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With her big eyes trained on the wall behind me and those pouty lips pursed in annoyance, my patience wears thin.
I can live without her touch. I can live without knowing the taste of her lips or the feel of her paint-covered fingers on my skin. But I cannot live without her attention. It’s become like air to me.
Digging my hands into her hair, I pull her close and whisper, my mouth only inches away from her ear, like a secret. “I didn’t kiss her. It wasn’t her that I wanted.”
She tries to pull away, but I hold her close, boring my stare into hers. I see her eyes widen, and I know she thinks I’m going to kiss her.
“You should have,” she practically growls.
“Is that really what you want?”
“Yes, Alexander,” she practically spits back at me. I see the vitriol in her eyes. The devastating anger toward me. “Kiss her so I can finally hate you.”
A wicked smile tugs at my lips. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To hate me as much as I know you want to.”
“I do want to.”
“But you don’t…”
She looks away, her lips trembling as she tries to clench her jaw in defiance.
I pull her closer, crossing this invisible line in the sand. “Don’t you understand?” I ask, letting my thumb graze the skin between her nose and lips, the soft ridges there, the warm breath from her nose.
“Understand what?” Her voice is just above a whisper.
“I care about you too much to kiss you. What I did the other night when I was drunk was uncalled for, and I’m toeing this line of insanity with you, Sunny. What I want and what I can have are two different things, and it’ll drive me insane, but I won’t give in because I am a stain, Sunny. You don’t want what I would do to you. To me, you are perfect, pure, spotless.”
Her gaze lands gently on my face, searching my eyes. Pity glistens behind her welling tears. But still, she doesn’t speak.
“I’m sorry, Sunny. I’m all kinds of fucked up. I’m doing everything I can not to cross this line. But not kissing you would be the noblest fucking thing I’ve ever done. And it will kill me.”
When I finally let go of her face, she’s breathless. The pure expression of grief crosses her face, and I swear I might drown in her eyes if I don’t pull away.
Before I can move, she latches those sweet, paint-coated fingers onto my shirt and hauls me toward her, burying her face in my chest. Her embrace feels like landing gently back to earth. She holds me there. My own force of gravity.
My arms wind around her, and I swallow the needle sensation stinging in the back of my throat. Hugging her to my chest, I let my lips graze the top of her head.
My fucking heart is being ripped out of my chest.
She finally backs away, and the song changes to “Beast of Burden.” Ever so slowly, she smiles and twists her hips to the beat.
I breathe out a heavy sigh.
Taking her hands in mine, I send her into a twist, and she comes back, pressing her body against me. Together we sway to the music, holding each other close but not too close. Her attention, her eyes, and her touch on me fuel the beating of my heart.
For the first time in my life, I feel completely fulfilled by another person. I may have unopened boxes in my house and feel like I’m floating on a life raft, lost at sea, but Sunny is my lighthouse, and as long as I have my eyes on her and she’s shining those beautiful eyes at me, I’m not doing too bad.
I can’t fuck this up. Coming here, buying this house was my last-ditch effort at growing up, getting a real grasp on my life, being able to look myself in the mirror without seething hatred at the reflection, and if Sunny is what keeps me moving in the right direction…I can’t fuck that up.
It dawns on me when she laughs, the warmth in her voice sounding so familiar that my attraction to Sunny isn’t just about her body, her age, her innocence, but how she makes every goddamn cell in my body come to life. She defines me, accepts me, sees me, and I swear to Christ, it fucking feels like love.
And it scares the ever-loving piss out of me.
CHAPTER 13
SUNNY
I end up working very late on the mural. Sometimes, I am too in the zone to stop.
