Chapter 28 Selene #2
“Yeah…crazy about you, Tinkerbell,” he whispered into my ear, clasping me even tighter like he didn’t want to let me go. I slid along his body until my feet were resting on the snow but didn’t move away from him. I remained in his arms, surrounded by his blazing heat and his musk-and-tobacco scent.
I stared deep into his eyes and saw everything that he was feeling—I felt it too.
It was a painful, all-encompassing feeling, so powerful that it actually hurt. My head throbbed, and I couldn’t stop tearing up.
What would I have ever done without his madness, which had become my madness too?
Neil was the beginning and the end for me.
“I’m sorry, Babygirl. I’m so sorry. I was scared to admit to myself that I couldn’t be without you.
I don’t know what changes you made inside me…
” he cupped my face in his big hands and stroked my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, “But I can’t let you go.
I won’t. What would the shell do without the pearl?
They were made for each other.” He smiled at me, and his eyes were so bright they looked like polished gold.
And then he kissed me. His lips, warm and soft, were gentle against mine. Our tongues danced in the darkness, in the falling snow, and in the glow of the streetlamp.
“Promise me you won’t run again. That you’ll stay with me,” I whispered against his lips. It was the only promise I ever wanted from him.
“I promise, Babygirl.” He kissed the tip of my nose and then my cheeks, my forehead, my chin, and my throat. He kissed me everywhere—kissed me completely—and stared at me with those glorious eyes so that I would know that this was real. We were finally together.
“But what about Chicago? Megan? Your job?” Reality crashed back in on me far too soon, but he immediately reassured me with a sweet smile.
“I’ll deal with that later. I spent this whole week in my apartment; I didn’t even go to work.
I didn’t have the strength. The thought of not seeing you again was agonizing.
I was sick. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat, and then, finally, I understood.
I understood everything…” He kissed me again, this one rougher, more passionate, and more carnal.
It was one of his true kisses, neither sweet nor gentle but intense and devastating, the only way Neil Miller knew how to be.
He continued to contaminate me even though he had already invaded my heart and every other part of me. I tickled his neck, and he spun me around, backing me against the car door.
After so much suffering, our mutual desire and eagerness to be together was exploding. I could tell by his panting breath and the way his chest pressed into me.
We might have started making love right there in the street on his car, but fortunately for us both, my Disaster broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to mine. For once, he was gulping air just as much as I was.
I smiled at him, passing my hand over the manicured stubble that only made him look more handsome and masculine, before dropping another chaste kiss on his lips.
“Have you ever made a snowman?” I asked him. He gave me a confused look.
“No. Why?” he answered. I took his hand and pulled him over the snowman version of him. “Hey, that thing kinda looks like…” he muttered as he took a good look at my masterpiece. I gave him a cheesy grin.
“Like you! Look, he’s even doing the pout,” I said, pointing at the hard line of the snowman’s mouth.
I was still holding his hand in mine, and, for once, he wasn’t pulling away from the gesture.
He gave me a look so heavy with feeling that my heart leaped in my chest. Then, he reached into his jacket pocket and raised an eyebrow as he pulled out… a package of pistachios.
“There, now he’s more like me,” he said, tucking it into the twigs on one “arm” and smiling. While he was concentrating on perfecting my snowman, I stooped and gathered up some snow. I silently packed it into a ball and then lobbed it right at his head.
“What the fuck?” he blurted out in his usual curmudgeonly manner before turning to me and giving me a menacing look that immediately shut me up.
He narrowed his eyes challengingly, and one corner of his mouth lifted up slightly as he squatted down to prepare enough ammo for a veritable snowball war. Except that his were way too big and thrown with way too much force.
“Enough! You’re terrible at this!” I zig-zagged across the lawn, trying to outrun his missiles. One hit me in the face, another in my back, and one right on my left butt cheek—that one stung.
“Never should have challenged me, Tinkerbell!” Another snowball to the leg took me down.
I burst into laughter as I collapsed in the soft, white expanse.
I rolled over onto my back, trying to catch my breath as I stared up at the night sky, dotted with the occasional star.
Then my view was obscured by an even lovelier sight.
Neil stretched out on top of me, covering me with his huge body.
He propped himself up with his elbows on either side of my head, and I noticed that the tip of his nose was red along with his cheeks and lips.
I touched his face and found it freezing, so I peppered him with warm kisses wherever his skin felt clammy.
“Selene,” Neil whispered against my lips. “Come with me. Let’s get out of here.” I stared up at him, blinking in surprise.
