Page 53 of Damnation
He gives a yielding sigh and puts his hands on my hips, turning me to face him. My soapy hands are dripping all over the floor, but neither of us can manage to care. “I’m an idiot,” he admits.
“Yup, you sure are,” I confirm, trying to sound mad, but something in his regretful eyes makes it impossible.
“I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I just never know how to handle this…this thing,” he says, gesturing between himself and me.
“What thing?” I ask, bewildered.
He looks around, hesitating as if trying to find the right words to express himself. When he looks back at me, he cups my face in his hands and buries his fingers in my hair, pulling me closer to him. “In the past, if someone wanted to take something that belonged to me, I was willing to just give it to them. Because I didn’t feel like anything really was mine.” I’m about to break in and tell him Alex has no intention of taking what belongs to him, but he doesn’t let me. “With you, it’s different. Seeing you laugh or joke around or even just talk to someone other than me…it makes me crazy, Ness. And I don’t give a shit if it’s your best friend, a student in one of your classes, or a customer at the Marsy doing it. It’s an impulse that I can’t control.Because you’re mine…” He clenches my hair into his fist and presses his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes with a disarming intensity. “You feel like mine.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
“You are an idiot, Thomas.” I cinch my arms tighter around his waist, barely holding back a smile. The smell of his bodywash tickles my nose. “Alex is one of the people I care about most in the world. But I’ve never looked at him the way I look at you. I’ve never looked at anyone the way I look at you,” I admit, rubbing his back.
We fall silent for a few seconds as his eyes roam over me. Then he shakes his head. “You just keep sticking with me, despite all the headers I take.” He pauses and stares intently at me. “Sometimes I think you’re the crazy one.”
I lift my eyes to meet his and promptly get lost in that emerald abyss. “Sometimes, I think that too,” I admit in a whisper.
Thomas strokes my cheek, and without another word, he kisses me. It’s a slow, sweet, hypnotic kiss. Our tongues move languidly against one another, his lips warm and enveloping.
“Promise me you’ll be nicer to him from now on,” I murmur into his mouth.
Thomas just keeps kissing me, holding me tightly as if he’s afraid that, if he doesn’t, he’ll watch me slip away from him. “I can promise that I’ll try,” he answers hoarsely, nibbling at my lip. “Can’t promise I’ll succeed.”
It’s not exactly the answer I was hoping for, but it still seems like an acceptable compromise. Without any warning, he grabs me by the thighs and lifts me up. I automatically wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. His lips curl into a small smile as he carries me out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. My eyes fall on the dishes yet to be washed and the oven, which is still on. “Wait, the cake is going to burn!” I point out.
“Vince,” Thomas shouts, climbing the staircase. “Check on the cake.”
Vince grumbles something that I can’t hear but can clearly imagine.
When we get upstairs, Thomas closes the door behind us and sits me down on the desk, before…
“What the fuck…?” he says, looking at the pile of books and DVDs behind me, which I arranged earlier and which now take up most of the shelf.
“Um, yeah, see…I didn’t mention it to you, but I had my friends bring some of my stuff over.”
Thomas takes a look around, only now appearing to realize that the room has been colonized by books. He looks back at me with a raised eyebrow. “Did you bring your entire library, Ness?”
“No! No, no, of course not. Not my entire library,” I answer hastily. “Tiff and Alex were careful only to bring me the essentials.”
“The essentials?” he repeats skeptically. “My room has been completely invaded,” he says, taking another quick look around. There are books and TV series box sets everywhere, to say nothing of the clothes; we managed to fit as much in the empty drawers as we could, but the rest are still sitting around in boxes on the floor.
“Oh God, did I…did I screw this up? I probably should have asked your permission first. I’m not trying to take over your space; it’s just that I needed clothes, and I can’t really feel at home without my books…”
Thomas stares at me, dazed, and I am briefly afraid that he’s about to kick me out, but then he explodes into laughter, resting his forehead on my shoulder.
“I–I’m sorry. I should have told them just to bring a few changes of clothes and leave the rest.”
“Ness,” he says, raising his head, but I’m too embarrassed to listen to him.
“Believe me, I did not do this to try to put down roots or something. And I totally understand if this is all too much for you.”
He says my name again, but I don’t let him get a word in edgewise. “I can get rid of it all, no problem. I can call Tiffany and ask her to take some of the boxes back to her place. In fact, you know what? I’ll call her right now.” I start to scramble off the desk, but he stops me with his hands on my thighs.
“Ness.”
“Yes?”
“I’m fine with this.”
