Chapter 4 Selene #3
It was too late; he was in me.
In my heart and in my soul.
“Hey, Selene. I’m sorry about those dumbasses.”
I startled when I heard Ivan’s voice. He’d joined me outside and sat down next to me without saying a word. He looked at me shamefacedly.
“Don’t worry about it. I know how you boys are.
You’re used to girls drooling and rolling over at a snap of your fingers.
” I shook my head, and a bitter smile spread across my face as I thought about how, deep down, all men were like Neil.
They all valued physical attraction over the beginnings of a real relationship.
“Yeah… I mean, not really. It doesn’t always happen like that,” he said defensively.
“Don’t bullshit me, Captain,” I said, looking at him askance.
“I know you’re a good girl, Selene. I’m sorry my friends got the wrong idea.
” He bit his lower lip, looking sincerely worried, and I took the opportunity to study him.
Ivan was handsome, the kind of young man to whom God had granted every blessing: a brilliant future in sports, model good looks, money, success, and a completely normal existence, free from trauma or a bad childhood or any obvious behavioral disorders.
Why hadn’t I fallen in love with someone like him?
“Okay, apology accepted so long as you keep both Cameron and Alex away from me,” I said warningly.
Ivan laughed and stared at me for a moment that seemed to last forever.
His eyes lingered on my lips before moving to my eyes, coaxing a blush from me.
I never liked it when a guy stared at me so insistently, and the certainty in his gaze only made it more discomforting.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he murmured in a low voice.
“Sure,” I answered hesitantly.
“I really thought that after you ended things with Jared, you would have come to me,” he revealed, surprising me.
“What? You barely notice I’m alive most of the time.
” I gave him a wry smile and shrugged. I was certain that, with Neil still in my head, there was no way I was going to develop an attraction to anyone else.
My Disaster had demanded all of me right from the start, and I had given him what he wanted.
“Is there someone new in your life?” he asked, giving me a shrewd look.
“No. I’m not dating anyone right now,” I answered.
“But?” he prompted.
“But…there is a guy I like, yes,” I admitted, my cheeks burning.
“Do I know this guy? Does he go here?” Ivan had never struck me as particularly curious, and certainly not about my personal life, so his inquisition surprised me.
“No, he’s not in Detroit,” I clarified while he looked thoughtfully at me. He was probably wondering how I knew someone not from the city. “I met him in New York when I went to stay with my father,” I continued, and he raised his eyebrows in understanding.
“Oh, so he’s from there?”
“Yeah, he is.” I nodded, thinking unavoidably of Neil.
I wondered what he was doing at that moment.
Was he by himself or with one of his women?
The idea of someone else touching him or kissing him the way I had done made me sick to my stomach.
I hated knowing that he was incapable of being exclusive with me.
His need to seek out other girls, even after being with me, got under my skin.
It hurt my pride, making me feel like I wasn’t enough, like I wasn’t worth anything at all.
“So what? What’s wrong with him?” Ivan continued.
I was disquieted and said nothing. “Oh, come on, Selene. It’s just me.
You know me. You don’t have to be afraid to tell me anything,” he added in a coaxing tone.
Despite his reputation for being something of a fuckboy, he seemed sincerely interested in understanding what was happening inside my head.
“There’s not much to tell.” I sighed. “He’s not interested in a relationship, he doesn’t have feelings, and he’s cold and distant.
It’s not worth talking about…” I bowed my head, and Ivan inched closer, tipping my chin upward with one finger.
I looked at him then—really looked at him the way I probably should have been doing from the start—and I finally understood what all those girls saw in him.
His green eyes were threaded through with luminous, tawny streaks that drew one in deeper and invited a closer scrutiny of the rest of him.
But I was too dumb, too bamboozled by a pair of golden eyes, that I just couldn’t seem to quit, so I couldn’t accept that invitation.
“May I kiss you?” he asked me earnestly, a hairsbreadth from my face.
His breath was fresh and warm against my skin.
I swallowed hard as I looked at his lips, not because I was drawn to them, but because I was imagining another pair—a pair more lush and insistent.
“Someone once told me that a man never asks for a kiss,” I said softly.
Echoing Neil’s words felt like a stab to the heart.
Ivan gave me a small smile.
“I was really just asking to be polite,” he murmured, trying to move in closer again, but I pulled back away from him.
“Only those who know me well…shouldn’t ask me that,” I said, pulling away from his touch entirely and getting to my feet. Ivan looked up at me, surprised and bewildered. He probably didn’t get rejected very often.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I mean… I… I wasn’t…” He looked increasingly confused and uncomfortable. He rubbed his hands along his pants and cleared his throat awkwardly.
I hadn’t been sure if I could call what I felt for Neil “love,” but after turning Ivan down, I suspected it might really be.
It was a true, pure feeling that would not fade, not even if I met the world’s most perfect man.
