Believe Me (Shatter Me, #6.5) (23)

I can feel her growing torment, her need for release as great as my own. We find a rhythm as we move. Ella hooks her legs around my waist, and she doesn’t stop kissing me; my mouth, my cheeks, my jaw—any part of me she can reach—her feverish touches interrupted only by desperate pleas begging me for more—faster, harder—

“I love you,” she says desperately.

“I love you so much—” I let go when I feel her come apart, losing myself in the moment with a stifled cry, my body seizing as it succumbs to this, the most acute form of pleasure.

I bury my face in her chest, listening to the sound of her racing heart for only a moment before disengaging myself, for fear of crushing her. Somehow the two of us manage, just barely, to squeeze in together on the narrow bed.

Ella tucks herself into my side, pressing her face against my neck, and I reach for the insubstantial covers, drawing them up around us. She grazes my chest with the tips of her fingers, drawing patterns, and this single action ignites a low heat deep inside me.

I could do this all day.

I don’t care what happened yesterday. I don’t need an explanation. None of it seems to matter anymore, not when she’s here with me. Not when her naked body is wrapped up in mine, not when she draws her hands along my skin, touching me with a tenderness that tells me everything I need to know.

All I want is this. Her.

Us.

I don’t even realize I’ve fallen asleep until her voice startles me awake.

“Aaron,” she whispers.

It takes me a moment to open my eyes, to find my voice. I turn toward her as if in a dream, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “Yes, love?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”





NINE


The morning is cool and serene, everything limned in golden light. Touches of dew dot leaves and grass, the sun still stretching itself into the sky. The air is fresh with scents I cannot adequately describe; it’s an amalgam of early morning fragrances, the familiar smell of the world shuddering awake. That I notice these things at all is unusual; it is clear, even to me, that my mood is greatly improved.

Ella is holding my hand.

She’s been buoyant this morning. She got dressed even more quickly than I did, tugging me out the door with an enthusiasm that almost made me laugh.

Winston, who we discover waiting for us just outside the medical tent, possesses a range of emotions diametrically opposed. He says nothing when Ella and I approach, first taking in the two of us, then glancing at his watch.

“Hey, Winston,” Ella says, still beaming. “What are you doing here?”

“Who, me?” He points at himself, feigning shock. “Oh, nothing. Just waiting out here for this jackass”—he shoots me a dark look—“for over an hour.”

“What? Why?” Ella frowns. “And don’t call him a jackass.”

I process this exchange with some confusion. I’d not realized until just that moment how much I’d been hoping Winston’s appearance at my door had something to do with Ella.

I see now that it does not.

“Winston came to our room this morning,” I explain to her. “He told me he had . . . a surprise for me.”

Ella’s frown deepens. “A surprise?”

“An hour ago,” Winston adds angrily.

“Yes,” I say, meeting his eyes. “An hour ago.”

He visibly clenches his jaw. “You really are the worst, you know that? I mean, everyone is always telling me that you’re the worst—not that I’ve ever doubted it—but wow, this morning has just proven to me how completely self-absorbed you are. I can’t believe I even offered to come get—”

“Winston.” Ella’s voice is quiet, carefully controlled, but her anger is loud. I turn to look at her, not surprised, exactly, but—

Yes, surprised.

I’m still unfamiliar with this dynamic. I’m still not used to someone taking my side.

“Look,” she says. “Warner might be too nice to say anything when you talk to him like that—”

Winston sounds for a moment like he’s choking.

“—but I’m not. So don’t. Not only because it’s awful, but because you’re wrong.”

Winston is still staring at Ella, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry— You think he’s too nice to say anything? You think the reason Warner gets all quiet and gives people death stares is because he’s too nice? To say anything?” Winston glances at me. “Him?”

I am smiling.

Ella is indignant, Winston is furious, and I am smiling. Very nearly laughing.

“Yes,” Ella says, refusing to back down. “You guys are too comfortable bullying him.”

Winston looks around himself a moment, for all the world as if he’s entered some alternate universe. He opens his mouth to say something, looks at me, looks away, and then crosses his arms.

“You heard what he was like, right?” he finally says to Ella. “When you were gone? You heard all the stories about how h—”

“Yes,” she says, her voice darker now. “I heard exactly what happened.”

“And? So you know about all the people he murdered and how horrible he was to everyone and how he made a ton of people here cry and how Nouria nearly shot him for it—and you think we are the ones bullying him? That’s what you think is happening here?”