The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(48)
He steps into me. A frigid breeze whips through the clearing between the cabin and the lake, and his wavy, dark hair blows across his face. It swirls around his head as the wind eddies, and I'm struck for the millionth time that he can't possibly be real. This dark, tortured soul, covered in so much ink, standing before me isn't the kind of creature to find his way into my life and somehow make it better. He was meant for other things.
A wolf and a rose—savage and wild, beautiful and tender. A dichotomy if ever I saw one. I realize for the very first time that the ink on the backs of Alex's hands really are an accurate representation of him. I stare at them as he slowly lifts his hand, and then he's carefully stroking his thumbs over my cheekbones, cradling my face so reverently that I think he's worried I might shatter against him.
His voice is filled with emotion as he sighs out his next words. “I promise. You won’t even need to try, Argento. I’ll make it as easy as breathing.” He moves with infinite patience, slowly, giving me every opportunity to bolt. Somehow, despite my heart fluttering in my chest like an injured bird, I stay rooted to the ground, my feet bare in the earth, as he bows down to meet me, lifting my face to him, and he kisses me.
I've been kissed before, but not like this. Not like it means something. Not like it really is a promise. It starts slow, tentative, gentle, but I can feel the unrest in him. I know he wants to claim me with his mouth, but he holds back. He's patient with me, and I…I begin to feel the fractured pieces inside me slowly starting to hurt a little less. His fingers thread into my hair as he slowly guides my mouth open.
The moment the wet heat of his tongue touches my lips, something is kindled in me—the beginnings of a fire I already know will burn out of control if given half a chance. I’m hot all over, eaten alive by both fear and need as he pulls me to him, firmly holding me against his chest. The taste of him fills my head, cool and fresh like mint.
I surprise myself when I reach up and place my hand at the back of his neck, pulling down so he can kiss me harder. Maybe I’m proving something to myself now, meeting him in the middle, daring to slide my tongue into his mouth, too. I can do this. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted before. I fit against him, so much smaller than him, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place, and in one blindingly quick moment, I begin to believe in this. In him. In us. That there can be an us, without the fear that’s been festering in me like a poison ruining everything in the span between heartbeats.
I didn’t know it, but I’ve been waiting for him for a long time now.
When he pulls away, breath ragged, eyes wide, his pupils are blown, turning his irises almost black. “That's it then, Argento. The decision's been made. You're mine, and I'm yours. And the whole of Raleigh High is gonna know about it by five minutes past eight, Tuesday morning.”
18
ALEX
“Wake up, Passerotto. I made you something good. Alessandro, mi amore, open your eyes.”
The smell of caramelized sugar and the sound of my mother's voice wakes me. For a drowsy, blissful moment, I am six years old, and my mother is stroking a feather along the bridge of my nose, making me squirm as I surface from my dreams. She used to do that all the time, even though she knew it made me mad and tickled like crazy. I rub at my face, scratching my nose, eyes opening slowly, and I see the full-bloomed roses, wrapped in vines, winding up my arm, and it all comes flooding back. Eleven years, rushing in, pressing down on me, replaying the greatest hits of my life, which, up until last night haven't been all that fucking great.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the cabin last night when Silver showed me into a small bedroom on the ground floor, complete with bunk beds and Hulk sheets. Max’s room, she told me. Turns out her brother is the same age as Ben. Now, I get up, kicking my way back into my jeans and sliding my arms into my t-shirt, noticing that this morning is the first morning in a long ass time that I haven’t woken up with a stiff neck on the couch in the trailer.
There is a bedroom there. I could use the bed, but somehow climbing into it feels wrong. Three years, I slept on a two-inch thick mattress in Gary’s converted basement. He made a point of making sure I wouldn’t be comfortable, and so I made a point of getting accustomed to the cold and the ache in my bones when I woke as a fuck-you to the bastard. Now that I have no reason to mistreat my body and subject it to such uncomfortable conditions…I don’t know. It’s hard to stop saying fuck you to Gary, even though the motherfucker’s dead.
From the way the sun's pouring in through the windows, already climbed halfway up into the sky, it must be about eleven or so. Everything looks so different in the daylight. I wander down a narrow hallway, emerging into the living room, and I catch sight of Silver through the doorway, standing in the kitchen in front of the stove, stirring viciously at something. She hasn't noticed me yet, and I take a moment to watch her. Her hair's down. I have never, ever seen it down before. The light catches at it, highlighting individual strands of honey and gold, and I remember how good it had felt to bury my hands in the thickness of it last night. Too fucking good.
She’s wearing little blue shorts with ribbons tied into bows on either side of the legs, and a white t-shirt that’s so big it’s slipping off her, exposing one of her shoulders. She hums as she cooks, and I recognize the song. It’s ‘Vienna,’ by Billy Joel. So fucking weird. Weird that she even knows it. I don’t want to startle her, so I clear my throat, walking heavily across the living room, making sure she knows I’m coming.