19. Solomon #3
“I happen to like mac and cheese.” Her voice is closer and I hear the soft sounds of her steps on the carpet.
I open my eyes and find her standing in front of me, close enough to touch.
“I’m serious, Sol. I’m not here to take care of you.
Do I feel bad that your mom is apparently a raging bitch?
Of course. But this is where I would have wanted to be even if I hadn’t witnessed that. ”
She’s so close. With our height difference, her face is just above my eye level when sitting.
Her pretty blue eyes are locked on mine, wide and a little fierce.
And her hair—that gorgeous, silky brown hair that I always want to be touching is flowing down around her shoulders.
Without thinking, I reach up and take a lock of it between my fingers.
Her breath hitches a little, and my heart starts to pound.
“Wouldn’t you rather be out with your friends?” Her hair feels every bit as silken as I imagined. I want to gather it all up in my hands, bury my face in it, inhale the scent of peppermint that always seems to be clinging to her.
“No,” she says, her voice unsteady.
I shake my head. “You’re always surrounded by people. Always the center of everything. Laughing and talking, so fucking bright, wherever you go. A million miles away from me.”
Her hand comes up, hesitant, and then she’s cupping the side of my face. “I’m not a million miles away right now.”
I stare up into her face. “It’s so strange,” I mutter, more to myself than her.
“One of the things my parents always lost their shit about is how I never looked anyone in the eye.” Apparently, that made me rude.
I was always sure it really bothered them because it was an unmistakable example of how different I was from other people.
I take more hair between my fingers, moving my hand until I’m cradling the back of her head. “But I never have a problem looking at your eyes.”
“Solomon,” she whispers.
“They’re just so fucking pretty,” I mutter, eyes scanning her face. “All of you, Cecelia. So ridiculously beautiful.”
“You’re wearing your glasses again,” she says softly, and I tilt my head, a little confused.
“Yeah. I didn’t want to bother with contacts. Didn’t sleep much, so my eyes were pretty tired.”
She’s staring at me so intently. “I like them,” she says, her cheeks getting pink, and it’s so damn cute I have to bite back a groan. “Your glasses, I mean. You look really, really good in glasses.”
My eyebrows go up. “I do?”
She nods eagerly. “I don’t know what it is but, yeah. Totally hot in glasses, Barnes.”
I don’t know who moves into the kiss first—probably me. It just seems like the most natural thing in the world to pull her closer, to press my lips against hers. Natural and completely necessary. Like something terrible might happen if I don’t.
I deepen the kiss and she makes a little noise in her throat and suddenly there’s way too much distance between us.
I pull her in so she’s standing between my lags, wrapping my arm around her waist while the other hand remains firm on the back of her head.
She grips my shoulders and then—holy shit, she lifts her legs over mine so she’s straddling me and my brain completely shuts off.
Then she takes the same glasses she had just been praising off my face, setting them carefully on the nightstand, before kissing me again, even more desperately this time.
There are so many reasons to put a stop to this. I could get kicked out of the program if anyone found out. It could be embarrassing for Cecelia. It’s a distraction from the work I’m supposed to be doing, a distraction from the team.
Even worse, there’s a very good chance that going any farther with her will end up with me feeling far more fucked up than I did after my run in with Sybil. I’ve had twenty-two years to get used to the way my parents make me feel. All things considered, they really can’t hurt me anymore.
But Cecelia Ransome could wreck me.
I’ve known it since the first time I laid eyes on her at that party her freshman year.
She’s too beautiful, too funny, too talented.
She’s warm and easy and brave and loving—everything I’m not.
It won’t take her long to realize that. Yeah, she might be attracted to me.
Might like me enough to go to all this trouble tonight to pull me out of my mood. Might even enjoy spending time with me.
But it won’t be more than that. Not once she realizes how different I really am.
Cecelia and I do not make sense together, and I know I’m the one who’s going to end up hurting when she realizes it.
The really fucked up thing, though? I can’t bring myself to care.
Not if it means stopping. Not if it means ending this kiss or giving up the feel of her body against mine.
Not if it means losing the needy little sounds she’s making or the feel of her hair running through my fingers or the way her hands are clinging to my shoulders.
In that moment I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m not going to be the one to walk away from this. And if that means I end up hurting later, so be it.
I’m pretty sure Cecelia is worth it.