CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE DIEGO #2
“That’s normal. Grief isn’t easy, and sometimes, for some people, it gets harder as time goes by.
That’s okay.” She parks the car and turns to me.
I didn’t even realize that almost thirty minutes had gone by.
Unbuckling herself, Alara shifts in her seat to cradle my face.
If she feels the tremble of my jaw beneath her fingers, she doesn’t let on.
“Thank you for sharing this with me. Thank you for trusting me. Not everyone is going to leave, Diego. Especially not me, if you’re okay with that. ”
I can’t help but lean into her touch. “I’d like that very much.”
We don’t speak about the future. Don’t mention what happens when I leave.
I don’t tell her that I want to come back here – permanently – and that she’s the reason the idea planted itself in the first place.
Obviously, there are other contributing factors, such as my sisters, my mom, my friends and especially Jordan, whom I’ve grown even closer to lately.
But the way I feel about Alara is what pushed me to make a decision.
Alara’s an ambitious and driven woman, and I know that she’d follow me to the ends of the earth if things ever got serious between us.
But she’s rooted here, and I can be too.
She has a job that makes her happy, and she’s on a quest for a master’s that’ll open doors in her social media journey.
My job? I can do it here – where it all started.
Still, I don’t know when I’ll be able to relocate or even if Coach will allow me to. Until I’m sure I can make this my home base again, I refuse to pursue anything romantic with her. It’s better if we keep things like this for the time being. Right?
I lean in to capture her lips in a soft kiss, the whisper of unspoken words tangling with the mingling of our breaths.
Thank you.
I want to deepen the kiss, but the song on the radio makes me stop. A chuckle rumbles in my chest at the realization. This is a sign from the universe – it’s telling me that Dad is watching from above. That he’s got my back no matter what.
“What?” She pulls away, smiling. This smile? It’s everything to me.
Then, she thumbs a tear away, which makes me realize that I started crying again as soon as the first note of the song came out of the speakers.
“This is the song my parents danced to at their wedding.” “Amazed” by Lonestar. I know all the lyrics by heart.
Her gaze softens and, a beat later, she’s out of the car and rounding it until she opens the door on my side. “Come here.”
A laugh escapes me, but I undo my seatbelt and leave the warmth of the vehicle. The snow crunches beneath my sneakers as I step toward her outstretched hand. When I try to close the door, she doesn’t let me, and the sound of the music filters through the open air.
I don’t look around, don’t revel in the view of the place she’s driven to, because I’m too mesmerized by her. By the sprinkling of snow tumbling down the bridge of her button nose. By the snowflake catching in a strand of dark hair. By the blush rising on her cheeks when my palm connects to hers.
“What exactly are we doing?” I ask, my voice a gravelly rasp.
“Dancing.”
One hand in mine, I make her spin before pulling her into my chest. My smile widens when she looks up at me, wrapping my other arm around her waist while hers finds my shoulder.
She has no fucking clue, does she? Of how much this means to me.
I’ve wished, so many times, to find a love like the one my parents had.
To find a partner who’d dance with me, who’d share my pain and success and happiness, who’d love me without limits or conditions.
She has no fucking clue that she’s everything to me.
Placing my chin atop her head, we gently sway to the music, letting the synced drums of our heartbeats do the talking.
I’ll never try to understand how she’s managed to tilt my universe on its axis. Alara has woven her way into my heart so effortlessly, so easily, and I never stood a chance at protecting myself from her.
I wrap both arms around her waist and spin us around, the snow falling even harder around us and cocooning us in a bubble of growing trust and deep devotion.
She laughs, tilting her head back, and when I set her back down on her feet, she’s staring up at me with that smile she reserves for me. I tilt her chin up with my knuckles, lowering my lips to hers in a soft, gentle kiss. Fireworks explode inside me, lighting me up and weakening me at the knees.
Our tongues meet, slowly, sensually, and there’s something different about this moment, yet I can’t pinpoint what’s changed.
I keep her torso flush to mine, pouring so many unspoken feelings into our kiss.
I’m scared of voicing them, of admitting them out loud, but I hope she can understand them from the way I kiss her like the world’s ending.
