Page 39 of Reckless Roses
“I mean…” I breathe, hardly able to think past the way she feels beneath me. “You need attention? I’ll give you that. You need to be reminded who you are? Creative? Captivating? Intelligent? Stubborn and beautiful and eccentric? I’ll do that.”I drop my head, and suddenly, I’m close enough to share the breath spilling out of her perfect mouth in short, rapid bursts. “You need someone willing and eager to cater to your every need, Elena? Because I’ve been dreaming about being that man my entire goddamn life.”
Her eyes widen like chocolate saucers at my offering, and I’m free-falling into their depths, watching the stars above our heads glisten inside her irises.
“What about our friendship?” she asks.
“You’re honestly going to tell me right now that you believe that’s all I’ve ever seen you as?”
She bites her lip, gaze dropping, as if she’s afraid to look at me. “He said it was a fleeting crush.” Her eyes meet mine again. “Zach. He said you only wanted me because I was his, that you’d always wanted what was his. He said it was all surface level.”
I swallow, lifting off her and sitting back on my heels. “I’ve always looked up to him. I still do.” I wipe a hand down my face, a sudden pang of guilt hitting my chest, but one look at Elena’s has it clearing just as quickly. “It felt like he had everything I didn’t. But not you. You are not something I wantedbecauseof him. I’ve wanted you all this time because you’re…because you’re my person.”
Elena’s expression softens. Shifting from heat and bewilderment to something more like awe and torment. “Why haven’t you ever told me?”
I sigh, looking down at the grass, digging my fingers into the soil. “You saw him first.”
“August,” she begins, but I cut her off, needing her to hear the whole of it.
“The day I found you in my tree, filling your shirt with flowers and rambling about books? I knew about thirty seconds into that conversation I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t realize you knew my brother until you walked away.”
“You never said anything,” she whispers.
“You smiled when I said his name.” I shrug. “He’s always been a flirt, charming as hell. I may have been eleven at the time, but even then, I knew the effect he had on people. You weren’t the first girl to smile like that after falling for him, and I wasn’t going to root for your broken heart, Elena.” I lift my eyes, meeting her gaze. “Even if I wasn’t the one holding it. I’ve only ever wanted your happiness.”
Her big, brown eyes gloss over, but she doesn’t let her tears fall. “I’m sorry.” Bottom lip trembling, she closes the distance between us, scrambling onto my lap to straddle my hips. “I’ve been so blind.” She takes my face between her hands, and the feel of her skin on mine is like a flame to frostbite, a stitch to a wound, ice to a burn. “You’ve always seen me with the utmost clarity.”
“Elena,” I whisper her name like a prayer, like she’s the god I’m hoping will finally answer it. My hands slide up her thighs, warmth blooming beneath my palms as I grasp her waist and tug her against me. Our bodies align in a way that feels like coming home.
Her gaze focuses on my mouth as her nose skims mine, and my lips part, tasting her breath. Elena and I have always felt a little like the moon and the Earth. I orbit her, while she orbits something else entirely. But in this moment, as she cups my jaw and brings my mouth to hers, we’re colliding. Gravity falls apart as we fall together, and for all the destruction we’re about to create, kissing her feels cosmic.
Kismet.
ELENA
“ULTRAVIOLET” - AIDEN BISSETT
I inhale the tortured whimper as it leaves his lips, his mouth soft and delicate against my own. It doesn’t feel real. It feels like more. It feels like how I imagine every moment in a story when someone kisses the right person for the first time.
It’s not fire—it’s Earth. It’s nature. The cool rush of air against your face, the feel of flower petals on your fingertips, touching clouds, and looking at candy-colored skies.
I never knew it could feel this way.
His hands press against my back, slowly skating beneath the hem of my shirt and caressing my bare skin. It sends sensation up my spine, spreading soft warmth from my cheeks to my toes. Tentatively, he slips his tongue into my mouth, the taste of him like a dream I couldn’t remember having but now feel I’ll never be able to forget.
Another needy noise leaves his throat as I give him everything I have, moving my hips against his body, letting our tongues dance, our lips move in sync.
The kiss deepens, his hands in my hair, cradling my face like I’m something to cherish. I’ve never been touched like this before—like I’m delicate, too valuable to break. It’s purposeful and fierce and consuming, but it’s not chaotic or fleeting or harsh. It doesn’t feel like craving pain; it feels like healing souls.
August’s lips feel like they were always meant to be mine—not something I have to chase or something I have to run from. He kisses me like he’s waited his whole life for it.
It’s desperate. It’s passionate. It’s…real. So real, beyond words. My mind races my heart at the tenderness of his touch.I can’t comprehend how it feels so incredibly right; he has been here all this time, and I haven’t seen him.
That truth begs me to kiss him deeper, to wrap my arms around his neck and press into him harder, merging our bodies until I can erase all the years of distance that never should’ve been there.
Becausethisis what I’ve been missing all this time.
What always should’ve been.
“Elena,” he groans, saying my name like he has been blessed by it.
