She lifts her head from my chest, and her eyes meet mine. “No.” She laughs. “How, Ares?”
My fingers pick up the little butterfly charm hanging around her neck. “I’m really glad you kept this on.”
“Are you avoiding the question? What did you do? Have someone hack into my therapy records?”
“No. I would never invade your privacy like that,” I tell her. “I have a tracker in the butterfly. It also monitors your heart rate. It’s connected to an app I have on my phone and it sends me alerts if your heart slows or speeds up too much. You got anxious today, and I checked to see where you were and it told me you were home.”
Zara blinks at me but doesn’t say a word. She just stares. Then a huge smile spreads across her face. “You must really like me to go to that kind of effort.”
“I really fucking like you.”
“I really like you too,” she says. “I was nervous about seeing you again. I didn’t know if you’d still want to see me. That’s why I was anxious today.” Zara puts her head back down on my chest.
My fingers stroke through the strands of her hair. “You don’t have a pink bow,” I say.
“I had to stop wearing them at the centre. They reminded me of you and it just made me miss you more every time I saw it.”
“How exactly does a pink bow remind you of me?” I ask her.
“The first time I wore one, you noticed it. You said:Nice bow. I think we were twelve, but I liked that you noticed so I wore one every day since then in the hopes you might notice me again.”
I chuckle. “You never needed a pink bow in your hair for me to notice you, P. You’re kinda hard not to notice. When you walk into a room, you’re the only thing I see.”
“Well, I never knew that back when I had the biggest crush on you,” she says.
“If I’d thought for a second you’d give someone like me the time of day, I would have kissed you a really long time ago,” I admit.
“Someone like you? What do you meansomeone like you?”
“We don’t need to pretend you’re not way above my paygrade, Zara McKinley. I know you’re too good for me. I know you’ll never need anything from me, but I still want to give you the world.”
“You give me something money can’t buy, Ares,” she says.
“What’s that?”
“Love.”
“I do fucking love you,” I tell her.
Zara rolls over until she’s fully on top of me. My hands land on her hips, holding her still. I have no doubt she can feel how hard my cock is. I watch as she looks down and then back up at me.
“Is there a reason we haven’t had sex yet?” she asks.
My eyes widen. “Yeah, I’m waiting for you to be ready for that. I’m not going to push you into doing something you don’t want to do.”
Zara tilts her head to the side. “You do know I’m not a virgin, right? I’ve been ready for a long time, Ares. I just thought you didn’t want to.”
My mind is stuck on the “not a virgin” part. Because, no, I did not fucking know she wasn’t a virgin. I blink and remind myself that I don’t own her body. No matter how much I want to. But I’ve also never known Zara to have a steady boyfriend.
“Who?” I press her.
“What?”
“Who did you have sex with, Zara?”
“You want, like, a list?”
“There’s more than one?”
