“Are you insane?” I whisper-shouted, dragging him into the safety of my room. “How did you get up here?”
Cade inched off his motorcycle helmet and grinned down at me with the most heart-melting smile, his dimples making an appearance. He ran a leather-gloved hand through his dark brown strands to fix them back into their usual style. “Hello to you too, princess.”
The moonlight peering through the open balcony doorsilluminated the space between us. It gave his masculine features an ethereal glow and made those beautiful eyes of his appear almost silver. My goodness, he was so handsome, gazing down at me with an expression filled with pure joy.
My heart twisted painfully in its cage.
I wanted to hold him in my arms and never, ever let go.
“How did you get up here, Cade?” I repeated, failing to tame the fear in my voice. Didn’t he realize how precious he was to me? How I couldn’t risk anything happening to him?
“I used the ladder I found in your garden to climb up to you.”
Horror scalded my insides. That old ladder was on the verge of breaking apart. My parents were supposed to replace it weeks ago. The fact that Cade climbed it and reached me in one piece was a wonder.
Grabbing fistfuls of his leather jacket, I shook some sense into him. “What if you fell? You could have died! Or, at the very least, gotten badly injured! Don’t do something like that again!”
“Ella.” Cade grasped my hands and gave them an affectionate squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. I only wanted to surprise you.”
“That’s some surprise!” I wailed before lowering my voice. Usually, I was a thrill junkie, but not where his safety was concerned. What if his foot or hand had slipped? “That was very reckless of you.”
“I thought you liked reckless behaviour,” he teased.
“Not when it means losing you…when I’ve just found you.”
Cade’s expression fell and he exhaled softly.
I closed my eyes, having revealed too much.
Suddenly, he urged me into his chest for a crushing hug. I wrapped my arms around his waist and inhaled his familiar, comforting scent.
It was the first time we touched in a manner beyond platonic. The air around us floated with a newfound feeling I could not decipher yet but felt deep in my soul.
“I’m sorry, Ella.” He laid his cheek on top of my head. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Cocooned in his warm embrace, I could forgive anything. The feeling I could not decipher finally translated in a faint echo ofhome.
Clutching him tight, my forehead mashed against the place where his heart beat gently, willing my own vital organ to march to the same rhythm. “You’re forgiven, princepin.”
His smile brushed against my middle part. Cade loved when I called him that.
When I pulled away, he gingerly framed my face. “Ella, your eyes,” he remarked breathlessly.
Oh, I forgot to wear my contacts tonight. “Um, about that…”
“You have brown eyes, but your right one is tinged with blue.” He continued staring at me in amazement. “How is that possible?”
No choice but to tell him the truth, I mumbled with a bit of shame, “I was born with sectoral heterochromia and was bullied in elementary school because of it. As a result, I’ve been wearing brown contacts since high school to avoid being called a freak. If you think I’m one too, just say it now so we can get it out of the way. I know my eyes are imperfect and tend to make people uncomfortable.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t look like a freak and you don’t make me uncomfortable. I love your eyes. They’re so unique.”
I swallowed with difficulty. “Do you truly mean it?”
“Your right eye reminds me of the earth,” he murmured. “The bottom half of your iris is brown—filled with riches—and the top half is blue—filled with spirit. Your eyes, even with your so-called imperfection, are exquisite and anyone who says otherwise is just fucking jealous.”
I wanted to cry. No one in my life had said such inspiring, poetic words to me.
Cade took my insecurity and Molotov cocktailed it far into the distance, letting it burn to ashes.
