Chapter 8 #2
"Because it's never going to happen. I'm twenty-two years old, I have a degree I've never used, and I've spent the last three years learning how to survive instead of how to live. I don't even know if I remember how to teach. How to do anything useful."
"That's bullshit."
She blinks, turning to look at me. "What?"
"You heard me." I hold her gaze, unflinching.
"You think you're broken beyond repair? You think those three years erased everything you were before?
They didn't. You're still the same woman who wanted to inspire kids, who loved books, who dreamed about Paris and London.
You've just been buried under all the shit Cain piled on top of you. "
"You don't know that."
"I know you." The words come out rougher than I intended.
"I've seen you with Tawny and Paige, drawing them out, making them laugh.
I've seen you with that battered copy of Pride and Prejudice, reading it like the words are oxygen.
I've seen the way your face lights up when you talk about stories, about teaching, about the things you used to want. "
"That's not—"
"It is." I reach out, turning her face toward me. "You're not nothing, Ripley. You never were. And those dreams aren't dead. They're just waiting for you to remember them."
Her eyes are shining with unshed tears. "What if I can't? What if he broke something in me that can't be fixed?"
"Then you build something new." My thumb brushes her cheek, catching a tear that escapes despite her best efforts. "Do you still want it? The teaching, the classroom, the books?"
She's quiet for a long moment. "I don't know."
"Then figure it out." I let my hand fall away, turning to look out at the city. "You're not his anymore. You're not anyone's. You get to decide who you are now, what you want, what kind of life you're going to build. But you have to actually do it. No one's going to hand it to you."
"Is that what you did? After the military?"
The question catches me off guard. I don't talk about those years—the darkness, the drowning, the slow climb back to something resembling human. But she's looking at me with those brown eyes, open and vulnerable, and I find myself answering.
"Yeah. Salvo gave me a chance, but I had to take it. Had to decide I wanted to live instead of just survive." I pause. "It's not easy. Some days it still feels impossible. But it's worth it."
"How do you know when you're ready?"
"You don't. You just... start. One step at a time. And eventually, you look back and realize you've come further than you thought possible."
She's quiet, processing. I let the silence stretch, watching the city lights shimmer against the dark water of the rivers.
"I'm scared," she finally admits.
"I know."
"What if I fail?"
"Then you try again." I look at her. "But you won't fail, Ripley. You're stronger than you think. I've seen it."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Something shifts in her expression—the fear giving way to something else. Something that looks almost like determination.
"Okay," she says softly. "I'll try."
"That's all anyone can ask."
The tension between us shifts. Becomes something else. Something charged and electric, humming in the space between our bodies.
She moves first.
One moment we're sitting side by side, staring out at the city. The next, she's turning toward me, her hand finding my jaw, pulling me down to meet her lips.
The kiss is different from before. Softer. More deliberate. Like she's taking her time, savoring rather than consuming. I let her set the pace, let her explore, let her take what she needs.
When she pulls back, her eyes are dark. Wanting.
"I need you," she whispers. "Not because I'm broken. Not because I'm scared. Because I want you. Because you make me feel like I'm worth something."
"You are worth something." I brush a strand of hair from her face. "You're worth everything."
She kisses me again, harder this time, and I stop thinking.
My hands find her waist, pulling her closer.
She swings a leg over, straddling my lap, her fingers tangling in my hair.
The city stretches out below us, a sea of lights, and above us, the stars are scattered across the sky like diamonds on velvet.
"Here?" I manage, breaking the kiss just long enough to get the word out.
"Here." Her hands are already working at the buttons of my shirt. "I want you here, under the stars, with the whole city watching."
I should argue.
Should point out that anyone could come up here, that it's cold, that this is reckless and stupid and a dozen other things.
I don't.
Instead, I help her with the buttons, shrug off my shirt, pull her back against me.
Her skin is warm despite the cool night air, and when I slide my hands under her borrowed flannel, she shivers—not from cold.
"You're beautiful," I murmur against her throat. "Every part of you."
"Stop talking." Her voice is breathless. Urgent. "Just touch me."
I do.
I take my time, learning her body all over again.
The curve of her hip. The softness of her stomach. The way she gasps when my fingers find the places that make her shake.
She's responsive in a way she wasn't before—less desperate, more present. Like she's actually here, in this moment, instead of running from something.
She pulls at my belt, and I help her, lifting my hips so she can push my jeans down.
Then her hands are on me, stroking, exploring, and I have to bite back a groan.
"Ripley—"
"I want to feel you." She rises up on her knees, positioning herself above me. "I want to feel everything."
When she sinks down onto me, we both freeze.
The sensation is overwhelming—heat and pressure and a connection so intense it steals my breath.
Her forehead falls against mine, her breath coming in short gasps.
"Okay?" I manage.
"More than okay." She starts to move, slow and deliberate, and the world narrows to this—to her, to us, to the impossible rightness of this moment.
I let her set the rhythm, let her take what she needs.
My hands grip her hips, guiding but not controlling, and I watch her face as pleasure builds behind her eyes.
She's beautiful like this—lost in sensation, free from fear, wholly and completely present.
"Levi." My name falls from her lips like a prayer. "God, Levi—"
"I've got you." I pull her closer, one hand sliding up her back to tangle in her hair. "Let go. I've got you."
She does.
I feel it when she breaks—the way her body clenches around me, the cry that tears from her throat, the shuddering release that seems to go on forever.
I follow her over the edge seconds later, burying my face in her neck, her name a groan against her skin.
Afterward, we stay tangled together, neither of us willing to move.
Her head rests on my shoulder, her breath warm against my collarbone.
Above us, the stars wheel slowly through the sky.
"Thank you," she whispers.
"For what?"
"For seeing me. For believing in me." She lifts her head, meeting my eyes. "For giving me a reason to try."
I brush a kiss against her forehead. "You don't need to thank me for that."
"I do, though. Because no one else ever has."
I hold her tighter, wishing I could protect her from everything—from Varro, from the club's doubts, from the ghosts that still haunt her. But I can't. All I can do is be here. Be present. Be whatever she needs me to be.
"We should go inside," I say eventually. "It's cold."
"In a minute." She snuggles closer, her arms tightening around me. "Just... let me have this for a little longer."
I don't argue.
We stay on the roof until the cold finally drives us inside, wrapped in each other, the city glittering below us like a promise.