Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
He grips my shoulders and pulls me back just enough to look at me.
His green eyes blaze with fury, pupils blown wide.
Something in his expression breaks though.
The fire in his eyes flickers out like a dying flame, replaced by raw tenderness and stark relief that I am not ready for.
I feel his hands, warm and calloused, reach up and grip the sides of my face.
His thumbs wipe under my eyes. ‘Hey, look at me.’ His voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
Comforting and soothing. ‘You’re all right.
I’ve got you, okay. You hear me?’ He tilts my head back just slightly, so I have no choice to look anywhere but at him. ‘I’ve got you.’
I don’t say a thing. Mostly because I don’t think I can even if I try. But also, because I want to believe him. I want to sink into the safety of his reassuring words and wrap myself in them like a blanket. Words don’t reach my lips, so instead I offer him a shaky nod.
He pulls me in again, tighter this time. One large hand cradles the back of my head as if he can shield me from the cliffs and ocean behind me.
I still don’t know if I can trust him, but I do believe that he will keep me safe. At least in this moment.
Neither of us say anything. The wind whips at my loose strands of hair, and his hand slides up to tuck them behind my ear, slow and careful, as if he’s expecting me to leap away from the gesture.
I don’t. Instead, my eyes flutter close, his touch leaving a trail of warmth that makes my chest ache in a way I don’t have words for.
We kneel there, chest to chest, close enough to feel each other’s heartbeats until my trembling subsides.
When it does, I slowly release the death grip I have on his shirt.
My fingers unclench first, then my head lifts from his shoulder where it was nestled and finally, I sit back.
My hands fall to my lap where I finally have time to process that they’re stinging in pain.
As is my stomach. My shirt has a tear in it just above my belly button, and through it I can see the edge of a red graze from where my skin dragged across the edge as I began to fall. Great, more scars.
‘You’re hurt,’ Sebastian notes, his voice low and rough. He reaches for my hands and turns them over to inspect the damage.
‘I’m fine,’ I lie, yanking them back to my lap.
I’m not.
My palms are raw. But worse than that is the memory of his arms around me and how right it had felt. How safe I felt. How much I wanted to stay there …
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he snaps. Not cruel – just cracked open. ‘Not after that.’ He gestures sharply toward the edge of the cliff. ‘Not after I watched you barely climbing back over the edge of a cliff and I thought my heart fucking stopped.’
I freeze.
‘What?’ I breathe, blinking up at him.
‘You heard me,’ he says, quieter now. He reaches forward and grabs my hands once more and this time I let him. He wipes away tiny pieces of gravel, dislodging them from my skin, his brow furrowed.
‘Sebastian …’
He shakes his head like it hurts to hear me say his voice. ‘Don’t,’ he warns.
‘What did you mean by that?’
‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have said that.’
Now I know how he must have felt after I told him our kiss was nothing.
‘Then why did you?’ I push. Apparently almost dying has made me bold.
The large hands that engulf mine tighten just a little. ‘Stop!’ he demands.
‘No.’ My voice shakes.
‘We need to get your wounds clean.’ He drops my hands like they burnt him and stands abruptly.
‘Fuck my wounds!’ I snap, lurching to my feet despite the shakiness in my legs. I reach for him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look at me. ‘What did you mean?’ My voice cracks. ‘For once just tell me something, Sebastian. Tell me something real,’ I demand, desperate and half broken.
‘You want something real?’ he shouts, crowding me in with his large frame.
I nod.
Yes, Stars, yes. I need it. I crave it.
‘You drive me fucking crazy, Arianell. How’s that for real?’
My mouth opens, but he cuts me off. He’s not done. I gulp.
‘I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to act like I don’t care about you. Pretending I hate you. Only to watch you throw yourself into a life you never wanted, a life in Malachite, and realise that I fucking do care!
‘Every time you’ve been hurt. Every time you step out of the ring with your skin painted black and blue. Every day I hear how Lillian had to bring you food because you won’t fucking eat! It’s driven me mad. I can’t move without looking for you. I can’t even fucking sleep.’
My body seems to have shut down. Am I breathing? I don’t think I’ve even blinked.
‘W-what are you saying?’ I force the words past my lips.
His eyes bore into me, as if he can look through them and down into my pounding heart.
‘I’m saying that if you fell from that cliff, I would have jumped down there to save you, or died trying!
’ He closes the last few inches of space between us and grips my face with both hands.
His chest rises and falls quickly, as if he too can’t believe the words falling from his mouth.
‘I care about you, Ria. That’s what I’m saying. That’s my fucking truth.’
Ria.
Stars. There it is again.
His name, for me. The one he started calling me years ago when he’d come to visit. I used to look forward to hearing it; it was my guilty pleasure. Now it makes my heart ache.
My lower lip starts to tremble. His eyes drop – first to my mouth, then they flick back up to mine. I should say something. I should push him away. I should run.
But I don’t. I asked for this. I practically forced him to tell me what he meant, and he did. He did and yet, I wasn’t expecting his answer to cause my chest to feel like it’s caving inward.
I didn’t realise it at first, but I’ve leaned into his touch. Just slightly, but it’s enough for my breath to catch and brush against his.
His forehead dips to touch against mine and we stand there like that for a long moment. Frozen between pent -up fury and what I’m starting to realise feels a lot like longing. I feel his breath on my lips – it’s as uneven as my own.
‘Say it,’ I whisper desperately. ‘Say my name.’ I just need to hear it one more time. Just once.
His warm hands slip from the sides of my face, down to my neck. His thumbs caress my jawline, his touch so soft it hurts.
‘Ria.’
My lips part on a gasp that he seems to swallow. I feel his mouth brush against mine.
Barely.
A whisper of a kiss, there and then gone, and it takes everything in me to not press myself closer. This feels different than our first kiss. That was rushed and sudden. I start to wonder if I kissed him now, would it be soft or demanding? Slow or devastating?
I tell myself I’ll never know as I start to pull back. I got what I wanted, his truth. Now it’s time to put a stop to this. But his hands tighten their hold on my neck and jaw. His pupils swallow the green of his iris as he looks at me like an animal locking in on its prey.
‘Don’t,’ is all he says before his lips fall against mine.