mind rocking me into a space filled with nothing but Brando Fausti.
After he had told me his version of the story of our meeting in the snow, I had yawned, my eyes closing, my mind shutting down. His words had brought peace, and I settled into the feeling, into him, like protective armor against the sharpness of the world.
Much later, I had come awake with my head against his chest, my body cradled in his arms, while he sat in the same chair he had occupied during the night, sleeping. Besides the fire, we had nothing else to keep us warm. I didn’t seem to need it. His body temperature ran hot enough that I never felt chilled.
Just a hint of light had peeked through the sky, covering the abandoned house in a hazy glow. Fog had settled onto the ground, hovering over morning dew. The same chill had clouded the windows that were not boarded up, and the world seemed distorted from my view. Water occasionally dripped down broken panes in erratic rivulets.
I could smell the abuse, the abandonment in the lungs of the old house circulating under my nose, only rivaled by the smell of the man underneath me. He still smelled like the lingering sweetness from the suckers and his cologne. There was something else, something I couldn’t place, but knew it belonged to him only. A scent that made me think of one of the safest words known to man, home.
I had tried not to move. I wanted to watch him during the predawn.
His face in the light had been even more heartbreaking than his face had been in the darkness. He was so beautiful that my heart and body ached from his perfection. But the catch was that he wasn’t perfect—there was something rugged about him, something wild and unforgiving.
What he did to Carlos? That was forgiving compared to what he could do. I had felt it, the rage that he kept locked up.
The straight in me seemed to be mesmerized by the jagged in him.
His lashes had fluttered then, long and dark against his cheeks. His wide mouth turned up in a sleepy grin. His eyes slowly opened to meet mine. In the light, they were still brown, but lighter in the sun.
The black ring around his irises gave his eyes a three-dimensional look, making them almost shocking. No doubt stunning. Looking into his eyes was like looking into a lethal beast’s soul—the risk worth the uncertainty, the surrender and sacrifice. It was nothing he had done, action wise, to give me this impression. Not yet. This peculiar sense of mine when it came to him ran deep. What I saw in his eyes backed up what hummed in my blood. Danger and intensity and calculated rage. All of these things drew me to my opposite. This dangerous creature had hypnotized the innocence in me. The potential to become a raging beast lurked in the depths, though he kept it under lock and key, secure enough. For now.
It didn’t scare me. It intrigued me.
“Hey,” he had whispered, his voice going so low that I shivered.
“Hey.” My voice sounded shattered, almost timid.
He looked past me, at no place in particular. “You’re going to be late for school.”
“What makes you think I’m going to school?”
His eyes found mine again, serious, solid. All traces of his softer demeanor gone. “You have to.”
For some reason, I could only nod, a numbness settling over my bones at the thought of him leaving me behind. I knew he was safe, and would be, but the uncertainty of when I would see him again stung the only part of myself that I could feel at the moment—my heart.
We sat that way for a while, listening to the world while it woke from sleep, neither of us moving. The moment felt delicate, close to shattering at a moment’s breath.
I looked down at my hands, too afraid that my expression would give me away. This truth of mine felt vulnerable, as delicate as the moment. All of the truthfulness from the night before became timid, hiding in the shadows that slowly melted in the sun’s autumn light.
In that shattering breath, he moved me gently, placing me on my feet. “Mitch doesn’t live far from here.” He ran a hand through his hair, which had become wild in sleep, and then down his face. “He can bring you to Violet’s and then take you both to school.”