AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rolling me on top of him, Freddie cups my face. Blue eyes glisten silver in the moonlight. With tears streaking down his temples into his hair, he manages a crooked smile that I can’t help but return.
“I don’t want that for you, Swan. You’re too good, and you deserve far better than the crappy memories. It might be hard to see it now, but you still have so much ahead of you. What you’ve lived so far is nothing compared to what you’re going to live still, and all of the new memories we’re going to make, they are all going to be touched by the ones you already have.”
“Freddie…why? Why are you telling me all this now?” When all I want to do is block it all out.
“Because it’s not too late for you. Because I wish someone had told me.” Freddie presses up on his elbows, manoeuvring me so that I’m straddling his lap when he sits up. “Now all you can see is that your friend is dead, that you will never see or speak to him again. What you don’t realise is that there are going to be so many times in the future where your experiences from your time with him are going to help you make new memories and he’ll be right there with you.”
“I know what you’re saying, and it makes sense, but I’ve never felt like this before. Like I might never be able to dance again.”
“You will because that’s what he would want you to do.”
“Maybe. It just feels so wrong to carry on without him. Jordan was there from the start, when it mattered. Every knockdown I’ve had, he was there to laugh it off with me. Whenever I felt like an imposter, like I wasn’t good enough, he was there.”
Doesn’t seem right to tell Freddie all this. I don’t want to wound him when he is already so raw. His eyes are still swimming with tears as he waits for me to continue. At the same time, I want him to talk to me some more because this vulnerable side of him is something really rather incredible. He has so many facets and layers that I want to sit back and let him shed them one by one.
“Feelings for you aside, he was a good friend, and for that alone, I will always remind you to take the good times forward with you.” Long fingers comb through my hair as he presses a kiss to the tip of my nose.
“If you’d had the chance to get to know him, I think you would’ve liked Jordan. He took care of me when I thought I was on my own.”
“Why would you think that? Why would you ever be on your own?” The sincere confusion on his face takes me aback.
“I’m not like you, Freddie—they’ve always needed you. You’re always going to be a key piece of their puzzle, but me? I’m an outsider. They use me when they need to paint a pretty picture, and when the job’s done, I’m on my own again. I walk the same floors and live in the same rooms, but I’m nobody.”
“You really feel that way?”
“Yes.”
“You honestly believe that?”
“I do.”
A morose expression twists his mouth into a grimace before he states, “You’re wrong. You are so many wonderful things.”
“Freddie…”
When I look down between us, he lifts my face back up to his with the tip of his finger. “You want to know what I love about you? What I find sexy and utterly mesmerising about you?”
“What?”
“You’re strong.” The statement is curt and to the point. Very much like him, straight down the line as if it is law. “You’re unshakeable in your resolve. Unwavering no matter what.”
“Yeah, Arabella likes to call me a stubborn cow.”
“I see where she’s coming from with the stubborn, but the cow thing…I don’t know,” he says, pulling this godawful face that makes me giggle. “That’s by far the best sound I’ve ever heard, followed by your snoring when you’re sleeping next to me.”
“I don’t snore.”
“No, you don’t. You drool.”
The fact that I know I drool only makes it all the more embarrassing that he’s pointed it out. I’m fucking mortified, even if it is a normal thing to do. Even if he does actually snore lightly and drool, he’s still so him. Tall and hunky in that nice athletic way where he has the defined muscles but not the over-the-top brawn. Freddie’s ridiculously smart too, so much so that I think it’s part of the reason he gets riled so quickly because he’s so switched on that it all comes easy to him. Or at least easier than the average joe.
“You have a big heart, Georgina, as big as a cosmos and constantly expanding.”
Lifting his knees, he pushes me back and leans over me to kiss my chest. Hands pull at the hem of my sweater that’s tucked into the top of my skirt, and as he keeps kissing my pounding heart, they meander higher and higher until they’re bracketing my small breasts, thumbs stroking up and down between them.
I can hardly breathe as he manoeuvres us so that I’m on my back and he is kneeling between my legs, face close to mine as he hovers over me.
“You have an uncanny ability to get in my head,” he tells me, pulling back to look at me as he lifts my arms over my head and takes my top off, leaving me in my light lace bralette. “God, you’re so fucking exquisite. But, Christ, the head thing is frustrating as hell.”
