Chapter Twenty #2
“It’s like I’m so desperate for you that if I give myself an inch, I might walk next door in the middle of the night and take a mile.
” He settles heavily in his desk chair. “I am beyond grateful that you’re smart enough not to get with the kind of guy you want.
If anyone remotely like the men you describe gets within three feet of you, I’ll have to add murder to my list of crimes. ”
“Flirt.” I relax. “Why don’t you come sit with me?”
“I fear the reasons I’m not sitting with you are immaculately obvious.”
“Are you going to think about me, sitting here, all night?”
Poorly restrained desire grips his eyes.
“Ceres…I think of you all night…every night. I wake from dreams of you feeling guilty for the reruns that plague me well into the afternoon. When I say I love you , I mean it. Wanting you burns me from the inside out. Every moment with you is bliss I never thought I’d be blessed with.
You are so unbelievably important to me.
I need you to know the power you hold. At your sincere request, I would cast my morals to the curb, but I do believe that we both respect each other more.
You trust me enough to say the things you do, knowing I’m not going to act on them while you’re not emotionally ready, and I trust you won’t destroy me…
even knowing that my destruction is imminent and will be no fault of yours. ”
That’s…
An awful lot of sincere confession given that we have known one another on speaking terms for, oh, a month? What manner of he-falls-first, instalove nonsense is this?
Oh, right.
The kind I devour by the truckload.
I cross my ankles. “I fail to see what I’ve done to deserve such adulation.”
“You’re you.” He threads his fingers together in his lap. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Generally, me is a lot more effort than what I’ve offered you. If I were the me that I perform for strangers, I’d understand. But I’m not. Not with you. Because mimicking your energy would make me sprain something, I’m nearly positive.”
“What a privilege.”
That causes my heart to react, so I cross my ankles the other way. “You know something, Mars?”
“Hm?”
“It’s very hard to be respectful of your feeble sensibilities when I want to kiss you so badly.
” I lower my gaze, pitifully. “Can’t you just sleep on the floor tonight or something?
Classic enemies to lovers with only one bed ends up with the guy sleeping on the floor at least once.
I’m a big fan. I could even stay here tonight and sleep in your bed, to make it more accurate to the trope.
” Practically angelic, I smile at Mars. “See how helpful I am? Total problem solver, right here.”
Mars’s heated gaze travels from my head, to my toes.
He watches my toes curl against his wood floor.
He lets his lashes fall against his cheeks as he releases a sigh.
Rising, he makes his way to me, hooks a finger beneath my chin, and dips his mouth to meet mine.
His lips tease as he drags his curled finger down the line of my throat.
My sense hits me like a train, and I pull back. “You don’t have to. I’m just—”
“Messing. I know.” He kisses my forehead, combs his fingers into my hair, grips his fist, and forces my head back. “But I am weak .” He drags me down until my back hits his bed. “Haunt me.”
Starved for air, I say the only haunting thing I can think of right now: “Mars…I think I like you.”
He exhales a curse and kisses my chin.
“A lot.”
His hand untangles from my hair and finds my waist, pressing fingerprints into my flesh. Bright eyes delve into my brain, and all my nerves light when his thumb moves against me. “Say that again,” he whispers.
I swallow, but my voice still leaves me raw. “I like you.”
His fingers dig into my side before going forcibly lax. “With my name, little goddess. Say my name.”
“I like you, Mars.”
His lips dip and tease and toy without giving me what I need to tame the burning in my chest. Before I lose my mind, stop gripping his comforter, and drag him to me, he says, “Why?”
The hollow word invades my skull, nulling the sensation of his nearness. “Why?” I echo, loosing my fingers from his blanket and cupping his cheek. “Why do I like you?”
He tilts his face into my touch as his eyes half lid, spring green irises swallowed whole by dark pupils.
They say your pupils grow when you look at someone you love. Knowing that, right now, I’d be a fool to think this man doesn’t love me. Even if it has only been a month.
What in the he-falls-first nonsense indeed…
I can’t help myself. I smile. “You’re right,” I say.
“ Right? ” he asks.
“Correct.” I comb my fingers through his hair, let my nails trace his skull.
“Good. Honest. Kind. Sincere. Genuine. Precise. Calculating. Smart. Decent. And…just a tiny bit…mad.” I glance at the creepy smiles lining the walls, joker after joker grinning down at this exact location.
“You’re exactly the kind of character I adore.
Real, but wild. Free. You’re the kind of person I don’t need to pretend in front of because you don’t like or dislike people based on how well they perform.
Being with you…is like breathing. It’s a relief to be around you, Mars. You…are right .”
Lifting my other arm, I wrap him in a hug moments after his eyes close and a tear drops against my cheek. As the moisture falls from my face, he crushes me in his arms, and I lie there, beneath him, doing nothing but trying to match his strength.