Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Yes”—I look to the ceiling, my eyes starting to get lazy—“all of this is your fault.”
The fact that I love him.
The fact that he won’t love me back.
“I fucked up,” he rasps against my skin.
“So then how are you going to make it up to me?” I ask.
And he stills.
He looks up, his eyes dark and drugged.
And I continue, repeating what he said to me the night I found out that I had, indeed, done what I’d set out to do. Melt him and eat his words.
“How are you going to make it up for a year worth of torture? How are you going to make up for making me watch you and watch you from afar? For making me wait and hope and cry and for what? For one kiss. One kiss, Stellan. It was just a kiss. And you wouldn’t even give it to me. You refused to give it to me. How are you going to make up for that? For making me chase you, run after you, lie for you, cheat for you. All because you wouldn’t kiss me. I danced with another man for you. I flirted with another man for you. I used him because I loved you so much.” My breaths are shallow and rapid, my eyes are stinging. “I love you so much, Stellan. How are you going to make up for making me fall in love with you?”
He rubs the apple of my cheek with his rough thumb as he cradles my face so tenderly, with such reverence that I want to weep.
I want to kiss him.
Then I want to dance for him and flirt with him and love him. All the things that I wanted to do but he wouldn’t let me.
“It’s a long list, isn’t it,” he says, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine. “The crimes I’ve committed against you.”
I fist his collar. “Yes.”
“So I’m going to start with the latest one.”
“What’s your latest crime?”
In response, he moves me, he hikes my thighs up, and adjusts himself in a way that his hard abdomen is pressing right there.
Where I’m all achy and swollen.
Where I’ve been all achy and swollen since… I don’t even know when. All I know is that I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t aching. I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t hurting.
He presses against that tender, pulsating part of me and says, “Standing outside your door.”
I arch my back and rub my swollen core against him. “What?”
“Every fucking night.”
My hands are fisted in his collar and tug at it as I ask, “W-what?”
“You told me to guard your door, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“You…” I tug harder at his collar. “You’ve been… standing outside my d-door every night?”
He moves his jaw back and forth, his fingers flexing in my hair. “Yeah. Sometimes I pace. Sometimes I stand at the end of whatever hallway we’re in, far away from it. Sometimes I stand against the opposite wall. But sometimes”—he licks his lips—“I stand right there. Against your door and listen.”
“You l-listen?”
“Yeah. To you.”
“Me?
Again, his jaw moves as if he’s mulling the words, measuring how much to say. So I bring my fingers down from his hair to his face and cradle his cheek. I cup his hard jaw, hoping that my soft touch will let him know that it’s okay.
It’s okay to tell me whatever it is he want to tell me.
He can tell me all his secrets, all his aches and pains and fears and desires. And I will keep them in my pocket and cherish them like little stars.
“Sometimes you’re just moving around,” he says, his voice rough and low. “I hear your little feet rustling on the carpet. Sometimes you’re humming. Actually, you’re always humming. Softly, sweetly. Like there’s always a song stuck in your head. Sometimes you talk to yourself. But you do it so low that I can’t always catch it. But sometimes I can. Especially when you’re doing lines, rehearsing, and then you stop and I hear a scratching sound as if you’re writing something on the paper, making little notes. Sometimes the TV’s on and you’re watching something. You’re shouting at the TV. Sometimes you burst out laughing and it becomes really hard.”
I rub my thumb on his cheek. “What becomes hard?”
He looks up. So far, he’s been studying my face. Staring at my throat when he talked about humming. Staring at my lips when he mentioned laughing.
But now he looks into my eyes. “To stay on the other side.”
I want to tell him that he shouldn’t have.
That he should’ve just knocked, and I would’ve let him in.
I know I was concerned about all of this being appropriate or not, but if he’d asked for me to let him into my world, I would have. That is all I’ve ever wanted anyway.