Chapter 28 #2
“Anything for you, Celine,” he murmured. His lashes fluttered then, and he met her stare.
“Really?” she teased. “Anything?”
“Within reason,” he added. “I would never agree to wearing yellow for you, never, except for a ribbon maybe, but I wouldn’t object to your other, tamer requests.”
“Mon Dieu, you and your nonsense.” They were still swaying slowly, even as the music coming from below had picked up the pace, content to remain in that haze of lazy smiles. Celine bit down on her lip. “You like me that much, huh?”
“I don’t kiss people I don’t like,” Bastien said.
“Yes, but you do kiss a lot of people. Like Jeanne…” she trailed off. Bastien inclined his head at her level, nudging her neck with the tip of his nose. “…and Elana,” Celine continued, suddenly finding it difficult to string three words together.
“I don’t feel half the things about Elana that I feel about you, Celine.”
They were standing close enough for her to feel his heartbeat like a ticking clock between them. It was racing wildly. Hers was doing the same tricks in her chest, thumping at a clamorous staccato.
“And what is it that you feel about me?”
Celine looked at him under the flashing neon lights of the cabarets all around them. They reflected in his eyes like colourful fireworks, stark against the night sky. Bewitched, she leaned closer, lips only a few inches from grazing his.
“Bas?” she prompted.
He only said, “Don’t do this, Cel,” and looked away.
“Do what?”
“I want you, you want me. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
Celine reared back, cutting him an icy glare. “No, it’s not okay.”
“Celine—” He extended his arm. “Come on.”
“No, there’s no come on.” Her face contorted into a pained expression.
“I just left a whole party back there,” she bellowed.
“A party, mind you, that my mother spent months terrorising employees over it.” Suddenly, she clutched at the sides of her head as though the realisation had just settled in.
“I just left Jacques so that I could come here. With you.”
How could Bastien take the matter this lightly?
“And?” he put forth.
“And?” she echoed, bewildered.
He lifted his hand as though he might reach for her, then thought better when he noted the anger in the scrunch of her brows. His hand dropped. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You know,” Celine huffed a sort of manic chuckle, “I was considering telling Jacques no, mainly because I couldn’t fathom us being happy in a marriage where everything is one-sided.
But now, to disappoint everyone? And for what, yet another one-sided love?
” She broke off before he could detect the crack in her voice. “I don’t even know why I came here.”
“You don’t love him,” Bastien stated. “That’s why you came.”
“He loves me,” Celine returned obstinately. “And I was just about to fall for him, too, when you ruined everything.”
“You were the one who asked me to kiss you, Celine. Not the other way around.”
“So what? Maybe I had a stroke that day and got it in my head to kiss you. You think I wanted to ruin my relationship because I couldn’t stop thinking about you?”
She was shouting now; louder than the music from below; louder than the roar from the street; louder than Celine should be shouting such confessions. But she desperately wanted to urge a confession out of him too, even an angry one, as long as he said the words.
Bastien drew closer, utterly unaffected by her anger. “You couldn’t stop thinking about me?”
That’s what he was focusing on!
“Do not smile at me like that,” Celine warned.
“Why?” The corners of his mouth pulled into a wider grin. He had backed her up against the balustrade, his hands on either side of her, blocking any of Celine’s attempts to squirm away. “Because you stop being angry with me when I smile like this? Do I affect you that much, Celine?”
For the briefest moment, Celine hesitated. She squeezed her eyes shut, cursing herself. “No. You,” she seethed, “do not affect me at all.”
That was possibly the biggest lie she had ever told. Celine bit down on her molars, straining to resist the urge that pulsed at her wrist, seeking her attention, the bite of her nails. She couldn’t give in to her tell-tale habit. He knew about it, he had noticed.
To her utter disbelief, something was already brushing against her skin in feather-soft circles.
Bastien was holding her arms pinned on the balustrade, his thumb moving back and forth on the inside of her wrist.
“Liar,” he whispered and allowed himself the briefest glance at her lips before kissing her.
Any thoughts of revolting fleeted away as Celine’s body melted against him. Letting go of her wrists, Bastien moved his hands up to her jawline, tilting her head back. He pressed a kiss to her throat.
“You think I like tossing and turning all night, every night since we kissed, because I can’t stop thinking about you?”
Celine couldn’t push him away any more than she could stop herself from sinking her fingers into his hair and kissing him back.
There was no explanation she could conjure to justify what she was doing.
Jacques, her family, her friends, they were all at the party, celebrating the birthday of a girl who wasn’t even there; a girl who was currently kissing someone she shouldn’t be kissing, and who didn’t want to stop.
Because the pure bliss that she was feeling right now, Celine had only felt when she was inside Maison Baudelaire, doing what she loved most. Doing what she had always wanted to do.
But at this moment, all she wanted was Bastien.
Bastien drew back, leaving no more than a sliver of space between them. His breathing was ragged, his lips, just like hers Celine imagined, were a raw pink. Bastien ran a rough hand through his hair, disarraying the strands Celine had already mussed. “You think I like feeling this way?” he asked.
“What way?” she breathed.
Please.
Do not let all of this be for nothing.
“Say it,” she pressed, angling her head to peer at him when he looked away. No answer. She wanted to shake him. “Bastien. Say it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t—I can’t love you,” he forced out. “Not the way you want me to.”
The night air fluttered between them, cold and cutting through the stillness between them. Celine’s heart was pounding too loudly in her ears, muffling everything else.
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “Am I not enough?”
“You are,” he rushed to say. “You are more than enough. You are everything.”
There was a but he was holding back. And it hung between them like a blade that would shear off the tether looped around their hearts.
“You know me, Celine. I get bored—I get bored fast. I just want to have what there is to be had at the moment. I told you, no strings.”
Celine squeezed her eyes shut against the uncomfortable prickle of tears. She wanted him too—but she wanted more than just fun, more than just the moment. She wanted all the strings there were between them attached and permanent.
“I will not be tossing everything away for just fun,” she stated flatly, and untangled herself from his grasp. “Drive me back. Jacques is waiting for me.”
“You are really going to say yes? To the man who stood there and said nothing while you looked like you were drowning in that room?”
“At least he is better than the man who did all of this for a game.”
“It wasn’t a game.”
“Really? What was it then?” Celine’s chest rose and fell with angry breaths. Once again, Bastien said nothing. “It’s my fault, really, for believing you could be better. Let’s go.”
Bastien didn’t move. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “So you are going to go through with this engagement out of spite?”