Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Thea could not keep her hands to herself. If this were a prison, she would have been written up for breaking the “no touching rule” at least thirty-seven times tonight.
She touched his hand, his back, his chest. When no one looked, she let her palm run down the plump curve of his backside through his black jeans, and he winked at her.
Her hands changed their molecular makeup, altering electrons until Draven’s body became a magnet to them. Invisible strings yanked her to him at all times.
Watching Draven dote on his eighty-two-year-old grandmother all night, watching him sign complete sentences, one after another, to express how grateful he was for Thea in his life… Was a person’s heart supposed to feel like this? Like a marshmallow dropped into a campfire. Hissing and popping and melting to liquid goo.
He was a summer night bonfire, filling her lungs with a smoky haze. Too hot to sit close to. Too beautiful and entrancing to look away from. She wondered if one quick touch would be enough to burn. Would the pain be worth the aftercare?
How could one man be a scorching flame and a soothing salve all at once?
After returning to their apartment, Thea left him for only as long as it took her to change into comfortable pajamas. Reemerging from her room in fuzzy, light blue shorts and an oversized white T-shirt, she beamed at him as he ran a hand over his mouth and staggered back, acting like the sight of her in such simple pajamas had the same effect as a five-thousand-dollar ballgown.
Was it unusual to look at a partner and think, “ I would like to keep him forever, please? ” Was that how soulmates felt?
Draven walked to her, striding forward until the toes of his feet touched hers. He handed her a note. “ I want you in my bed again tonight, Thea .”
She tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. Then, she shot him a goofy I-have-the-biggest-crush-on-this-man grin as she rapidly nodded. Yes. His bed. Sleep. Chatting. Sex. Whatever you want, because odds are, I want it too , she thought.
He scooped her up like she weighed nothing as she yelped in alarm before happily settling into his arms and nuzzling her face into his warm chest. Can I nest here? All she needed was some water, maybe some vitamins.
Honestly, the word “home” was a synonym for Draven Maxwell’s arms. How do I contact the people who handle Thesauruses?
He gently set her down on his soft mattress and gestured for her to stay. He signed, “ I’m going to go get, ” then mimicked shaking and spraying a can of whipped cream.
Giggling, she laid back on the bed and flailed her arms and legs out, making a bedsheet version of a snow angel, leaving evidence that she was once here.
Waiting for her boyfriend—that term felt so small compared to the man she referenced—Thea peered around his room. Her gaze caught on all those crumpled balls of paper on the floor.
She recalled once, after waking in his bed with a hangover, that when she tried to see what the papers were, he dove for them. He had been desperate to keep her eyes off them.
Were they bills? Was he in debt?
She fiddled with her thumbs, fighting the temptation to uncrumple and read a few and solve the pending mystery. She had never seen Draven mad before, but she had also never invaded his privacy before. Other than watching him masturbate that one time —but he seemed happy to allow her a front-row seat.
What harm would it do if he walked in and saw her looking at one of those balls of paper?
Jumping from the mattress, abandoning all self-control, Thea grabbed the closest paper ball and straightened it, recognizing Draven’s handwriting.
“ Need insecticide
for these butterflies.
Infiltration in my chest.
Call an exterminator;
we’ll need the best .”
Poetry? No . Song lyrics. Draven was writing songs? Why had he crumpled them up? She scanned further down the page. Even through the heavy crossed-out words, she read, “ Thea, like a tree—ahh, sappy for you. Wow, I’m an idiot .”
He was writing songs about her?
She sprinted to the next balled-up piece of paper, greedy for more of his inner thoughts and feelings.
“ You’re a horror movie,
where I can’t look away.
I’d follow you to the basement,
be any dumb character you want me to play.
Would summon the ghosts
to hold your hand through the haunting.
Would walk into the chainsaw
To eliminate space between us.
My woman loves horror movies.
Honey, the scariest scene is yet to come.
If you leave, I will never… ”
He had stopped writing it.
She snatched up another ball of paper. She knew he would find her reading. He would walk into the room any moment and catch her, but she could not stop herself.
“ I’d reopen every wound
to let you crawl through.
Every scar sliced anew
just to see you under my skin,
to show you how deep of an imprint.
Burned your initials into my bones,
so even the archaeologists will know.
Tattooed your name onto my lips;
they’ll never know another lonely kiss .”
Emotion simmered beneath her skin. The pores opened to purge the overwhelming rise of giddiness and hope and affection and pain and love and fear. Fear over the potential heartbreak.
“ He is more than a rebound ,” she had told herself. What a joke.
He is everything . How he became everything in so short a time, she could not recall. There was no one moment. There were simply many . Many small and big. Words. Gestures. Actions. Facial expressions.
His bright green eyes reminded her of the sly Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland . This whole time, she fell down the rabbit hole, never realizing how deep it was until she landed here, in Draven’s bedroom, holding his poetic thoughts about her. Pieces of his soul, touched by hers, memorialized on paper.
When he walked back into his bedroom, holding a can of whipped cream, and saw her holding the crumpled pieces of paper, he froze.
No anger rolled across his face, only shock. Nervousness. Fear.
She placed the papers carefully onto his bedside dresser.
Stepping toward him, she took the can from his hands and tossed it behind her onto the bed. She grabbed his shirt by the collar, yanked him to her, and kissed him like this was the end of a romantic movie.
But she didn’t watch romantic movies. She watched high-stakes action and horror. Her lips attacked his. Space between them was enemy number one. Bodies pressed together; they fell onto the bed as one. The mattress bounced them into the air, but soon, they sank so deep that they discovered the center of the earth. His lips never left hers.
Invisible bullets shot through her chest, only to find that her heart was no longer there. He had it now. And she knew he would die to protect it.
His mouth possessed hers as he turned her to her back, lifting himself above her on two strong, delicious forearms. Her spine arched against the bed; her vertebrae bent just to get her closer to him. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed every inch of it. Cheeks, forehead, lips, nose, chin.
He pulled back to say something to her. She memorized the motion of his lips. She knew that familiar order of mouth movements.
Either he was asking for “ olive juice ” or saying, “ I love you .”
He loves me too .
An atomic bomb of feeling went off behind her ribcage. Lust and love combined in a combustion sure to wipe out civilization if she ever let it. Fighting the overwhelming desire to maul him, she pressed a palm to his heart, then to her own, and she nodded.
She signed, “ I love you .”
A dark, brazen expression blazed across his features as he saw what she signed. An intense, wicked, and blistering gleam shone in those green eyes.
He knew exactly what she signed.
She had a feeling his “waiting to have sex” inkling burned into ashes.
Because his cock surged between them, and his hand slid down to cup her throat. His thighs glided between her legs, splaying them open as his bulge pressed firmly to her aching core. She panted and moaned, her throat vibrating under his gentle, dominating fingers.
He whispered something against her jaw.
She imagined it was something along the lines of: “I fucking love you, and now I’m going to love fucking you.”