She kisses with equal intensity, and I fucking plummet into an abyss of adoration.
I can’t climb to the surface.
I’m drowning, I’m falling, and I want her to come with me.
The universe might be laughing at me right now. I didn’t want this to be anything more than casual sex, yet here I am realizing that my feelings for her are deep, uncontrollable. I was a fool to think I’d be able to be nothing more than her friend. I knew, from the start, that she’d ruin me.
We pull apart, and she pecks the tip of my cold nose. “Want to know something?” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“You’re my favorite person.”
My heart skips several beats. It’s an admission that confirms she’s on the same page as me. “And you’re mine, Alara. You don’t understand how much I adore you.” I think another word is resting on the tip of my tongue, trying to batter its way out of my system, but I can’t bring myself to say it.
She buries her face in my coat, and for the remainder of the song, we stay like this, tangled and safe in each other’s arms.
When the next song starts playing, she steps out of my hold.
“Where are we?” I ask, finally looking around.
My breath loses itself in my lungs as I marvel at the view.
We’ve stopped on top of a hill, in the middle of pine trees covered in snow.
On the horizon, we can see a part of the city, but what fascinates me is the view we have of the resort and its sheer beauty.
At the snow park, several riders, looking like tiny dots, are practicing their skills under the bright glow of the lamps. A stabbing sensation punches me in the heart – I wish I were with them. I wish I were one of them, but if I keep on believing everything will be alright, I’ll be back soon.
“This is my favorite place in town,” Alara says. “My safe place. My getaway. I like to come here, even in the summer, to read or just stare at the view. It’s quiet, as if the world isn’t too loud when I’m up in these hills.”
You’re my safe place, my heart screams.
Christ, I’m so far gone it’s not even funny.
I shake my head, completely in awe of what I’m looking at. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something quite this beautiful.
“This is insane.” I breathe out with disbelief. “Breathtaking.”
When I turn to Alara, she’s already staring at me, her eyes glowing with a tenderness that renders me speechless for a moment. She’s so impossibly, unbelievably stunning that I find it hard to breathe. It’s a privilege to have her look at me this way, as though she’s admiring her favorite painting.
“Shit, don’t look at me like that,” I huff, with a quiet chuckle.
“You make me so nervous that I’m going to forget how to speak or something.
” I have no ability to control myself when I’m with her, so idiocies like that one just get blurted out by my lizard brain.
She makes me lose my sense of everything, and when she makes me nervous as fuck like this?
I can’t manage to think properly at all.
A sweet laugh bubbles out of her. She knows it’s a coping mechanism – to joke around and flirt with her when my emotions get intense. I’ve never had to tell her, because she can read me easily.
Cupping her cheeks, I rapidly peck her lips. “How can I thank you for showing me this place?”
“Use your imagination.”
Just like that, at the sound of the intonation she’s used – dripping with seduction – my mood shifts, and I’m intent on leaving all the emotional shit behind and taking her into the backseat of the car.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say with a smirk. Slamming the passenger-side door, I open the one to the backseat and push her inside the car.
She giggles, but makes haste to take off her coat. Her hair is full of snowflakes and her cheeks are red, but her eyes are glinting with a desire that has my cock hardening in a heartbeat.
Even though no one’s around, I reach forward to lock the car from the inside, and when I plop back down beside Alara, she’s already out of her boots and socks, climbing on my lap.
She bumps her head on the top of the car, but my chuckle dies in my throat when she kisses me with an urgency that leaves me gasping for air.
I’m out of my fleece jacket in seconds, her hips undulating and creating the most addictive friction on my arousal. She shivers when my palms skate beneath her jumper to trace her silken skin.
Pulling her sweater off, we break our kiss, and I instantly let out a grunt of pure satisfaction when I see her breasts ready to spill out of her lacy red bra.
“Fucking sexy,” I say, before kissing those swells I’m so obsessed with. “This might be my favorite one yet.”
“I figured you’d say that. Also, let’s make this fair,” she mumbles, tugging at my own sweater. She takes it off, along with my t-shirt, baring my chest to her. As always, her fingertips skim my pecs, and I think she may have a thing for them.
“Happy?” I suction a patch of skin on her chest, leaving my mark.
Mine.