Page 68 of Promise Yule Be Mine
“I want you too, Kody. I…I’ve been falling in love with you since the first time I laid eyes on you. I can’t get you out of mind. Out of my heart. I’ve never met a man like you.”
I brought my hand up to cup his cheek. The sparks on contact electrified my entire body, made my hairs stand on end. Made me instantly breathless.
“I’ve never met anyone…who made me feel like you do,” I told him, and as if in sync we crashed our lips together.
He still tasted sweet from the cocoa we’d had earlier, but he was also warm, and rushed, and slow.
It was impossible to pull away from him once I was kissing him, not that I would’ve wanted to. I never wanted to stop kissing him. I didn’t care about food or drink—he was my sustenance. The only one I needed. The only one I’d been denied all my life.
He leaned into me just as I leaned to him, bringing his hands to my head and combing his fingers through my hair, an act that gave me goosebumps. We rocked back and forth, deepening our kiss until there was no more depth to explore and our lips were rough and raw.
Despite kissing for what felt like forever, when we pulled apart it still didn’t feel like I’d had enough of him. He was an addiction and I was hooked. I’d been hooked since day one.
“I can’t believe this…this is real,” he whispered.
I smiled at him. Had I really been that lucky to meet the one perfect guy for me that felt just as strongly about me as I did for him?
“Me neither. Me neither, Nova. I gave up on love a long time ago. But you? You’re the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
I didn’t manage to utter another word because he peppered kisses on me, on my mouth, my cheeks, my chin.
“I didn’t think I’d ever find someone like you,” he said.
We kissed again. And again and again. Until we’d found ourselves sitting next to each other on the couch and gazing into each other’s eyes.
“Why,” he said, “did you guys decide to do that? I mean, I know Jenna said you were fed up with having your hearts broken, but…what drives someone to agree to a loveless marriage?”
I pursed my lips and stroked his cheekbone.
“I love Jenna. Very much.”
“You know what I mean. It’s not the same.”
“I don’t know. I thought…I thought it made sense at the time. I didn’t feel like I could ever find anyone who would love me for me and Jenna wanted to have a family, like me.”
He frowned.
“Why did you think you wouldn’t find anyone to love you?”
The conversation was going to bring us to this subject eventually. I expected it. And even though I'd never really discussed this with any of my exes, I knew if I was to have any chance of making it work with Nova it would only be if he knew and accepted the truth about me.
“Well, you…you need to know something about me. Before this goes any further.”
Nova sat up and held my hand.
“What is it?”
I took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes.
“I’m not like…like other people. It’s why my relationships always broke down faster than usual. It’s why I wrote off love and why I agreed to do this with Jenna. I’m asexual, Nova. I don’t like sex. I don’t need it. That’s not to say I don’t ever want to have it, but I feel like I need a level of intimacy and familiarity with someone to want to do it and even then it’s not something I need regularly. It means I can’t give myself to you physically like you might want me to and I wouldn’t want you or anyone who is with me to go without something that’s so crucial for them, so if that’sa dealbreaker, and I mean why wouldn’t it be, it has been for all the people I’ve met, then I’ll understand.”
“You’re kidding,” Nova said, eyes wide open, jaw on the verge of hitting the floor.
My stomach sank and I already felt the pang, the emptiness in my chest of the imminent heartbreak.
“I’m ace, too, Kody.”
I blinked.
