Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,83

mean.”

“I mean, it always ends with a kiss, doesn’t it? And that’s supposed to solve all their problems. But Cinderella was still a girl with a family who never loved her. Snow White was still an orphan. Belle was the girl shunned by her entire village because she wanted to read. Rapunzel was locked in a tower and watched the love of her life fall to his death.” He shook his head. “I wanted more than that kiss. I wanted to see the rest of it. I wanted to know how they got past it, how they managed to fight for their happily ever after through all those scars, and all that pain that wouldn’t disappear the moment they fell in love.”

Ilan’s heart thumped, because he knew. He would never understand, because he’d kept himself so guarded that Fredric was the only person who had ever come close to his heart. But he’d seen Fredric’s fight. “Well, maybe it started like this,” he said. He released Fredric’s hand so he could wind it around the back of his neck, and he pressed their bodies together because fuck space between them. “Maybe it started with a dance.”

Fredric had his eyes closed, and his now free hand crept up toward Ilan’s jaw, his fingers tracing the shape of it, drawing lines in his week-old stubble. “And then what?”

“And then a date where they painted shitty cacti,” Ilan said, and he felt a wave of triumph when Fredric laughed. “And then they took walks on the beach and played with the dog and spent Sunday mornings eating shakshuka and then scrubbing the bathrooms.”

Fredric opened his eyes, and Ilan saw they were glassy and soft, pointed to the left of his face. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” Ilan said, “it is.” He brushed his fingers more firmly through Fredric’s hair. “It took a while, because even the prince was terrified that he wasn’t ever going to be good enough or strong enough. And sometimes, he wanted to run away, because he felt like he was going to ruin things. But…he didn’t. He held on, with white knuckles and ragged nails and the jagged shards of hope.”

“Ilan,” Fredric said softly.

It was a moment—a choice. He’d been here before, in Fredric’s kitchen, with his face too close and his breath too warm, the promise of what he would feel like too perfect. But this time, the sky could start falling. A storm could rage. The house could fall down around him, and it wouldn’t matter.

He leaned in, and he closed his eyes, and he felt Fredric’s breath hitch. “Maybe it started with a kiss…” It was the only sound he could get out before Fredric closed the distance between them and sealed their mouths together.

Time stopped. He forgot how to breathe. He forgot everything except those hands holding his face like, if he wasn’t careful, Ilan would shatter under his tender care. And Ilan was half convinced it was true, because he had never felt like this before. He’d had other kisses in his life, but this felt like a first. The way Fredric was tentative and nervous, but relentless with how he moved one hand around the back of Ilan’s head and curled his fingers in his hair. And his lips parted on a sigh, and his tongue met Ilan’s, and he tasted like salt and perfection.

Ilan opened for him—not just his mouth, but the very makeup of his being. He felt cracked in half, his soul exposed, and it was so good it was almost painful as Fredric wrapped around him and pressed in and in and in.

And then it was over. The kiss slowed and gentled to the rhythm of the ending song, and soon, it was just their lips pressed together, then a breath of space. Then inches. Fredric’s hands softened in their hold, but didn’t let go, and it was the only thing that kept Ilan from collapsing into his fear.

Everything had changed again.

“Something is telling me to apologize,” Fredric started, but Ilan pressed their foreheads together and shook his head.

“Don’t you dare.”

“You wanted to take it slow,” Fredric protested, but Ilan smiled because he could tell Fredric didn’t really mean it.

“I do want to take it slow, but I’m done denying my heart what it wants. I don’t know when that moment was for me. I know at the wedding there was something. I didn’t even think to look, but I felt it. I knew it before we went to the gardens