Unravel Me: The Juliette Chronicles Book 2

paralyzed by this moment.
    He moves closer, just an inch. His free hand reaches up to cup the other side of my face.
    He’s holding me like I’m made of feathers.
    He’s holding my face and looking at his own hands like he can’t believe he’s caught this bird who’s always so desperate to fly away. His hands are shaking, just a little bit, just enough for me to feel the slight tremble against my skin. Gone is the boy with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and tender.
    And he leans in, so carefully. Breathing and not breathing and hearts beating between us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere, filling everything and he whispers
    “Please.”
    He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”
    And he kisses me.
    His lips are softer than anything I’ve ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’s so effortlessly sweet.
    And then it changes.
    “Oh God —”
    He kisses me again, this time stronger, desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. I’ve just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.
    He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind and he’s looking at me like something has broken inside of him, like he’s woken up to find that his nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay and
    I’m falling.
    I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.
    He’s searching me, searching my eyes for something, for yeses or nos or maybe a cue to keep going and all I want is to drown in him. I want him to kiss me until I collapse in his arms, until I’ve left my bones behind and floated up into a new space that is entirely our own.
    No words.
    Just his lips.
    Again.
    Deep and urgent like he can’t afford to take his time anymore, like there’s so much he wants to feel and there aren’t enough years to experience it all. His hands travel the length of my back, learning every curve of my figure and he’s kissing my neck, my throat, the slope of my shoulders and his breaths come harder, faster, his hands suddenly threaded in my hair and I’m spinning, I’m dizzy, I’m moving and reaching up behind his neck and clinging to him and it’s ice-cold heat, it’s an ache that attacks every cell in my body. It’s a wanting so desperate, a need so exquisite that it rivals everything, every happy moment I ever thought I knew.
    I’m against the wall.
    He’s kissing me like the world is rolling right off a cliff, like he’s trying to hang on and he’s decided to hold on to me, like he’s starving for life and love and he’s never known it could ever feel this good to be close to someone. Like it’s the first time he’s ever felt anything but hunger and he doesn’t know how to pace himself, doesn’t know how to eat in small bites, doesn’t know how to do anything anything anything in moderation.
    My pants fall to the floor and his hands are responsible.
    I’m in his arms in my underwear and a tank top that’s doing little to keep me decent and he pulls back just to look at me, to drink in the sight of me and he’s saying “you’re so beautiful” he’s saying “you’re so unbelievably beautiful” and he pulls me into his arms again and he picks me up, he carries me to my bed and suddenly I’m resting against my pillows and he’s straddling my hips and his shirt is no longer on his body and I have no idea where it went. All I know is that I’m looking up and into his eyes and I’m thinking there isn’t a single thing I would change about this moment.
    He has a hundred thousand million kisses and he’s giving them all to me.
    He kisses my top lip.
    He kisses my bottom lip.
    He kisses just under my chin, the tip of my nose, the length of my forehead, both temples, my cheeks, all across my jawline. Then my neck, behind my ears, all the way down my throat and
    his hands
    slide
    down
    my body. His entire form is moving