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Which is when he puts me down, or rather sits me down on the island.
He also sets down the tote he’s been lugging around all evening, right by my side, and he does it carefully too. As if it’s something precious.
I mean, it is.
To me.
And I can’t help but think that maybe that’s why it is for him as well. But I don’t get the time to process that because as soon as he settles me on the island, he does something crazy — again — and goes down on his knees, wrapping his fingers around my right ankle.
“I was lying,” I blurt out then, grabbing the edge of the island.
I did the same thing that I’d advised Echo to do. Why, I don’t know but yeah.
He looks up at me.
And I continue, “I didn’t… That was fake. I didn’t hurt myself. I didn’t —”
His fingers squeeze my ankles. “I know.”
“What?”
“That you were lying.”
My heart thuds. “So then why did you —”
“Because I didn’t wanna take a chance if you were in fact telling the truth.”
I try to extricate my foot from his hold. “But now you know that I wasn’t, so you should —”
He tightens his hold on me. “Besides, three years ago, I made a promise to myself.”
I go still, my nails digging into the island. “Y-you mean, three years ago when we… met for the first time?”
“Yeah, let’s call it that.”
I frown at his phrasing but go on. “What promise?”
He rubs my skin with his thumb, my delicate bones. “That night you fell on your knees. And you fell so hard that you were bleeding.” His thumb presses into my skin then. “And the best that I could, that I would let myself do, was to follow you home. Like a pussy.”
“But that’s —”
“So I promised myself that if you ever got hurt because of me, I’d make sure to be there to take care of you.”
So many things happen at once.
First, I can’t believe he’s bringing that night up. Not only that, he’s bringing up that old injury. Something that I hardly ever think about. Something that I wouldn’t ever think about, if he hadn’t brought it up just now.
It was such a minor thing.
I’d actually almost forgotten about it.
And the fact that he remembers — well, I know he has a knack for remembering everything — and that he made a promise to himself based on something that I don’t even think about, is… surreal.
It’s something that I want to take a moment to absorb.
But he doesn’t give me the space to do so.
Because I feel his fingers move.
I feel his fingers leave my ankle and go up my calves, both of them now. His rough calluses drag up and scrape against my smooth skin and my toes curl. Goosebumps rise over my skin and he watches it happen.
He watches his bronzed and bruised fingers trailing up my smooth and porcelain skin.
And I have to suck in a breath and bite my lip from letting out a whimper.
Because if this isn’t the literal embodiment of who we are — a boy made of thunder and thorns and a girl made of candies and cream — then I don’t know what is. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so heartbreaking and yet so erotic at the same time.
God, I have lost my mind, haven’t I?
This has to be the most unique, the most original experience of my life.
And all he’s doing is touching my legs.
When he reaches the backs of my knees, I whisper, “Is that… Is that why…”
He looks up, his eyes pitch black and glittering. “Is that why what?”
I lick my lips. “Is that why you’d get mad at me? When I, uh, would drive down to Bardstown for your games during a storm or when it was really dark. Because you thought I could get hurt and you didn’t want me to.”
He rubs his thumbs over my skin, making me squirm and breathe brokenly. Then, “Yeah.”
“A-and that’s why you also always insisted on me staying the night at your place when I…” Another swipe of his thumb, making it hard to speak. “…came to see Callie?”
“One of the reasons,” he replies.
“What’s the other —”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“T-tell you what?”
He watches me for a few seconds, his thumbs moving in circles over the tender skin around my knees and the inside of my thighs, before he stands up in one graceful motion. And then just like that I’m the one looking up at him and he’s the one looking down, and the change is so jarring that I feel disoriented, as if the world has tilted itself, and my hands automatically go to grab his biceps for balance.
Settling himself in between my thighs that either fall open by themselves to make space for him or maybe he forced them to, I don’t know, he says, “The agenda. For your business meeting tonight.”
