My back slammed into the wall, my heart thumping repeatedly in my ears. I swore the world stopped turning for a moment, as if Azazel’s words had stilled the clocks, conquering time itself. Though I desperately wanted to be free of him, of the affection I felt bleeding off of him, I didn’t move. He’d let me leave, I knew that much about him now. Yet, I stayed pressed between him and the plaster. Maybe because half of me felt safe there, trapped in his grasp.
Love? What did he know of love? What did he know of affection or dedication or promise? What did he understand of partnership? Of devotion? Love was beyond him, not because he didn’t deserve it, but because he’d never even known it.
“No. No you don’t,” I shouted back, breaking the spell upon the world, the clock’s ticking loud in my ears again. “You don’t even understand love, Az. You’ve never felt it or understood it. You were raised by people who never felt it either. For seventy years you’ve been surrounded by greed disguised as love. Green painted red so you wouldn’t realize that it was just selfishness! You can’t possibly be in love with me, not when you’re incapable of even grasping the magnitude of something like that! And not when I am everything you were born and raised to hate!”
“You don’t get to tell me how to feel!” His face was twisted, as if in pain rather than in anger. “Of course I’m in love with you! How could anyone in your presence feel anything else? I can’t think when you’re here, and I can’t breathe when you’re gone! When I close my eyes, it’s your face that haunts my every thought! You’ve absolutely ruined my life, and I’ll thank you every day for the rest of it, because I’m better for it! Iloveyou, Nova!” He beat his fist against his chest, the thumping loud as he said, “I don’t care that I wasn’t shown it, I canfeelit. It’s all I’m sure of in this stars-forsaken universe!”
“Stop! Just stop!” I couldn’t take it. The confusion. The terror. The utter hope his words brought while simultaneously plaguing me with every past wrong. He couldn’t love me. This wasn’t who we were ever meant to be. “We would never work. Can’t you see that? Don’t you realize that for generations our families have built a divide so big that not even you and I can bridge it? Why are you pretending like we can frolic through fields together? You and I don’t get a happy ending! I’m not even convinced we’ll survive this fucking war! Even if we do, you’llstill be an Altair and I’ll still be a Tershetta! Stop acting like you don’t know exactly what you are and what I am!”
“Oh, I know what you are,” he rasped, his finger pressing into the space between my breasts. It wasn’t a painful jab, but still firm all the same. “You’re stubborn. Selfish. Rude. Arrogant. Guarded. Sarcastic. Distrusting. And. I. Love. You.”
“Then stop loving me!” Shoving him, I tried to breathe, to consume air not polluted by him.
He didn’t budge. In fact, he got closer. “How about you just admit how you feel!”
“I feel like I really fucking hate you right now!” I shoved him again, only for him to slam his hands into the wall on either side of my head.
“Well I don’t particularly like you right now either!”
“Good!”
“Good!”
We stared at each other, my shoulder blades pressed into the wall, his hands flattened against the plaster on either side of my head. Our chests rose and fell in time with each other, the rapid breaths forcing my breasts to shove into his bare stomach, the rows of muscles flexed in his fury. My fists were at my sides, my jaw tight.
The air felt like it was buzzing, like magic twirled between us. Maybe it did. We were both angry enough. Maybe we’d kill each other. Rid ourselves and the world of the other’s presence. That’d be a gift.
Yet, I couldn’t look away from his damn lips.
His gaze was locked on my mouth too, his body shaking against mine. And I watched as his eyes went from belligerently squinted to desperately wide. All I had time to think before he spoke wasyes.
“Fuck it,” he growled. And then he was pressing his soft, perfect mouth against mine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Azazel
“Dove told me that I have to work on managing my expectations so that I won’t be sad all of the time. Maybe she’s right. Things rarely work out.”
-From the journal of Azazel Altair, 9241 AS
Our lips moved in perfect sync, her arms securing around my neck. I bent low, gripping her thighs and lifting her. Without hesitating, she wrapped her legs around my waist, threading her fingers through my hair.
Stars, she aggravates me.
And damn it all, I love her even more each second.
Shoving her further into the wall, I stole back my lips, kissing down her jaw. She moaned, letting her chin tip up to grant me access to her neck. I greedily took advantage of the angle, sliding my tongue across the underside of her chin before grazing my teeth against the skin below her ear.
“You make me soangry,”I growled. She huffed, tugging on my hair so hard my head flung back.
“Good, because you make mefurious,”she said before moving her other hand to my face, squeezing enough to force my lips into a pucker. She bent low, as if to kiss me, her tongue slightly out of her parted lips.
Annoyed and frustrated and so, so turned on, I ducked my face. One at a time, I switched my grip to the inner part of her thighs, clearly startling her as she scrambled to gain purchase by wrapping her arms around my neck again.
Unable to stop myself, I chuckled. Now having a better hold on her, I shoved upwards, raising her until her thighs were on my shoulders.
“Az!” she screeched, hands in my hair.
