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The one I can’t take off, even if I wanted to.
He looks down at it, a bit of solemnness clouding his expression. “This would be different,” he says. “It would be for us. Not for protection. Because I want you. For the rest of my life.”
My throat grows tight.
Alex has started walking toward the elevator that will take us down to the main level of the club. He’s carrying me bridal style, and I’m clutching on to his forearm for dear life. The world is spinning, but mostly because of what he’s said.
It almost feels like that night after the Devil’s first game when he was carrying me to the doctor after I sliced my finger and hit my head—only this time I’mwaymore drunk.
“You’re drunk,” I say to him. “You’re just saying that because you’re drunk.”
Alex laughs. I hate how much I love the sound of it. It warms my blood, and I’m caught between wanting to argue about what he’s saying and asking him to bend me over in the bathroom. It’s frustrating, to say the least.
Note to self, never drink this much again.
The elevator doors slide shut, drowning out the noise, just as he whispers, “No, I’m saying it because I fucking love you, Alize.” In that moment, with the dull incandescent light shining down on him, he looks more sober than he’s been in hours.
“Alex, you can’t just say that without—”
“Without what?” he presses. “Because I bloody mean it, Alize. I’ve known since the moment you walked away from me on that trip.”
The elevator dings and the din from the club envelopes us. “I’m going to show you how much I mean it,” he shouts over the noise.
“We can’t just leave our friends,” I say, squirming in his grip. I try to get a look over his shoulder, toward the dance-floor, as he walks through the exit. There are too many people bouncing around in the dark for me to recognize Tara.
Alex’s chest rumbles with a chuckle. “They won’t even realize that we’re gone,” he says. “And if even if they do, so what?”
“Where exactly are we going?” I ask.
There’s no getting out of this, it seems.
I’m sure if Ireallywanted, I could put up a fight. But beneath all my apprehension, there’s a tiny bit of happiness. Alex just confessed his love for me, and I’m into it more than I’d like to admit. Drunken love confessions in movies always felt a little cliché to me.
Butexperiencingit is different.
He doesn’t answer until we’re out on the street. Alexander shrugs out of his coat, wrapping it around me. That’s when I realized I left mine in the club. I hope Tara or Nya realize and bring it back for me. Then he gets out his phone to call a taxi.
“To the jewelry store, so I can do what I should’ve done all this time.”
My heartbeat is all over my body.
“The taxi will be here in five minutes,” he mutters.
The street is a world apart from the rowdy crowd we left inside. Save for a handful of pedestrians, it’s quiet out here. I put my hands on his hips, looking up at him with a slight smile.
Alex is still as handsome as the day I first met him.
But beneath the harsh, ruthless exterior is the man I’ve come to know. He’s loyal to a fault, even when he shouldn’t be, even when the person he’s loyal to stabs him and is a little unfair to him. His methods aren’t always the best, but the ends always justify the means, I think—and our current situation is everything I dreamed about when our relationship first started.
He grips my cheeks, pulling me into him. Alex leans down and kisses me hard, coaxing my mouth open with his warm tongue—he tastes of lust and whiskey and so muchwant. Of whispered promises and a chance at something new. A whimper leaves me when he pulls away.
My chest feels full.
I feel full.
I’m happy, right now, I think.
I’m happy and I don’t want the feeling to end.
