Caelyx shrugged off his coat, and then the designer denim jacket he’d worn under it, before letting out an exaggerated shiver. “Cold out there.”
There was a bite mark on his neck just barely visible past where the collar of his t-shirt ended. I’d left it there on purpose, and a bunch of others from biting and sucking his shoulders and hips and thighs. I wondered if anyone had noticed it yet.If they had, they probably knew it was from me. A month ago, that would have embarrassed me, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel that way now. I didn’t want anyone looking at him and thinking he was available.
What had happened to me? I’d never let myself be this vulnerable with a guy before. I wasn’t some naive moron with hearts in his eyes just trusting that everything would be okay, and that I didn’t need to protect myself. Or at least, Ihadn’tbeen.
“I should have picked you up,” I realized, frowning. He’d had to walk all the way back from work in the chilly wind, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit since I’d walked up to the corner to get picked up. “I lost track of time.”
“No big deal,” he assured me, before waltzing over and plopping down on the edge of my bed. My eyes darted to his firm thigh, almost pressed up against me and I instinctively scooted over a fraction of an inch. He seemed to notice, and countered it by leaning in closer, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me in for a quick kiss against my temple. I’d held strong and staved off his attempts at an actual lip lock between us, but I probably shouldn’t have let him get into the habit of kissing me in other places like my cheeks and hair and anywhere else he wanted. But he seemed to like it, and it’d been too easy to sink into the casual affection.
“You okay?” He asked, after a few moments of silence.
I didn’t know if I was or not. Everything had felt so calm and easy, but after talking to Faulkner, I felt unsettled. Stupid. Like I’d let myself fall into something that I was only guaranteed to suffer for. Why would I do that? I knew better than to get attached to a guy. I especially knew better than to get attached to a guy I had nothing in common with, who would forget about me the second he had something more interesting in his direct line of sight.
“Fine,” I said quickly, pretending to direct my attention back to the textbook I’d been futilely staring at for hours. “I’m just busy.”
“Aspen.” The rare use of my actual name snapped me to attention, like always. He stared down at me, looking suspicious. “Did something happen? You were fine this morning.”
“I’m fine now.”
“You seem weird.”
“I’m not,” I insisted. When he only continued to stare, waiting, I sucked in a deep breath, anxiety swirling in my stomach like a typhoon. “Look, maybe we should…”
He let out a tiny huff of laughter, before shifting his gaze up to the ceiling for a few seconds. “Oh my god, not this already. I thought even you’d last more than a couple weeks, Cupcake. You surprise me.”
“What?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes. He sounded exasperated but slightly amused, like I was the beloved family pet who’d just tracked in mud all over the clean floor, but was too cute to actually get mad at.
“You want to take a break, or back off, or get a little distance. Something like that, right?” He guessed.
“How’d you know that?” I blurted out, irritated by the fact that he’d seen right through me, and equally irritated by his amused reaction to it.
“I’ve been waiting and waiting for this, Cupcake,” he said. “I know you better than you think.”
“Whatever,” I responded, resisting the urge to cross my arms like a petulant child. He’d derailed everything, and now I didn’t even know what to say.
“Relax,” he urged, in that low, soft voice that he used when he was talking me off the ledge of self-imposed misery. He reached out, snapping my textbook closed and setting it aside sohe could sit directly in front of me with our faces aligned. “Just talk to me for a minute.”
“Fine.” Like I had a choice anyway.
“Whatever happened today, whatever made you start thinking too much about us, just forget it for right now,” he said. “We don’t have to label it, and you don’t have to promise me anything. But I want you to just answer this one question honestly. Are you happier with me than you are without me?”
It was too easy to answer. So easy I didn’t want to say it. But it always felt impossible keeping my feelings inside when he was using that soothing tone on me, searching my face with those intensely blue eyes.
“Yeah.”
“That’s all that matters,” he said. “You don’t have to get freaked out, or back off, or whatever it is your brain is telling you to do, okay? We like being together, so we’re going to keep doing that. Nothing else makes sense.”
Of course it was just that fucking easy for him. He didn’t have to worry about being abandoned when I suddenly had better options open up.
“Aren’t you afraid one of us is going to get hurt?” I snapped, frustrated. He blinked, looking surprised, before his expression softened and his eyes darkened with intensity.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “So don’t hurt me.” When I didn’t say anything for a second, he went on. “Because I would never, ever hurt you. You know that, right?”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” I muttered, staring down at the bedspread.
He reached out, taking one of my hands in his, kneading my palm with his thumbs.
“I can’t control what happens around us,” he agreed. “But I know we don’t have to hurt each other if we don’t want to. And I don’t believe you want to hurt me, Aspen.”
