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Chapter Thirty-Two
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Aslan
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(Moon in Hindi: Chandrama)
“ASLAN...TALK TO ME.” NERI SAT BESIDE me as I fisted the steering wheel and chose different streets to avoid the breath testing roadblock.
“Aslan...? What...what was that back in there? You...you kissed me.” Rubbing her arms, she shook her head. “You kissed me and—” She cut herself off, touching her lips where I’d bruised her. “Did you kiss me just to stop that guy from being a dick? Did you mean to kiss me that roughly? Did you—”
“Not yet.” My foot wanted to stomp on the accelerator, but I forced myself to drive below the speed limit. No way would I risk being pulled over. Not when I was so close to figuring out how to live.
“Not yet? What does that mean?”
“It means...I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”
“I hate to tell you, but you can’t ignore this. You can’t send me a text pretending that kiss didn’t happen. You can’t try to gaslight me into believing it meant nothing when every part of me says it was—”
“Everything. It was everything. I know that.” I threw her a look before focusing back on the road. “It happened. I’m not going to deny it.”
“You’re not?” Her tone flirted with confused. “But...you haven’t so much as touched me this past year—”
“You’re with him.”
“Joel?”
My teeth ground to dust, unable to picture her lips—lips that tangled my stomach and fisted my heart—on another guy’s.
I nodded curtly.
A long pause before she whispered, “I broke up with him tonight.”
“What?” I swerved into the other lane as I looked at her. “You did?”
She couldn’t hold my stare, dropping her chin and twining her fingers together. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“Why?” I choked on those three little letters, heading back to the right side of the road.
“Why?” she whispered. “Do you really need to ask?”
I jerked and my heart lost all resemblance of pumping like normal. I was wired and jittery and so fucking wild, I couldn’t stay human anymore.
Spying the first patch of darkness up ahead, I stomped on the gas.
Neri looked up. “Aslan, slow down. You don’t want to be pulled over.”
“Already have. On the way to you.”
“You did?” Her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God. How did you...I mean...why didn’t they—?”
“Take me?”
She swallowed hard. “Didn’t they ask for identification?”
“I got lucky.”
Placing her hand over her heart, her voice wobbled. “God, just the thought of you being taken. I don’t think I could handle it.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “Promise me you’ll find a way to stay here. Legally. So we don’t have to fear—”
“I’m yours, Nerida.” My gut wrenched in two as I reached across and swiped my thumb over her tear-wet cheekbone. “Here. There. Everywhere.”
I’d never spoken such truer words.
Never thought I would allow myself.
I couldn’t assure her that I’d never be deported.
I couldn’t assure her that all her fantastical plans of getting married and gaining a visa would come true.
But I was done letting all of that keep us apart.
I was done fucking fighting.
Fighting every fibre in my being that screamed my one true path was her.
Sucking in a gasp, Neri turned her head and kissed my hand before I dropped it from her gorgeous face, placed it on the gearstick, and swerved into a local park.
A deserted park.
Driving beneath palm trees and cutting through the carpark to a shadowy spot beneath an ancient banyan, I slammed on the brakes, cut the engine, and hurled myself out the door.
Every step I took was jerky and manic, and Neri sucked in another gasp as I wrenched open her door, reached over to unhook her seatbelt, then dragged her unceremoniously outside.
She tripped a little.
I steadied her.
I slammed her door, fisted her hips, and trapped her firmly against the Jeep.
Our eyes locked.
Our breathing was wild.
All the familiar black dripping thoughts that usually filled my head were silent. I trembled and tingled, sparkling with energy so savage, so sharp, I couldn’t stand up straight.
I had so many things to say, yet I couldn’t remember a single one of them.
My eyes dropped to her glistening parted lips. I swallowed a groan. “Why? Tell me why.”
Tears shot to her eyes again, knowing exactly what I asked. Her delicate hands that’d petted whales and played with octopus slipped deliciously through my hair.
I shivered.
The curse of oversensitivity shot through me, centring in my cock.
I throbbed.
“Neri...I—”
“He wasn’t you, Aslan. No one will ever be you.” Her gaze locked on my mouth. It was as if she touched me there. I grew hot and tight, and I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, fighting my true nature. Doing my best to stay the boy she knew and not give in to the monster I’d been hiding from.
“He wasn’t you,” she breathed, standing on tiptoe, offering herself to me, pulling my head down, drugging me. “And I’m so sick of wanting you. So sick of not being honest.”
