She shakes her head, lip trembling beneath my fingers. All I can think about is kissing it. “You don’t.”
“I do.”
“It’sbecauseI love you that I can’t do this.”
“I get it,” I say, because I do. She’s protecting her heart and mine the only way she knows how. “And it’s because I love you that I’m letting you.”
I let myself touch her. A featherlight touch over her cheeks, her neck, her nose, her lips. I let myself brush the damp hair from her forehead. I can’t live without her. The thought is insurmountable.
Her eyelids drift shut, face leaning into my touch so lightly that I wonder if it’s a product of my hopeful imagination. Her lips part on an exhale that seems to leave her lungs in slow motion.
It would be so easy to press my mouth to hers, to glide my hands beneath her wet jacket and press her against me. Her hands tighten where they grip my shirt, her tongue darting out to catch a raindrop from her bottom lip. I swallow my groan down, completely drunk on desire without so much as a kiss.
Her pulse drums beneath my thumb, hard and fast and in perfect time with mine. She looks back up at me, and the look in her eyes lets the penultimate thread of my self-control slip. The cold, stiff air has turned hot and humid, thick with tension.Fuck.I glance to the back of the car. The windows are tinted, back seat more than big enough. She must feel my arousal, because her thighs press together beneath her skirt.
We’re teetering on the edge, toeing the border between goodbye and hello, tame and feral, respectful and something so much more tempting.
My lips hover over hers, separated by half an inch.
Time seems to grind to a stop.
But that half an inch between her and me holdssomuch. So much trauma, so much reverence, so many reasons that closing the gap would hurt her heart. Desire is like a drug in my veins, dizzying my thoughts, shortening my breaths, but my respect for Ophelia overpowers it all, so I step back.
The tension bursts like an over-inflated balloon, running into the waterlogged earth at our feet.
The air goes back to frigid and bitter. My mood fades back to gray.
She catches herself, eyes wide like she can’t believe we almost kissed. The look she gives me is grateful.
I straighten her jacket with a sad smile, opening her curled fist to slip my umbrella into her warm hand. “Stay out of trouble, Twist.”
She smiles, taking a few steps back. Away from me. Away from us. I can’t bear it, but I have to. “Promise.”
And then she’s gone again, hurrying away from my car and into the castle just like that first day we met, leaving me and my punctured heart in the torrential rain.
[DRAFT]
From:Alex Corbeau-Green
Subject:Ophelia (gone)Alex, you fool
To:Ophelia Winters
A future without you in it doesn’t feel like much of a future at all.
AN HOUR PASSES,maybe two.
I sit in the driver’s seat in the Sorrowsong parking lot, smoking my way through a pack of cigarettes until only two remain. My head is tipped back against the seat when the rain that splatters my cheek from the open window suddenly stops.
I peek open an eye to see Vincenzo’s stupid, giant head filling the space. The scar over his eye crinkles, a crooked smile brightening his face. He leans even farther into the car, like those overly friendly ostriches at safari parks that just want to eat all your food. “Hey, man. Why’d I have to hear it from Colette, who heard it from Ophelia, that you were here?”
He’s gone before I can reply, rounding the hood of the car and folding his ridiculous frame into the passenger seat. He leans over me to steal the penultimate cigarette, raindrops running over the dagger tattooed on his index finger when he cups a hand around the flame. His blue gaze turns to mine, never one to let his questions go unanswered.
Man, I’ve missed him.
“I’m not in the best of moods, lately.”
“Doesn’t bother me.”