Still, I had to accept the fact that Neil and I weren’t anything.
I had to commit to not chasing after him anymore and to just let him go the way I’d promised him on the phone.
I had to stop wondering if he was thinking of me or if one day he might be able to love me. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
Because, clearly, I couldn’t just run into someone else’s open arms. Love wasn’t a fleeting thing for me; it wasn’t a game or a hobby.
Neither was it an illusion, the way Neil clearly believed. He was so convinced that the only things I really “loved” were the way he looked and the passionate way he touched me.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I loved the way he always fell asleep on his side.
I loved his enigmatic smile, alluring and sexy as hell.
I loved his clean smell and how it clouded my mind.
I loved the way his eyes looked when they caught the sun. They became, somehow, even more golden until they could rival the sun itself for beauty and brightness.
I loved the delighted look on his face when he found a package of pistachios, like a little boy presented with his favorite treat.
I loved the way his forehead creased up when he was trying to understand something I told him, and I loved the powerful, stubborn, sexual, troubled, and uncontrollable side of him as well.
I loved the heart that he kept locked behind glass where it could never be touched.
I loved his unfathomable behavior that concealed the fragile soul underneath.
I loved his intelligence and his erudition, though he only ever displayed them quietly.
I loved everything about him: the chaos, the mess, even his fear of staying with me.
I loved the things that made him easy to hate, but to my misfortune, I’d found even more things that made him easy to love.
And if that wasn’t real love, then I had no other name for it.
* * *
Half an hour later, Ivan and I stood in the driveway of my little house.
He’d offered to give me a lift home, and I couldn’t find either of my friends, so I sent them a text letting them know I was ducking out early. Bailey had almost certainly gone off to some bedroom with Tyler, and as for Janel… Well, I’d have to track her down later to get the whole story.
“Thanks again, but I could have gotten an Uber or something,” I told Ivan as he walked me up to the porch. His foreign scent still lingered around me. The awkwardness over the kiss that wasn’t had mostly faded, and Ivan was back to being funny and charming, like nothing had ever happened.
“It’s cool; you have no idea how jealous my friends are right now,” he said, winking at me, and I grinned back at him.
“Well, just imagine how many girls are currently seething at me, Captain,” I said teasingly as he strolled easily alongside me, hands tucked into the pouch of his basketball hoodie.
“Yeah, there’s probably a few of them wondering where I went,” he said with a strange grimace.
“But you are going back, right? Night’s still young,” I said knowingly. Surely his night was going to end like all his friends’—in bed with someone or other.
“Well, since you shot me down so hard, I’ll have to console myself somehow, won’t I?”
We stopped a few feet from the porch steps and looked at each other.
“Fair warning: Next time I want to kiss you, I’ll know better than to ask for permission,” he said archly, his gaze drifting to my mouth.
His green eyes lingered on me longer than they should have, and all at once, I got the feeling that we were being watched.
It was probably just paranoia, but it was uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, tracking my gaze as I glanced around at the darkness that surrounded us.
“Nothing,” I said reassuringly, giving my head a shake.
“Well, I’ll head out then. See you around.
” Ivan leaned toward me, and I immediately turned to give him my cheek.
He bent down—he had to bend quite a ways—and kissed my cheek, his lips warm against my skin.
I had once made the mistake of jumping into something while I was still entangled with Jared, and I refused to do the same thing with Neil.
Even though we weren’t together and I didn’t owe him anything, I valued my feelings for him too highly to pursue anyone else.
Despite the unrelenting disappointment about how things were going between us, the things I felt for him hadn’t changed, and they weren’t going to change.
Because, when you really love someone, they become a part of you, and there’s no replacing them.
I wasn’t sure exactly when Neil had become a part of me. Maybe he had been from the start.
From the moment I looked into his dazzling eyes on that city sidewalk.
And no matter how sad or frustrated I was, I would jealously guard that part of him that lived inside me.
Because I could still dream, and in my dreams, he could love me.
“I think I’d better go inside.” I half-turned, and Ivan’s jaw tensed up before he arranged his lips into a tight smile. He was just about to say something more when someone else beat him to it.
“Yeah, I think you should.”
That voice—intense and rough—obviously did not belong to Ivan.
For a second, I thought I had hallucinated it, but that was impossible. The shivers that moved over my body could only have been caused by one person: Neil.
I went very still before turning slowly, searching the darkness for him.
A moment later, I picked out a dark silhouette on the porch steps, barely outlined by the distant lights from the front walk.
My arms fell slack against my sides, and I stood there in shock.
I squinted to make sure it was indeed him, and as I did so, he lit a cigarette.
I saw his face in the glow of the lighter, a stormy glower making his perfect face look ominous.
Even cloaked in that diabolical aura, he was breathtakingly beautiful. I blushed like a schoolgirl and struggled to draw in a full breath.
“Hey, Tinkerbell,” he said softly.