AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Really?” I say, my voice telling even my own ears that I don’t believe him. He smiles.
“Vacation. Two days. Just us, no eyes, no ears. Us being together without the rest of the complications the world brings.” I continue to stare at him as he sits across from me. “‘It means mornings. It means going to breakfast at some place on the lake. It means curling up with you for a fuckin’ rips.”
“A riposo?” I say with a smile.
My heart is suddenly unbearably full, my mind distracted by the simple promise of Dante. Of being with him like normal. Of him being my boyfriend, for lack of a better word, without the insanity.
“Recharge after a mid-day fuckfest.” I snort out an unladylike laugh and it feels good. It feels light after the incredibly heavy shit that’s going on inside his car.
His hands move to my face again, pulling me across the console until our noses are touching.
“I can’t give you everything I want you to have right this second. I can’t give you the crown, the title, not yet. I can’t give you all my mornings or smile in front of the cameras with you on my arm. I want you to have that—I want to have that—but I can’t give it to you yet. I want you to have the plan, want you to know everything, but I can’t give that to you yet. You have nothing from me yet, Delilah. I’ve given you fucking nothing, while you’ve given me life. Do you know what that feels like? To find someone like you, trick you into falling for me, and not be able to give you the world? To not be able to fully prove that choosing me, stooping down to my level when you could have the moon, was worth the risk? How the fuck can I win you, keep you, if I don’t have that? I want you to have everything, but the time isn’t right. I can’t do it yet. So I’m begging you. Please. Give me this. Give me this chance to prove myself to you. To give you something to believe in.”
“I want to say no,” I say in a whisper. My mind is fighting my heart—the common sense telling me to force him to turn the car around.
But my heart wants to give him that. Wants him to have that chance.
So, because I’m stupid when it comes to him, I nod. "Okay."
He kisses me again, the console digging into my rib cage, but I don’t care.
Because through his kiss, I taste a single salty tear.
I don’t have it in me to ask if it was from him or me when he finally breaks the kiss and drives off into the dark.
Forty
-Lilah-
Hours later, Dante parks in front of a small cabin.
I can’t get the smile off my face as he jogs around the car to open the door, a new, goofy smile I’ve never seen on his.
“Where are we?” I ask, the wind whipping my hair around. It’s dark now, but there’s a light on at the front of the house that seems to be on a lake.
“Lake George,” Dante says, opening the mailbox and grabbing a key.
Favorite childhood vacation?
The question hits me, and I remember it’s one of the many he asked during those first few days at the club before we were anything at all.
“Lake George,” I whisper, and in the glow of the front light, his lips tip up further.
“Whose house is this?” I ask, slowly following him as he unlocks the front door to the small house, opening it and flicking on the lights.
“It’s mine. Ours. I bought it.”
“Ours?” I mimic like an idiot. “You bought it?”
“Yes, baby. Right after you told me about coming here. Figured one day we could bring our kids here, make it a tradition.”
“Our kids?”
“Two, at least,” he says with a smile.
Then he bends, scooping me up before walking me over the threshold, kicking the door closed behind us.
Locking out the rest of the world.
