“I’m having dinner at Alex’s house next Tuesday.” He pauses, and that’s all the time it takes for my heartbeat to go all hard and heavy. “Do you think you might want to come? You don’t have to if it’s too much or you don’t want to, or—”
“Shh, sunshine, stop,” I laugh, halfway turning in his arms so I can slap a hand over his mouth. For a second, he looks startled—so damn adorable—and then he’s laughing too. It’s a shy sound that matches the scorching pink I can feel beneath my fingers, and god, I love it. Want to hear it again.
And again.
And holy fuck, my sunshine’s asking me to meet the people he’s already told me are as good as family to him.
Oh those motherfucking butterflies,‘cause, “Yeah, I’ll come.”
When my hand slips down from over his mouth, he’s wearing this smile that legitimately just might kill me with the crazy things it does to my heart.
“Good,” he guides me back to snuggle in against his chest again, tucking his chin down onto my shoulder.
For one wild, totally terrifying moment, that thing Reagan said yesterday is on the tip of my tongue. How she’d called him my boyfriend. Wouldn’t believe me when I said he wasn’t. I swallow it down though.
What if that’s not shit Jesse wants to hear from me?
We’re quiet for a long while. Justbeing; his arms wrapped around me and mine tucked over the top of his, as the two of us stare out at the sun sparkling off the blue water. Farther out, there’s more land, and past that, there are blue mountains topped off with snow.
I’m just thinking how I could totally spend the entire rest of the day here, all cuddled up with Jesse just like this, when he nuzzles his face in against my neck.
All it takes is one teensy brush of his lips over my skin, and suddenly my mind’s very muchnoton the gorgeous view anymore.
Nope, now it’s totally focused on how fuckinggoodmy sunshine’s body feels all pressed up against me. How there’s a warm sweep of his tongue when he kisses me again. How his breath’s gone a bit quicker. And when he inhales against my skin, slow and deep, with his hands gripping me tighter—
“This your way of telling me it’s time to go?” And yeah, maybe I might have shimmied my ass against him. Just thetiniestwiggle to make my point.
“Maybe,” he whispers, and I can feel his smile against my skin.
God, Ilovemaking him smile. Lovefeelinghim smile like that.
Fuck—
It was just about his smile—not like it was anything else—but just thinking that word in my own head gets those motherfucking butterflies right back up to full speed all over again, swirling round my stomach until I feel like I’m spinning right along with them.
41
Jesse
“What about this one?”
Tris looks up from the two canvases he’s been inspecting, one balanced on each of his thighs, reaching out to take the painting I’m holding out toward him. His hair is tousled from all the times he’s pushed it back from his forehead, and his eyes are bright and intense with the same spark I’ve seen in them when he plays his music for me.
The two of us are in his apartment, with Tris sitting on the floor, surrounded by a semicircle of his paintings, planning out which ones he wants to take to show Mitchel. Mitchel, who, by the way, is now one of my new favorite people in the world.
Seeing the way Tris’s face lit up and hearing the awed pride under his rather flippant explanation of Mitchel’s offer made the fact that I barely know the man a negligible detail in my instant appreciation of him.
As he takes the canvas out of my hand, Tris tilts his head in concentration, looking down at the painting. For me though, it’s impossible to tear my eyes away from him as he studies his work. His lips press together in a focused sort of smile that makes the dimple in his cheek show more than I’ve ever seen it before, and it takes an absurd effort not to reach out and brushmy finger over it.
I love that dimple. Love his lips; how expressive they are, how soft and pliant yet demanding against mine when he kisses me…
I won’t let myself distract him though.
The painting I’ve just handed him is of a dark, stormy sky seen through the surreally twisted, thorny branches of some sort of tree with pealing, bleached white bark. In the center of the painting, there’s a single, windblown but vividly red flower trapped amongst the thorns.
“You like it?” He looks up at me, and my heart stutters like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again.
There’s no denying the steady path my feelings have been taking over the weeks I’ve known Tris, yet something—fine,everything—about today at Pike Place with him has sent me into freefall. A thrilling, glorious fall that I don’t even want to try to fight anymore.
