‘You want something real?’ he shouts, crowding me in with his large frame.
I nod.
Yes, Stars, yes. I need it. I crave it.
‘You drive me fucking crazy, Arianell. How’s that forreal?’
My mouth opens, but he cuts me off. He’s not done. I gulp.
‘I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to act like I don’t care about you. Pretending I hate you. Only to watch you throw yourself into a life you never wanted, a life in Malachite, and realise that I fucking do care!
‘Every time you’ve been hurt. Every time you step out of the ring with your skin painted black and blue. Every day I hear how Lillian had to bring you food because you won’t fuckingeat! It’s driven memad. I can’t move without looking for you. I can’t even fucking sleep.’
My body seems to have shut down. Am I breathing? I don’t think I’ve even blinked.
‘W-what are you saying?’ I force the words past my lips.
His eyes bore into me, as if he can look through them and down into my pounding heart. ‘I’m saying that if you fell from that cliff, I would have jumped down there to save you, or died trying!’ He closes the last few inches of space between us and grips my face with both hands. His chest rises and falls quickly, as if he too can’t believe the words falling from his mouth. ‘I care about you, Ria. That’s what I’m saying. That’s my fucking truth.’
Ria.
Stars. There it is again.
His name, for me. The one he started calling me years ago when he’d come to visit. I used to look forward to hearing it; it was my guilty pleasure. Now it makes my heart ache.
My lower lip starts to tremble. His eyes drop – first to my mouth, then they flick back up to mine. I should say something. I should push him away. I shouldrun.
But I don’t. I asked for this. I practically forced him to tell me what he meant, and he did. He did and yet, I wasn’t expecting his answer to cause my chest to feel like it’s caving inward.
I didn’t realise it at first, but I’ve leaned into his touch. Just slightly, but it’s enough for my breath to catch and brush against his.
His forehead dips to touch against mine and we stand there like that for a long moment. Frozen between pent -up fury and what I’m starting to realise feels a lot like longing. I feel his breath on my lips – it’s as uneven as my own.
‘Say it,’ I whisper desperately. ‘Say my name.’ I just need to hear it one more time. Justonce.
His warm hands slip from the sides of my face, down to my neck. His thumbs caress my jawline, his touch so soft it hurts.
‘Ria.’
My lips part on a gasp that he seems to swallow. I feel his mouth brush against mine.
Barely.
A whisper of a kiss, there and then gone, and it takes everything in me to not press myself closer. This feels different than our first kiss. That was rushed and sudden. I start to wonder if I kissed him now, would it be soft or demanding? Slow or devastating?
I tell myself I’ll never know as I start to pull back. I got what I wanted, his truth. Now it’s time to put a stop to this. But his hands tighten their hold on my neck and jaw. His pupils swallow the green of his iris as he looks at me like an animal locking in on its prey.
‘Don’t,’ is all he says before his lips fall against mine.
FORTY
Sebastian Zain kisses me like a man who’s been starved of air, and I am his next breath. His mouth is warm and unrelenting. I break beneath the weight of it. There is no hesitation in the way he kisses me, as if he’s been longing to have me in his grasp again. It’s everything I thought and feared it would be.
Consuming. Fierce. Ruinous.
I gasp into him, and he drinks it down.
This kiss is the beginning of one thing and the end of something else. It’s two people who have been dancing around each other for weeks, stifling the memories they collected between each other over years.
