Chapter 28 #2
“Si,” she says finally. And the way she says it is just like one. It’s a blown-out breath, a sound of relief. Acceptance. Exasperation. I look back up at her, knowing full well my entire fucking heart is in my eyes.
“Yeah, Bea?”
“Can you keep your hands still for a few more minutes?” she asks.
The feelings rising in me abruptly crash in confusion. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because I’d like to kiss you. If that’s all right.”
Another wild, volatile surge. “Bea, no. I don’t want you to feel like you need to do that because of what I just said.”
“Is that your only objection to it?” She’s moving closer. My breath goes uneven.
“Yeah. I mean no. No, it’s not. I’d rather you not kiss me if it’s not going to mean anything.”
Her hand crosses the space between us and starts to curl in my shirt.
“Who the hell was I kidding, Silas? It’ll mean everything.
” She pulls herself closer and her eyes home in on my mouth.
“I want to kiss you because even though it’s your birthday, you are the gift, and I’d like to let myself have you.
” She finds my stare again. “If you’ll have me. ”
I feel like I’m dreaming again. I know I’ve had this dream before. She inches closer, her lips hovering over mine. “C’mon, baby. Have me.”
My blood drops below my gut, and my voice goes down an octave. All those promises I spouted to Ellis feel like ether slipping through my fingers. “I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re asking. I’m a selfish man, Bea. Always have been. I’m not gonna be able to keep saying no.”
She flat-out chuckles at this. Low and husky and so sexy I want to taste it.
Swish that sound around my mouth and swallow it whole.
“Good. And selfish? You’re the most generous man I know.
You think I don’t see you, Silas? You’d let people think you’re getting special treatment before you let them see how generous you actually are.
You’d rather let people think less of you—you’d make yourself need less from others, just on the off chance it let them hold on to more.
” She’s unflinching and unrelenting, her grip clenching tighter in my shirt.
“Who or what on earth ever made you think you’re selfish? ”
My hands are shaking. I press them harder into my knees.
“I took the last goodbye from my mom when she was dying.” She twitches back, and her hand loosens.
“We were all supposed to be saying our goodbyes, but I held on to her in hysterics and not one of my siblings got their goodbye in. I do that. I lose sight of things and hold on too hard sometimes. You’ve confronted death head-on and decided to create life.
Meanwhile, I haven’t been able to say the word goodbye to anyone for more than twenty years.
How fucked is that? I talked a big game about helping you with your grief when all I’ve ever done is find a way to be passably functional with mine.
I’ve been to all sorts of therapy, and I can still barely talk about her. ”
She blinks and shakes her head. One of her tears lands on my knuckle. She runs her fingertips over my brow before resting her palm on one side of my face. “That’s not true, Silas. You’ve talked to me about her. And you were nine.”
“I might’ve acted all right after you didn’t want to go forward with things before, but I wasn’t. I was a real bitch about it, actually. When you said you didn’t want me to wait, I immediately slept around.”
She shrugs helplessly. “So what? You were a single man in your twenties. I’m glad you had fun and found comfort.”
“Jesus, Bea. I started relationships with some of those women, knowing damn well I still held on to a pair of your underwear. I’m not . . . I’m not good.”
Her tearful face breaks into a wild, open-mouthed smile, color flagging the planes of her cheeks in an instant. “I knew you had them!” Her second hand rises to the other side of my jaw, her thumb coasting over my bottom lip like she’s mesmerized by it. “Will you let me kiss you now?”
“I wished for this,” I blurt. “I wanted this to happen. I mean everything I’m saying right now, but still there was some selfish part of me I kept smothered that hoped we’d end up being more than friends. I can’t say I was entirely honest. This was not the altruistic deal you thought it was.”
She smiles wider, biting her lip.
“Don’t you get it?” I say. “I lured you into this arrangement under false pretenses.”
“And I’ve done nothing but benefit from it.”
I can’t stop the low, desperate sound that rolls out of me.
My chest is working for air. I’ve thrown everything I could throw at her to give her a reason to back away.
“Christ, Bea. I’m warning you, I’m running out of self-control.
” There were things before. Reasons we agreed this wasn’t a good idea.
I can’t recall any of them when I can’t see or smell or hear anything beyond her.
“Good,” she says. “’Cause whatever you are? If it’s selfish or bad or whatever it is you think? You’re also mine.”
Fuck the nails. I close the gap between us and pour everything into the kiss, bodily hauling her to me.
She hums into my mouth at the same time her tongue slicks against my own, and want sharpens and hardens until it’s a skewer through my middle.
It’s violent and reverent, soft and hard.
Her full lips are a cool pillow to my tired, overheated ones.
Her fingers knit through my hair and tug my head back so she can gasp, “Room. Take me to your room.”
I’m up in two movements with her wrapped around my hips. I sloppily try to get at the triangle of skin exposed by her hoodie, the lowest part of her throat.
“Room,” she commands.