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Otherwise how can I explain this madness? The fact that I'm still fucking obsessed with her when by all accounts I should abhor the sight of her?
"Raf? Are you alright?"
Her voice startles me out of my reverie.
I blink, my mind still foggy—still full of her.
Before I can say anything, she gets up from her seat, coming to my side and kneeling before me. Her hands are suddenly on top of mine, her touch instantly waking my body to life.
"And here I thought I was the only one scared about flying," she jokes as she uses her thumbs to massage the inside of my palm.
What…
"It's okay, I can be your rock," she gives me a tentative smile as she continues to stroke my hand in a comforting gesture.
She…
I freeze.
Goddamn you, Noelle. Why the hell do you have to worm yourself into my mind, into my fucking heart, even at a time like this?
She's the one who has an issue with flying and now she's trying to comfortme?
I can't believe this.
"Squeeze my hand," she continues, wrapping my hand around hers. "I find that if I keep my hands busy somehow I stop paying too much attention to what goes on around me.”
I don't answer, merely staring at her and the image she strikes like that—on her knees in front of me.
Yet even as the position is entirelytoosuggestive for my rather undeveloped brain, nothing lewd is on my mind. There's only a warmth suffusing my chest, spreading through my entire body the more her skin touches mine.
"You're getting lost in your head, aren't you?" she asks sympathetically. "That always happens to me, especially when I know I have no control of a situation."
"I think that makes you a control freak," I remark wryly.
But I don't want to remove her touch. Not when my skin is awfully starved for it.
Nor do I contradict her that I am not having anxiety over our flight and that in fact, I am merely too captivated byher.She doesn't need to know that—not now, when things are so damn precarious between us.
"I suppose it does," she chuckles. "When you've felt powerless your entire life, you learn to prize it above all else."
"Was that what happened with us?" I ask before I can help myself. "Was I an exercise in your control because I was powerless to do anything?"
A dry smile pulls at her lips.
"You were never powerless, Raf. In fact…" she licks her lips, looking at me from beneath her lashes. "You've always had control when it comes to me."
I raise a brow for her to elaborate.
"Because I've been powerless my entire life, it's my most prized possession. And it's yours. It's been yours from the beginning, Raf," she says as she absentmindedly squeezes my hand. "The control is inyourhands. I just ask that you don't throw me away. Just… Let me be by your side. In any capacity…"
"In any capacity?" I repeat, frowning. "What the hell are you on about, Noelle?"
"Just…" she drags herself closer, fitting her body to my legs and placing her head on my lap.
God, her audacity is astounding. Yet it's nowhere near my stupidity for allowing it, for not moving—for not beingableto move.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
