Page 93 of The Time It Takes
I lean down and bite his pectoral. He laughs as if it tickles but doesn’t push me away. “I’m asking now.”
Staring back down at him, he sighs in defeat. “I got the idea from when we were both thirteen years old. We were sitting on the patio after your brother took us to the beach. A blue butterfly landed on your shoulder. While I was ready to shoo it away, you told me to leave it.” He smiles as he continues, “You said it just needed to rest, but then you noticed that its wing was broken. You started to talk to it like it could understand you. I tried to tell you that there was no use in helping it—that if it couldn’t fly it was going to die.”
He lets out a breathy laugh. “That was the first time you ever yelled at me. I watched you try to give it some of your ice cream and I couldn’t find it in myself to tell you that it would probably kill it faster.” This time, I smile, and I can feel it reach my eyes as the memory reoccurs. “It took me a good fifteen minutes of watching you talk to the butterfly to realize what you were doing. You weren’t in denial. You knew it would die. You knew it would never fly again and there was nothing you could do about it. Yet, you sat there and continued to talk to it and tell it stories about nothing and everything. You told me you’d stay with it for as long as it needs—no matter the time it takes.”
He works on a swallow as he pulls me down to him and rolls me so that I’m on my back. He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “I got this tattoo to remind me of the first girl I ever fell in love with and in what moment I was certain of it.”
Tears brim my eyes, and I can’t tell if they’re happy or sad. This whole time the tattoo was about me, and I didn’t even know.
Realization hits me. “Damsel,” I breathe. “It’s why you started to call me Damsel. It was always about the butterfly with the broken wing.” My words are no more than a whisper.
His eyebrows knit together as he nods and wipes away a tear that slips through my barriers. “It was never because I thought you needed saving. It was because in that moment, I think I did. The realization woke me up.Youwoke me up."
I bring my hand up and trail my fingers along his lips. “Whatever glorious thing could I have done in my past life to be able to know you in this one?”
The corners of his mouth lift. “Something pretty damn glorious.”
I laugh, but he silences it with a kiss. The air around us heats up immediately. He grinds into me as his fingers dip inside me. I moan into the deep kiss.
Remembering something, I break our kiss. I climb over him as I push him onto his back, causing his fingers to slide out of me. I ignore the protest on his tongue as I stand to grab something from my suitcase.
Unzipping it, I reach for the plastic bag tucked under my clothes—inside it, a joint. I crawl back on the bed and swing the bag in front of his face. A gift from Dean at lunch the other day.
He smiles wide, his fingers digging into my sides, making me squirm with a laugh. “Where on earth did you get that?”
“Dean found it on some teenagers at the park,” I tell him innocently as I take it out of the bag and grab the matches on the nightstand.
His eyebrows shoot up, but the giddiness remains on his face. “Stealing evidence now, are we?”
I hum. “I guess we better make it disappear,” I quip, and he lets me place it between his lips. I light it for him and watch him inhale. I set the matchbox aside.
I slide down his body, pulling his boxers down with me. His cock stands at the attention, and I wrap my fist around it, squeezing.
“Oh, shit.” He chokes on the smoke, and I laugh hoarsely, which quickly turns into a moan as I lower my mouth onto him.
Chapter Eighteen
Present
Istareatmyselfthrough the mirror on the vanity. My cheeks are still flushed from this morning. Eventually, we both decided it was time to get out of bed. Oliver left twenty minutes ago to get dressed at his penthouse. He has a meeting today for the charity event he’s having Thursday evening.
I already sent an email to my job in New York to let them know I’d be needing a little more time off. It took little convincing since I never missed a day of work before.
I pull a spaghetti-strapped yellow sundress over my head and shimmy it down my body. I’m sliding into my sandals when Oliver appears in the reflection of the mirror.
My eyes drift down his body, taking in his attire. He’s wearing black slacks and a white buttoned-down shirt with Oxford’s. He left a few buttons open at the top, exposing his toned chest. His hair is still messy and so Oliver like, that I grin. I could get used to seeing him like this.
When my eyes lift to his, I find them doing the same—exploring. It’s very hard to keep myself rooted in place. So easily, I could fall back into bed with him and forget about the rest of existence.
I finally turn around to face him and he approaches me swiftly, meaning in every step he takes. He grabs both sides of my face, his expression soft.
“You.”
He shakes his head. And then he kisses me.
It’s the kind of kiss that leaves you hot and sweaty. It’s the kind of kiss that promises other things. Yet, it doesn’t. We're making out like two high schoolers who just learned how great kissing is.
By the time he pulls away, the room has gone up a hundred degrees. His thumbs trace the sides of my neck as he rests his forehead on mine. I want to say something to him. I feel like I need to tell him how I feel about him and how much I thought about him for the past ten years. I open my mouth to speak, but his phone dings in his pocket. We both know who it is without looking at it.
