’s a place right next door that has Dubai chocolate waffles right now. With lots and lots of pistachios on top.”
I watched his eyes widen, his mouth dropping open a little as he processed my words. I tilted my head, blinking at him in a mock innocent way, until he burst out laughing again, dropping his head onto my shoulder and hugging me tightly.
“I’m sorry!” He groaned into my neck. “It was so cute and you were already so embarrassed. I couldn’t tell you. I would have died first.”
“You literally could have died, Caelyx. I could have made something for you with pistachios and not even mentioned it!”
“I have an EpiPen, okay? I was… Willing to risk it.” When I pulled back to stare at him incredulously, he shrugged. “Now which one of us is the crazy one?”
“You,” I answered definitively. “It’s always been you.”
“And it’s always going to be me, Cupcake. I will be crazy for you for the rest of my life.”
And I didn’t have a single complaint about that.