"Can I—can we do more?"
He stills. Pulls up enough to see my face. "You still want to?"
"Yes."
He swallows. His voice lowers. "Rava. You can’t imagine how much I want it too. Right now. How many times I’ve thought about it. Probably every goddamn hour since I met you."
My heart could fall apart.
"But," he adds, softer now, brushing my hair back, "not yet. I don’t want to go too fast and scare you off. I don’t want to be something you regret."
"I won’t—"
"I know," he says. "But still. Let’s take our time. You deserve that." He leans in. Kisses me slow. Strokes my cheek.
We will wait, I won’t argue. Even though in my head, the decision’s already made.
…
We walk out of the bathroom together, and he follows me all the way to my suitcase while I go to grab my face cream.
I bend down to unzip it and he immediately swoops in and snatches my sketchbook.
"GIO—" I shoot up so fast I nearly hit his chin and go straight for it.
I can’t let him see. I have stuff in there I never planned on anyone seeing, especially not him. We wrestle in the middle of the hotel room while he runs around with my sketchbook held up.
"Gio, please, give it back, it’s not funny," I say, reaching for it.
"Then why are you laughing?" he throws back, yanking it further away and shoving me toward the bed with his shoulder.
I get up again immediately. "Because I’m fucking nervous, that’s why! Give it!" I grab his arm and yank him back toward me, using way more strength than I mean to.
Whoops.
He drops the sketchbook and falls right on top of me. "Who do you think you are?" he says, laughing against my chest.
"Why did you push me?"
"I’M SORRY—" I wheeze. "Get off."
"No."
"It was an accident! I panicked. I swear. Get off."
I start backing away as soon as he gets up. I’m out of breath.
He suddenly goes completely still.
I stop too. "What?" I ask.
"Did you hear something at the window?" I instantly whip my head around to look. The second I turn, he grabs me from behind and drags me back toward him and I let out this absolutely tragic scream, like I’m being murdered.
He tackles me onto the bed and before I can process anything, he’s on top of me again, pinning both of my wrists above my head with one hand. His other hand grabs my face.
"Gio," I shout, breathless and laughing. "You can’t hit me, I’m wearing glasses."
"Oh, shit…" he mutters. He reaches for them.
