Chapter 32 #2
He looks at me, a serious expression on his face. “Yeah. I am.” His jaw tightens, and I watch a decision happen in the span of a second. “I want you to see it.”
“Okay.” I clear my throat because I don’t understand the sudden weight to what is happening. “When we get back—”
“Tonight?”
“You … have it here?”
He nods.
He doesn’t ask if I have his here. I do. But I don’t want to show him. Even if he shows me.
Back at the house, Alex asks if Carter will talk with her outside.
He doesn’t even look at Linden as he goes, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
She’s already playing a drinking game with Benji.
Max takes my hand in his, and I can see the paint that is always hidden somewhere on his skin.
When did we become people who hold hands?
“Come on.” He leads me upstairs to his room. A few moments later, he holds his sketchbook, running two fingers down the heavy cardboard cover.
I stand there, waiting.
“It’s not a big deal. I don’t know why I’m so worried if you’re going to like it or not.” He gives a nervous laugh.
Finally, he holds it out to me.
I open the cover and see what Max was so worried to show me.
It’s me. But my eyes are closed as I lean my head against something he hasn’t drawn.
My hair is down and frames my face, my lips are parted slightly, and they carry only the slightest promise of a smile.
This isn’t just a girl sleeping. This is a girl dreaming.
And there’s something else here, too. Something I can’t put my finger on. A truth that I’m waiting for. If only she would open her eyes and tell me.
In the drawing, my hands are folded on my lap, and I can’t help but think they look familiar.
The whole thing is drawn onto a sheet of poetry.
“Max.” It’s the only word that comes out.
“It’s not … it’s not supposed to be finished yet. We’re supposed to work in layers…”
“I know, but…”
“But you hate it?”
“But it’s … amazing as it is.”
Max only stares at me. Waiting.
There’s a truth to art. When you draw something.
Not as it is or as it could be but when you create it as you see it.
The things you notice that live inside your perspective, inside the looking glass that you see the world through.
And here. On this paper. I see how Max sees me.
Every time that he sat across from me. With a sketchbook or not. He memorized this version of me.
This truth.
This is the way Max sees me.
“I wanted you to kiss me. On Valentine’s Day.” His voice is soft. Honest. “I didn’t think it was stupid. I just didn’t want to be one of the guys you kissed and forgot about.”
My throat tightens with emotion, because the thought of waking up tomorrow and not having this Max makes me feel like crying. This Max that sees this girl.
I am so sick of living my life worried about when time will take everything away from me again.
The next second, I’m kissing him. My lips on his, my hands pulling him close.
My. My. My.
I press my body against his, wanting to feel him all over me.
This time, unlike New Year’s or when I had too much to drink, I want us both to remember everything that happens.
I pull back, and my eyes meet his as I run my fingers under his shirt, feeling the way his stomach tightens as one of my hands drifts lower and he lets out a groan.
His lips part, his chest inflates, and he says my name so softly and with so much purpose and thought and emotion that a second later, I’m leaning in again.
No words, just him and me. The kiss is gentle and sweet, the kind of thing shared between two people who spend more than one evening warming each other’s sheets.
He moves me to the bed, slowly lowering me onto it without letting us break apart. But quickly, so quickly, it changes, and Max is lifting himself above me even as his lips never leave.
He presses his hips against mine, and I feel him growing hard between my legs. Max kisses down my chest and back up to my neck.
“Tell me what you like,” he whispers against me.
I can’t remember anyone ever asking me about my preferences. “I like everything,” I say as I roll against him.
But Max pulls away. “No, tell me. I want to know.” He kisses my neck. “Do you like this?” He pushes the thin straps of my dress over my shoulders and down. I help him, pulling my arms out.
“Mm-hmm.”
His lips travel over my sternum as he moves the dress farther down my body to my waist. “This?”
His eyes watch me the whole way down as he pulls my breast free from my bra and takes my nipple into his mouth. I groan and close my eyes.
“You like this,” he surmises before his mouth goes to the next breast, doing the same.
My chest lifts off the bed slightly, and I bite my bottom lip. Max unhooks my bra with deft hands and pulls my dress the rest of the way off of me until I’m just in my underwear.
It feels so good, and I take his hand in mine and slowly direct it to the sensitive part between my legs.
His fingers press against the fabric there, the places that make me feel like I’m going to come apart. “Like this?” he asks.
“Yes,” I breathe out. The rhythm of him making me feel like I’m going to come out of my skin. “Max.”
He groans, and his hands come off me. He goes to kiss me where the feel of his hands still lingers. “Can I?”
I nod and lick my lips. “Yes.”
Slowly he pulls my underwear down my hips and thighs before settling back between them. And then his mouth is on me, sucking and teasing. My head falls onto the pillow, and I close my eyes as I come apart in wave after wave.
“Max.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and it feels filthy and undone. “That was amazing,” he tells me. Like he’s proud of me.
“You were amazing,” I tell him.
He runs a hand against the blush on my chest and tells me, “This is beautiful.”
And suddenly, I want to do the same for him. I want him to feel like I do. Sitting up, I try to push him back, but he ends up on his knees.
“What are you doing?”
I undo the button of his jeans and pull at the zipper, which makes a dark noise. “I want—” Reaching into his pants, I take him in my hand. “I want to make you feel like that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes … unless you don’t want me to?”
“Oh, no,” he answers quickly. “I do. God, do I want that, but you don’t have to.”
I smile, taking him all the way out, and then I take him into my mouth. The weight of him on my tongue is thick and heavy and salty. My eyes start to water as I lean forward, and he presses against the back of my throat, and I close them. Finding my rhythm and swirling my tongue against him.
“Fuck,” he groans, and I can’t help it. I feel powerful.
“I’m close,” he whispers. A warning to let me decide what I want to do next.
And when Max finishes and pulls me up to him, we fall backward on the bed.
His hands run through my hair, and I feel the way his chest rises and falls.
I wrap my body around his like I could keep this moment here, forever.
Suddenly, the truth of what is happening hits me.
I could lose this. Tomorrow when I wake up, I could be at Grandee’s looking at that stupid tree outside my bedroom window, and there isn’t anything I can do to stop it.
A tear falls from my eye, and I know it’s landed on Max.
His hands cup my cheeks, pulling my face up to look at him …
And then he says …
“Open your eyes, Nieve. Please look at me.”
Open your eyes, Nieve.
I hear it. The four words I’ve heard so often in my dreams. Spoken by the one person I never thought would say them.
Open your eyes …