“Does it bother you that I,” he cleared his throat, “that I have done this before?”
Involuntarily, she thought of Elana and Jeanne and all the other girls—but it didn’t matter to her. They had only held a part of him—his evanescent fascination with them. Celine held something far more precious, and it was all she deemed necessary to have.
She shook her head and smiled at the relief that washed across his face. “I cannot blame you for living your life, Bas. I don’t care who you have been with before, as long as you are mine now.”
“You’ve had me for a while, darling.” Lowering his head, he planted a most tender kiss on her shoulder, then a second, then a third, until he was moving along her collarbone and up her neck, teasingly nicking at her skin with his teeth. “You live in my thoughts constantly. I had no chance of being anyone else’s.”
Gingerly, he pushed the dress off her shoulders; Celine arched her body towards his.
“Would this be okay?”
“It would be perfect.”
A heartbeat later the warm layer of her dress dropped to the floor; his shirt followed its trail. Celine shivered, but Bastien’s body moulded perfectly into hers and all she could feel was the searing warmth of his skin. Her arm circled him, hand pausing between his shoulder blades and unintentionally, her nails bit into his skin.
The only response she got was a desperate sigh that circled them both. Bastien’s lips danced across the bow of her collarbone, asking forgiveness again and again with words and all of his body, where every little touch was anotherI’m sorry. Celine’s pounding heart sang in response. It hadn't known peace formonths, she realised, until this very moment.
Her fingers dipped into his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. She caught the rest of his words in a kiss that eclipsed everything in her periphery, turning her mind blank.
Outside, the first stars were beginning to wink out, slowly getting obscured by their shared breaths that had floated to the window. Celine placed her head on the armrest and turned her glance away from the wine-dark sky, towards the beloved boy beside her, and smiled.
• • •
Celine had left a ripped piece of paper with one word scrambled across it.
Rooftop.
Bastien didn’t even know the abandoned house had one. But as he climbed the stairs and opened the door, there it was. And there she was, too, sitting on the rusted veranda furniture. Celine had curled her legs close to her chest, resting her chin on them, swathed in the periwinkle shades of the approaching dawn.
Bastien stretched, and walked up to her. He hadn’t slept this soundly in weeks, even though half of his body had been hanging off the divan all night.
“Thief,” he said, eyeing his shirt on her. “I was looking for it downstairs.”
Celine turned around and the movement caused the collar to slip over her shoulder, exposing it. Bastien refrained from rushing to kiss it. He walked up to her slowly, as if the morning chill didn’t nip at his bare skin, and knelt in front of her. As long as she was warm, he didn’t mind a little breeze.
Celine smiled sheepishly. “My dress was wrinkled.”
“Mhm,” he mumbled, placing a kiss on her knee. “And my shirt is not? Your work, mind you. So eager to get the clothes off of me. I just never expected your reason was to steal them.”
Celine shoved her palm into his face, pushing him away. “Do you ever shut up?”
“No. You are going to have to hear me talk your ears off for a very long time, Mademoiselle LeBeau.” Sneakily, he slid his fingers up her legs until they disappeared underneath the shirt.
“Behave yourself.” She frowned in mock-seriousness. “It’s still too early.”
“And?”
“And—” she hissed, grasping a handful of his hair and tugging his head back.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
“—in spite of what we did last night in that damp attic,” she continued, “I am still a lady!”
Bastien laughed. “I can’t help it,” he said. “You look so pretty like this.” He expected her to tug at his hair again, instead her fingers played dreamily with the strands. Sneakily, he brought her palm to his mouth and kissed it. “I might have to wrinkle all your dresses from now on.”
“You will do no such thing.”
Bastien brought himself to his feet and sat next to her on the swing, drawing Celine closer. Her bare legs stretched across his lap. “You are up early. Do you have a race against the sun that I don’t know about?”
