So I stretch my neck to get even closer to him, where I can clearly see the pulse on his neck, thick and thrumming. Where I can map out his silvery features, the hills and dips of his cheekbones.
And then, I touch him.
I raise my hand and put it on his cheek and he stiffens.
Last night, everything happened so fast that I didn’t get to feel it, feel the bones and the structure of his darling face. The face I see in my dreams.
But tonight, I feel everything.
His cheek is as hot and alive as his hand was, back when we shook hands at the parking lot. Slightly rougher though from the five o’clock shadow.
When I feel his jaw ripple, I whisper, “I’m sorry I hit you.”
He stiffens even more, if possible. “Don’t be.”
I rub my thumb over the arch of his cheek. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
“So… uninhibited. So rough around the edges and sharp as broken glass.” His jaw thrums again. “So cut open.”
That’s what he is, I realize.
He’s cut open.
Like all these years, his emotions were under wraps, they were shoved somewhere deep inside of him. He was calm and collected and unruffled by anything and everything, always focused on his game. But now they’re coming to the surface.
Now they’re rushing through his veins and pooling under his skin, making him intense and hot and edgy.
Somehow, making him all the more irresistible to me.
He was right.
I do have a thing for everything crazy and dangerous.
“Cut open, yeah.” His eyes glow as he stares down at me. “I’m that.”
I’m compelled to say, “It won’t help, you know. Hurting other people. Revenge.”
His skin heats up just under my touch, becomes hotter than before, and my fingers skitter over his cheek, hitting all the sharp, stunning bumps of his face.
My sun.
“It feels fucking fantastic though,” he says with a cold lopsided smile before moving away.
He settles himself at the railing and all I can do is stare at him and rub my heated fingers together. All I can do is think that I’m Icarus. The fool with wings made of wax.
They say it’s arrogance that led Icarus to fly too close to the sun. They’re crazy. It wasn’t arrogance.
It was love.
He loved the sun too much. And that’s why he couldn’t stay away.
That’s why I can’t stay away either so I bridge the gap between us and stand where he’s standing. He gives me adistracted glance before looking away and reaching back into his pocket, fishing something out.
A pack of cigarettes.
He gets one out with practiced ease, pops it in his mouth, almost clenching it between his teeth. Then he reaches back again and takes out a box of matchsticks. He lights one up with a deft flick of his wrist, and cupping his palm around the cigarette, he gets the tip burning.
