Chapter 31
chapter thirty one
he makes me feel like moonlight
CORA
I’d never been what you’d describe as delicate.
I didn’t really look delicate, and my voice certainly wasn’t either. But when I lifted my brush and dabbed it into the midnight-blue paint, knowing such a powerful force was sitting right behind me, suddenly ‘delicate’ was all I ever wanted to be.
I felt his eyes on me the entire time my brush lingered over the canvas, teasing it with colour. But it didn’t burn like pressure; it was sweet, like admiration, or how I imagine skydivers feel with the experts strapped to their backs.
I swiped the brush over the canvas as softly as I could, swirling it the way I always did by bending my wrist. And when I caught my breath from that one, I did it again, this time bigger, more towards the bottom left corner, the swirls blooming out towards the centre.
“What are you feeling?” Marcus’s voice brushed against my neck, falling over it like water off a petal.
My head tilted as I swirled the brush again, my shoulder blade meeting his chest. “Pretty.” I sighed.
I was thinking about how I felt when he left me to wander around the art museum, and I suppose any time he looked at me, really. Even those first few weeks when I’d not been the kindest, I couldn’t help but get little nervous flutters in my stomach when his attention was wholly on me.
I sent the brushes higher up the canvas as I felt Marcus lean in. “You are, you know.” It was then I felt the tips of his fingers brush the small of my back. “The prettiest.”
I couldn’t help but flutter my eyes shut as I smiled. “I had a hunch.”
His fingers brushed higher, sending tingles shooting across my back like stars.
The more he roamed my back, the more I relaxed into him, and it was quite alarming how easily he could make me forget that I’d ever been worried, or scared, or sure that I could never paint again.
But Marcus was alarming, in the best ways.
I swilled my brush and found the pale-gold paint, swirling accents against the blue that made them pop.
It reminded me of the night we kissed in the phone booth.
I’m aware we did other things, but repeating them in my head would only make me zone out, and I couldn’t risk ruining this flow right now.
Although if Marcus kept doing what he was doing, I was going to regardless.
But the background reminded me of the windows, how the sky was halfway between black and blue, how the raindrops blurred the glow from the streetlights, marbling them.
“That’s beautiful,” Marcus whispered in my ear, his lips brushing against my skin, practically kissing them.
I leant my head against him as his melted into the crook of my neck. “It’s London.” I gathered some more paint. “The night we… you know.”
He hummed against my neck. “I vaguely remember.”
As one of his hands held the small of my back, the other found my waist, his fingers curling, squeezing gently. He did something similar in London, right before he hiked my leg up and pulled me flush against him.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I blurted, “Have you thought about it… since?”
His head lifted slightly. “That night?” I nodded. “Can I be honest?”
“Course,” I whispered, though I didn’t mean to.
A beat or two passed before I felt him suck in a deep breath, right as his hand, the one on my back, lifted, tracing my side before reaching my shoulder and, slowly, trailing down my arm, leaving trails of goosebumps in its wake.
And right as he reached my hand, he sighed, “All the time.”
I felt my breath stutter and my hand pause on the canvas.
He thought about us.
I don’t know why the thought made my heart beat three times faster, but it did.
“Do you?” His voice cracked. “Think about it?”
I painted one last swirl before dropping my arm, pretending like I needed to think about it. Then slowly, I shifted, angling my head over my shoulder and dragging out the moments until I caught his eyes. But when I did, I nodded. “All the time.”
And then, I don’t know what happened. It was like we were both told the world had seconds before it imploded, and wasting any more time lying to ourselves about how right this felt, how right we felt, was stupid.
It happened so fast. I don’t know what happened first. I don’t know whether he grabbed my face first or I grabbed his. I don’t know if I dropped my palette or it slipped from my hands. I don’t know if I kissed him first or if he kissed me.
But regardless, we were kissing.
And when it clicked, I was reminded of all the reasons I hadn’t stopped thinking about the last time this happened.
He took control in a way that let me still make the decisions.
Did that make sense? It probably won’t because he’s not kissing you, so it’s impossible to describe.
The only way I can describe it is as if his feet are on the pedals and my hands are on the wheel.
