“I just mean that you fit so perfectly with me. Here,” he explains.
“Oh, sothat’swhat you like about me. So, you don’t like my personality?” I mock. He hums shaking his head lightly.
“Not really. I like this more,” he whispers carefully. He takes his hand from my waist and runs it down my stomach until he touches me between my legs, lightly brushing the inside of my thigh close to my heat. “Especially the noise you make when I touch you there.”
“What isn’t there to like?” I whisper, my breath getting caught in my throat at the contact of his hand. “About my personality, I mean.”
“You’re so stubborn and you act like you hate me most of the time.” He shrugs, a cheeky grin spreading across his face,
“Well, you know I don’t. Not really, anyway.” I run my hands down his back, pulling him closer into me. “I’m basically naked in your bed. What more do you need?”
“I want you to tell me what you like about me.” He doesn’t miss a beat when he speaks. His eyes suddenly fiery and expectant. I swallow. I try and laugh but it comes out strangled as he keeps his gaze on me.
“Oh, you’re serious.”
Dead serious.
“Would it kill you to say one thing you like about me? Just one,” he pleads.
“Your hair,” I say quickly. He almost jerks back at the sudden quickness in my tone. It was the first thing that came to mind, and it truly is my favourite thing about him. His hair is chestnut brown and wavy. It always smells like coconuts, and it almost melts in my hands anytime I run my hands through it.
“Really? Why?”
“Because I can run my fingers through it. I like it when I can slip my hands between each of your waves, and it feels like you’re melting into me. I like it when it’s the only thing that I can see when you’re between my legs,” I admit, doing exactly that with my hands as he blinks at me. “I like feeling you. Touching you. Sometimes, I feel like I’m so desperate to have you. Everywhere. On me.”
He sucks in a breath at my omission, his cheeks becoming hot with heat. God, what is happening to me? He looks beautiful like this, all flustered. “I would let you do anything to me, Wren. Absolutely anything.”
“I know you would and that scares me a little,” I say laughing. He doesn’t say anything, and it gives me the confidence to continue complimenting him.
“And this,” I say, holding his face within one of my hands. His dark green eyes stare into mine as I trace the space between them down his nose. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. I rub my thumb just beneath his eyes as they flutter closed for a second before I run my finger gently over his full lips, studying him. “I like your mouth but I like what comes out of it more. I like it when you talk. When you tell me stories as if it's the first time you're telling them How you're constantly giving me little pieces of yourself. I like how easily your face fits into my hands. Like you were made for me."
He watches me carefully, almost afraid to speak. I don’t know why I said what I just said. I never say things like this. I love to read about it but saying it out loud always cringes me out. Something has changed within me, but I can’t find the effort to care about it right now. Instead, I press my lips to his cautiously, drawing back at the last second as I catch his bottom lip between my teeth. He smiles softly.
“Is that one nice thing good enough?” I ask against his lips.
“More than enough,” he whispers. “Now I know you don’t hate me.”
“I could never hate you, Miles. Even if I tried to. You are insufferably addictive.”
The rest of the night, we stay mostly quiet. I don’t know what that whole thing was. Something about it felt determining. As if it’s marked a shift in our relationship. Everything I said was so true that it worries me.
It’s well into the night when I feel Miles’ thumb stroking my cheek and my eyes flutter open, heavy with sleep.
“What is it?” I ask sleepily. He waits a beat, opening and closing his mouth. I have to squint a little to make out the faint smile on his lips in the darkness.
“You’re my best friend,” he says certainly. It comes out so quickly that it almost passes as a question. My heart expands like a balloon, and I exhale slowly to let it deflate.
“I don’t know how Kennedy and Scarlett will feel about it, but you’re slowly becoming my favourite person,” I admit. “But don’t read into it,” I add sharply before my eyes shut again, almost letting the sleep pull me under.
“Oh, I already have, Wrenny.”
CHAPTER 49
MILES
I’ve never been good at school. I’ve especially never been good at exams. There’s something about the complete pressure and unwavering nausea that I feel whenever I’m in the exam room. Maybe it’s my young optimistic brain talking, but I think they are a way to prove how shitty my memory is and how hard I find it to retain all the pieces of information that I’ve learned in class. I’m thanking all my lucky stars for managing to get through this second year at NU doing my fitness and well-being course. For most of the course, it’s all practical assessments which I can usually do fine on until the spring exam season comes around and I actually have to get my head down to do work.
It’s been even more difficult trying to focus on anything other than Wren fucking Hackerly. She has utterly consumed my every thought at the worst possible times. If I’m driving to pick up food, it’s Wren. If I’m sat in class, the only thing on my mind is when I get to see her. When I’m training, all I can think is to count down the minutes until I can walk the distance to her rink and skate with her for fun.
