Page 159 of The Invite
The same night, he’d bought all the tools for me to give painting a shot. Not those stupid and silly ones that are provided in schools. I was so eager to use them right away that my fingers were twitching. As soon as I was alone, I went to the balcony and set about to draw. It came as naturally as breathing, and I was lost in my own bubble. When I finished, it was my dad’s face staring back at me from the canvas, wearing the same expression as earlier in the day.
The proud expression he wore the next morning when I showed it to him is forever etched into my brain. I can also remember the tight expression my mother had worn in the background.
Painting was an outlet for me, not the cure. When I wasn’t sketching, the same void would make itself home. I may have been just a kid, but I knew I couldn’t have a repeat of my parents being called into the school. Or risk going to therapy. The only solution to avoid it was to pretend and blend in, so I did by studying everyone around me.
That’s how Maverick entered my life.
He was a hurricane, ill-tempered, picking a fight with every kid in the playground. Becoming his friend would kill two birds with one stone. My parents would stop worrying I was dead inside while the rest of my class would give me a wide berth. It was pure coincidence that Maverick and I formed a tight-knit bond.
I’m not one to reminisce over the past but a foreign urge has risen once more. To share this part of my life with Nessa. It’ll give her all the answers she’s secretly searching for but doesn’t think I know.
She’ll understand why I can’t let her go, why I chased her so ruthlessly, why she’s so dangerous to me.
In the forest when she collided with my chest, the explosion I had only felt once roared to life. It was more powerful than the first. Deeper. Ever-lasting.
It happens every time our eyes lock.
Every time she’s in my vicinity.
Its flames sizzle every time we touch.
Nessa runs in my veins. Letting her go will mean I’ll bleed out. There are only two ways out for her. Either I find a cure or I die. Until then, she’s stuck by my side.
As if she can hear my thoughts, she stirs.
The sheet is tangled around her slim waist, dark with my bruises and leaving her bare from above. Her pale nipples are red and still swollen, jolting my cock to life. I’m in a perpetual state of arousal around her. She needs to be in the room and I’m hard as a rock.
The bedroom is bathed in semi-darkness, illuminated only by the fading sun streaming through the half-open window with the curtains fluttering lightly from the wind. It’s bright enough for me to sketch her easily, which I’ve been doing for the last hour.
Unlike on previous occasions, I’m not in a rush. Something pivotal happened between us tonight that I can’t put a name to yet. I felt it as if the earth itself shifted beneath us, altering the course of our future.
I can draw her in my sleep with my eyes closed, she’s burned that deep in my mind.
Pausing the strokes of my fingers, I lock my gaze on hers, not wanting to miss the second she senses my presence. The first trickle of awareness erasing the fogginess. Will she panic? Regret? Try to escape? Deny the twisted connection we share?
I had carried her upstairs after she passed out, but not before I stole another orgasm from her pliant body. After rummaging around in her purse, I found a sheet of paper and a pen instead of settling in beside her.
I caught a glimpse of the Dictaphone with the damning recording of us. I didn’t take it. Despite knowing it’s the only leverage she has over me.
Perhaps I am losing my touch.
Leaning back against the chair, I don’t make a sound to spook her as I sit near the foot of the bed.
Her brow furrowing, she sighs and stretches her legs before slowly blinking her eyelids open. The confused frown doesn’t disappear as her vision adjusts to the darkness.
I watch the exact moment she realizes I’m here when every bone in her body locks in place and her nipples pebble.
After an unsteady inhale that stretches into a century, she dips her chin in my direction and those light orbs collide with mine. They betray every single emotion currently running through her veins. None are remotely close to panic or regret.
A cosmic rush flows through my chest.
The goddamn explosion.
Maybe it’s relief that she’s not pushing me away or lurching back in fear.
Nessa studies me as I do her. She’s a sight I’ll never get tired of. The kind a dying man yearns for during his last breaths before being condemned to hell.
Her gaze roams down my bare chest, briefly pausing at the fresh scars she left. A blush blossoms on her cheeks the instant it lands on the sheet of paper in my lap. I’m only halfway done.
