Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1)(63)

I was being a little bit pyscho. I knew it. It’s just, the whole love thing was new to me. I’d never loved anyone like I’d loved Ian before.

Cut yourself some slack then, but move on. Own your feelings but don’t expect reciprocation. Let that come if it comes.

I let the bitterness melt off my chest and slither to my feet.

“I couldn’t say it,” he blurted.

My head whipped his direction. “I know.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“I do,” I told him, resting my cheek against his hand.

He looked at me briefly and I tried to convey to him that there was no pressure. He turned back toward the road.

“No, you really, really don’t.” He took a deep breath. “The truth is, I’m so deep in love with you, I can’t see straight. The truth is, I’ve been afraid to admit it to myself, let alone you. The truth is, I’m terrified.”

“Why? Am I really so frightening?”

He smiled at me. “Shockingly so.”

“Ian.”

“You have no idea what you do to me. I’ve felt things for you these past few months that don’t seem healthy. I’ve wanted you so desperately I’m afraid it may not be natural. You consume my thoughts, Sophie,” he confessed, seemingly forgetting I was there. He spoke to the windshield, a sort of haze drifting over him. “You’ve arrested my senses and I can’t seem to get enough of you. That’s what scares me. I’m so deep there’s no getting out for me. You own me, you know?”

I fixed myself so I faced him. “No, I’m afraid I don’t, Ian. Embellish for me. Pretend I’m one of your students and I don’t comprehend the lesson. Go into great detail...painstaking detail,” I flirted, my heart pounding in my chest at his proclamation.

He fought a smile. “I don’t know why I opened this floodgate. I’m tired, that’s why, and you look so damn bewitching right now.” He sighed. “At Masego, the way you roll the sleeves up your forearms, highlighting your beautiful skin with the perfect wrists that meet those incredible hands. I’ve imagined those hands on me so many times,” he continued, shocking me and drifting further into his own thoughts.

“That might be when I first became aware. Possibly it’s the way your jeans hug your thighs every time you take a single step though. All I can think of when you’re around me are those damn legs, how they’d feel in my palms, how they’d feel wrapped around my waist.” He lightly tapped a fist against the wheel and I sat up a bit. “They’re distracting. Or maybe it’s when your hair is loose and wild and down your back. I’d give anything to see it across your bare shoulders,” he swallowed, “or coiled around my fists,” he declared. He shook his head back and forth slowly, eyes still trained on the road ahead. “It’s actually all those things,” he said suddenly, “but mostly I think it’s your face.”

I squirmed quietly in my seat, praying to God I didn’t break his seemingly unaware trance. My pulse beat erratically at the confession. I felt my throat dry, my stomach drop and it was everything I’d never experienced before but knew was exactly as it should have always felt. My hands gripped the leather beneath my fingers to keep from throwing themselves at him and wrapping themselves around his shoulders.

“Sophie Price, you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met,” he stated before turning my direction and staring me dead in the eyes. “You are so gosh damn beautiful in here,” he said, tapping my chest, “that what’s here,” he spoke, running the side of his hand down my face, “is magnified tenfold and that is a sight to behold.”

My mouth gaped open. I was at a complete loss for words, all rational thought had left, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I leaped across the seat and pulled the collar of his shirt toward me. The next second, I felt the SUV pull over and slam to a stop before being dragged onto Ian’s lap and he was exploring me with his mouth like no one ever had.

His hands found my neck and mine threaded through his hair. “Soph,” he whispered against my lips.

“Yes?” I asked, a smile tugging the corners of my mouth.

We kissed for God knows how long before he answered.

“Say it,” he asked, plucking my earlier plea right out of thin air.

“I love you,” I told him.

“Again,” he said, moving to my neck.

“I love you, Ian.”

“Again,” he asked, pulling my face away from him.

I looked at him, winded and twitterpated. “I’m in love with you, Ian Aberdeen.”

He attacked my lips with an unparalleled ferocity, swallowed my breath and tasted my tongue with his. I wrapped the crook of my arm around his neck to bring him closer, furiously melting my mouth with his and confusing where I started and he began.

“Mercy,” I said, briefly breaking contact before marrying my lips with his once more.

Suddenly his cell began to ring and we both groaned.

“Your parents,” I spoke into his mouth.

“Man, do you know how to spur a guy on or what?”

I laughed against his swollen lips. “Shut up. That’s them, has to be.”

“I don’t care,” he said, his hand searching the cupholder beside him for the phone. “Unless it’s Simon.”