“How? I can’t. School, my mom… I can’t…”
Neil shook his head and kissed me again before grinning at me.
“I already spoke to your mother. She knows everything, and she’s okay with it.
We’ll go away for a few months. I’m not sure how long.
All I know is that I want to be with you.
I want to experience life with you, far away from everyone and everything else.
I want to live the way I never really have before.
My life has been more like a prison for me.
I want to be free, and I want you to be free with me.
Will you fly off to Neverland with me?” he asked, a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Was he worried I might say no?
That I might leave him?
Never.
We were each other’s future. I never could have lived without Neil.
“Yes, I will. Let’s do this crazy thing together, Mr. Disaster.
I’ll follow you anywhere you want to go,” I said softly before capturing his lower lip between my teeth and pulling gently on it.
He let out a rough groan. I preened internally at my ability to exert this kind of power over him.
Neil belonged to me. He was as much mine as I was his, and it wasn’t about ownership.
It was about union, about sharing and understanding and emotional connection.
Neil got up and held out his hands. I grabbed them, and he pulled me to my feet and leaned against his chest, blushing.
He gave me an amused smile, but then my mother interrupted our intimate moment by walking out onto the porch with the candy bouquet in one hand and my red wheelie suitcase in the other.
“Everything’s been arranged,” she explained, shooting a sly smile at the boy I loved before immediately turning stern again.
“Now, I have your word that you will take care of my baby and keep me posted every time you move. Do not make me regret placing my trust in you.” My mother lifted her index finger in the air like she was giving a lecture in one of her classes, and Neil just smiled at her, pulling me closer.
I wondered what he could have said to her to convince her to let me leave with him. I knew that Neil had a way with women, but worming his way into my mother’s heart was still quite a coup for him.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Martin. I would lay down my life for your daughter,” he said, his words full of meaning and love. The unspoken love that Neil would never be able to put into words.
He was giving me all of him, and that was enough for me.
He smiled and dropped a kiss on my forehead before grabbing the handle of my suitcase and gesturing for me to follow him.
I grabbed the candy bouquet and hugged my mother, thanking her for giving us a chance.
I stowed my bag in his trunk, and we both got in. Immediately, we looked at each other and locked eyes.
Neil was staring at me like he was seeing me for the very first time, and I felt a flicker of the old fear. Was he thinking about backing out? Was he no longer ready to take on this crazy journey together?
“Neil?” I murmured, pressing a hand to my pounding heart. We were going to be alone together for a long time. We’d be able to really get to know each other, warts and all. I was going to have to learn how to deal with a man like him.
I was filled with joy but also with tension.
He was mine.
Finally, there was an us.
“What are your intentions with me?” He stared seriously at me and bit his lip nervously, and for a second, I genuinely thought he was going to end things again, and I was going to end up as completely destroyed as I’d been before he showed up.
But then, his grave face turned excited, and he gave me a sexy smile.
“Only the worst, Tinkerbell…” he said and gave my thighs a fevered look.
“So…can I officially call myself your girlfriend?” I teased, and he just took my hand and lifted it to his mouth for a gentle kiss.
“You’re a lot more than that, Babygirl. You’re my Pearl.”
Then, his fingers still interlaced with mine, he started the car and pulled up, picking up speed like the madman that he was.
I watched him, hopelessly in love, and he looked back at me, heavy with expectation, and I realized a fundamental truth: in every one of his smiles, I was there.
I was the one who made him smile.
Like a boy who had been fighting monsters for a long time and would continue fighting them, but with me by his side.
I would never understand why fate had thrown us together.
I couldn’t explain why my heart had chosen him of all people.
Neil was the messiest, most flawed person in the world; someone I should have steered clear of, but for some crazy reason, he had me under his spell.
He turned my life upside-down, gave me wings, and showed me how to fly to another land.
Neil and I were the result of a chance meeting, like when the moon first met the darkness.
We were surprising and inexplicable.
A coming together destined to last a lifetime and to astonish anyone who witnessed us.
And that was called love.
Neil and I, we were in love.
The chaos we made together—it was love.
I had fought for him, and I would do it again a million times over.
I had listened to my feelings. Some might say I was too forgiving or too naive, but despite being just a regular girl with her whole life ahead of her and an empty bag waiting to be filled with new experiences, I’d managed to overcome all of my fears, every bit of common sense, and all limitations to capture the heart of a man I’d once thought unobtainable.
I had been strong and tenacious because I had always known that it was deep within those honey-colored eyes that my future lay.