Page 128 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

I hadn’t even noticed my cone had been running.

When he pulled back, he licked his lips, and I tracked the movement, entranced.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Luca murmured, voice low and sweeter than the ice cream he had stolen. My tongue piercing clicked against my teeth as I grit my jaw. “Unless you’re gonna do something about it.” He arched a brow. “You look hungry, Prudence.” The sun made his lashes glow as he held his ice cream cone up and deliberately pressed the pointed tip of his overly pink tongue into the melted multi-colored treat. It squished, a quiet parody of the way it had sounded when my dick had pushed inside him. My cock throbbed. “Are you hungry?”

I grabbed his cone, deliberately slow, and when he released it, I smashed it right between his big, delicious pecs. His nipples immediately hardened as he snickered out a shocked little laugh.

“You should be banned from ice cream,” he snorted, swiping a hand through the mess and moving lightning-quick to smash it against the side of my face in retaliation. “It’s almost like you don’t know how to eat it.” I glared at him, unbothered. Though the glare was maybe, probably, more a smile than a glare.

“That’s my shirt, assholes!” Adam called, clearly annoyed. He still didn’t know about the other clothes we’d ruined, and I was honestly disappointed I wouldn’t get to see his reaction when he discovered it.

Luca’s whole family had paused the game to watch us, and weirdly enough, the attention didn’t make my skin crawl. Luca’s whole face scrunched up as he began adorably laughing his ass off. Eliza’s eyes were warm as she regarded her giggling, pink-haired son. Betty’s gaze was approving, and Paul and Adam…looked maybe a bit too fond.

When was the last time they’d seen him like this?

Care free.

Just…him. Without his walls up. Without his perfect-son persona to hide behind. Luca snorted on another giggle, and licked the ice cream from his fingers, finally noticing his family was watching us.

“Foul!” He yelled, startling them all into action again. “Carrying the ball.”

“You the ref now?” I asked, reaching up to swipe away the smear of ice cream from my skin. Luca shrugged, his gray eyes glittering. “You into that sort of thing?”

I’m into you, I thought, but didn’t say. He pulled his shirt up, flashing those tight, tan abs my way as he sucked the ice cream from the fabric.

We sat there till the sun set entirely, and the streetlights turned on to illuminate the ungodly awkward continued game. As the sun disappeared, Luca grew more guarded. Like he sensed, as strongly as I did, that our last day together was coming to a close. Sometimes, I’d catch him stiffening, then relaxing, like he was forcing the anxiety back for as long as he could.

When he looked at me with stars in his eyes, I couldn’t help but remember what we’d done the night before. The paint. The feelings. The fact that for the first time in my life I had felt like…enough for someone.

I couldn’t ignore the blatant affection in his eyes, or the desire there—the blind loyalty. This was a man who would follow me to the ends of the earth. Who would forgive murder for me. Steal for me. Kill for me. And that thought would inevitably smash the last of the butterflies flitting inside my belly. My heart would shrivel up, cold, and desperate the second I remembered what I’d made him promise to do.

With every star in the sky the weight on his shoulders increased.

I could sense his warring thoughts.

Desperately clinging to our last time together, while dreading what we were about to do.

Since the moment I’d found out I was a ghost, all I’d ever wanted was to actually die. There was nothing to live for when the future felt like a trap. But the time I’d spent with Luca had helped me change my narrative. The words he’d spoken that day on the mountain, his hair lit up like a halo, his eyes full of forever, had haunted me for days because I knew now he was right.

Some people are going to disappoint you. But some people won’t.

Life had been a disappointment. People had been even more disappointing. But him? No. He’d exceeded every expectation I’d ever had. He was complicated, confusing, frustrating, and…lovely. Every day with him was a surprise. Living didn’t feel like a trap when he was by my side. And the mountains I’d once labored climbing just to survive my own existence, now felt like molehills.

Luca said the world was a big place.

Maybe there was room for me in it.

Maybe.

Something had changed inside me.

Something fundamental and frightening.

Emotions weren’t any easier, but the prospect of learning them no longer felt quite so overwhelming.

I couldn’t fathom a universe without Luca in it.

I wouldn’t allow it.

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