He’s driving, and I’m choosing where we go.
His hands burrowed into my hair, holding me close, like the breeze that constantly sneaked through the window would blow me away, and when he tugged me closer, my stomach hollowed in the way I loved.
And when he did it again, the kiss turned hungry.
Needed. So passionate that I slipped off my stool and straddled him, my legs curling as my hips worked against him.
He broke our kiss as a groan escaped him, and I took that as my moment to move down his jaw, kissing his neck and fisting his hair in my hands.
“I knew you’d be the death of me, Cora Holland.”
MARCUS
And it would be a death of honour.
Cora was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of feeling. That I knew. But still, every time she let me touch her, and kiss her, it hit me like a truck just how perfect she was.
My hands slipped beneath her oversized white button-up, skimming her lacy bra with one hand, manoeuvring her flush against me with the other.
My mind spun out of control whenever we were this close, the feel of her skin on mine enough to quiet all the noise in my head, enough to make me want to burn everything I’d worked for to feel it for a second longer.
Her perfect lips crashed back down on my mouth before I could say anything, and at the same time, her hips rolled against me, sending dark embers shooting up my spine.
I was practically burning beneath her, and as all the blood in my body rushed south, I was so happy I told her how I felt about her while I could still focus on speaking.
“Death of me,” I groaned in reminder, feeling her smile right against my mouth.
Her hips worked harder then, rolling in a lazy rhythm that had my head tipping back, eyes fluttering shut. The groan that tore from me bounced around the room, too loud, too telling—because a second later, her hand swapped in for her mouth, palm pressing firmly over my lips.
“Shhh.” She giggled, though her eyes warned me. “We are not about to be the new Rory and Finn, okay?”
My eyes darted between hers, asking the question for me.
She tilted her head, smile pulling tight. “They’re so loud we made a twenty-slide presentation about what’s going to happen if they don’t develop an ounce of social awareness while they fuck.”
My eyes widened, and I gave a muffled snort into her palm. She rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. “It’s that bad?”
“Bad enough that the walls shake,” she said with a shrug. “But hey, credit where it’s due—at least they’re finally screwing. Took them long enough.”
A low chuckle rumbled out of me, lips curving into a smirk. “So, keep the groans to a minimum, got it—” The words melted as she started to rock again, as my hand slid down her side, gripping her hips. “Yeah, okay. If you keep doing that, then I won’t be in control of what my mouth does.”
Her smile turned sly, eyes glittering. “Then you’d better learn some control.”
I groaned again—louder this time—just to spite her, and her laugh stuttered into a gasp when I thrust up to meet her. My grip tightened, dragging her down harder against me, and her nails scraped lightly down my chest in retaliation.
“You’re impossible,” she breathed, though the way she rolled against me made her sound like a liar.
“Me?” My smirk deepened, grip tightening on her hips as I thrust up into her. “Look at you. You tell me to be quiet, and then you do that?”
Her laugh broke into a gasp, her head falling forward against mine. “I can’t help it.”
I groaned, dragging her down harder against me, savouring the sound she tried—and failed—to swallow. “Neither can I.”
Her lips brushed my ear, the whisper turning into a breathy moan. “We’re supposed to be quiet.”
“Supposed to,” I agreed, my voice rough as I rolled my hips again. “But fuck it.”
Her laugh melted into another helpless gasp, and the walls might as well have been paper-thin, but in that moment, neither of us cared.
So little, in fact, that when she ran her hand over the strained crotch of my jeans, and I let a groan rip through the silence, she didn’t cover my mouth, I didn’t hold back, and neither of us felt the need to silence what was happening.
As her delicate fingers wandered to the buckle on my belt, my mouth found the swollen skin of her neck, claiming it again.
I kissed harder when she undid me, her hands fiddling with the waistband of my underwear, as my lips caressed her jaw in a way that had her moaning like we were the only two people left on the planet.
The feeling that had consumed me in London washed over me again.
Watching the girl who always had something to worry about finally let go and only focus on herself was one of my favourite things to watch.
And because I was selfish, I let my hands wander to the buttons on her shirt, fingertips brushing her skin like flames dancing around a wick.
Undoing them, as she was undoing me.