I wonder if I’ve gone too far, been too honest, said too much. Guys Alex’s age don’t talk about falling in love. They say you’re ‘seeing each other’ or ‘talking’ to avoid even calling you their girlfriend.
But he takes a slow, cautious step forward, heat radiating off him like a furnace. “Why not?” he asks. “I’m not good enough?”
“No! Of course not! God, Alex. I want you. I want all of those things! I want you to touch me. I want you to kiss me more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
“Then just give in, Silver! Stop fucking fighting so hard.”
“I’m not fighting!”
“Yes, you are. You have been since the moment we met. Before we even met!” He huffs down his nose. “Fight the hard stuff. The wrong stuff. But stop fighting me. I’m neither of those things. Just…trust me.”
I’m so close to tears. “I don’t know how, Alex.” If I so much as breathe right now, I’m going to fall to pieces, and I desperately don’t want that.
He steps into me. A frigid breeze whips through the clearing between the cabin and the lake, and his wavy, dark hair blows across his face. It swirls around his head as the wind eddies, and I'm struck for the millionth time that he can't possibly be real. This dark, tortured soul, covered in so much ink, standing before me isn't the kind of creature to find his way into my life and somehow make it better. He was meant for other things.
A wolf and a rose—savage and wild, beautiful and tender. A dichotomy if ever I saw one. I realize for the very first time that the ink on the backs of Alex's hands really are an accurate representation of him. I stare at them as he slowly lifts his hand, and then he's carefully stroking his thumbs over my cheekbones, cradling my face so reverently that I think he's worried I might shatter against him.
His voice is filled with emotion as he sighs out his next words. “I promise. You won’t even need to try, Argento. I’ll make it as easy as breathing.” He moves with infinite patience, slowly, giving me every opportunity to bolt. Somehow, despite my heart fluttering in my chest like an injured bird, I stay rooted to the ground, my feet bare in the earth, as he bows down to meet me, lifting my face to him, and he kisses me.
I've been kissed before, but not like this. Not like it means something. Not like it really is a promise. It starts slow, tentative, gentle, but I can feel the unrest in him. I know he wants to claim me with his mouth, but he holds back. He's patient with me, and I…I begin to feel the fractured pieces inside me slowly starting to hurt a little less. His fingers thread into my hair as he slowly guides my mouth open.
The moment the wet heat of his tongue touches my lips, something is kindled in me—the beginnings of a fire I already know will burn out of control if given half a chance. I’m hot all over, eaten alive by both fear and need as he pulls me to him, firmly holding me against his chest. The taste of him fills my head, cool and fresh like mint.
I surprise myself when I reach up and place my hand at the back of his neck, pulling down so he can kiss me harder. Maybe I’m proving something to myself now, meeting him in the middle, daring to slide my tongue into his mouth, too. I can do this. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted before. I fit against him, so much smaller than him, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place, and in one blindingly quick moment, I begin to believe in this. In him. In us. That there can be an us, without the fear that’s been festering in me like a poison ruining everything in the span between heartbeats.
I didn’t know it, but I’ve been waiting for him for a long time now.
When he pulls away, breath ragged, eyes wide, his pupils are blown, turning his irises almost black. “That's it then, Argento. The decision's been made. You're mine, and I'm yours. And the whole of Raleigh High is gonna know about it by five minutes past eight, Tuesday morning.”
18
ALEX
“Wake up, Passerotto. I made you something good. Alessandro, mi amore, open your eyes.”
The smell of caramelized sugar and the sound of