Page 115 of Overdue I Love You's
“Tell me the truth,” I raise a brow. “You’ve dated before, haven’t you?”
Dean chuckles. Deep and throaty. “Not since high school.”
“But you’ve liked people right?” We pull apart and start walking again. There’s no way someone as smooth as Dean doesn’t have a good chunk of experience in his pocket.
He pulls my hand to stop.
Turning to look at him.
“Just one.”
Green eyes pierce into my soul. Not in a way that makes me cower, but it’s a bubble. A passage into the secret garden. There’s roots buried that he allows me to see, to skip over, to pull apart.
I never knew vulnerability had a face until Dean.
My muscles in my throat tighten. The stress in my muscles releases. A conundrum of feelings occurs, but all I can focus on is him. Dean Vuk. The calming rain to my thunder.
Clearing my throat, “You’re good with your words. If you weren’t grumpy, you could be a motivational speaker.” I’m rambling. Losing my mind because I’d have to be stupid not to know he didn’t mean me. “You know what’s crazy? I’ve been thinking about what’s on your bucket list since the minute we got here, and I still don’t know. I’m starting to think it might be hanging out with a girl,” I joke to lightenup the air, but the opposite happens.
Dean replies, “Hanging out with you is on my bucket list.”
I’m ready to spread my legs and have his babies.
It’s weird. The way I’ve never been sexually attracted to anyone this intensely.
But with Dean, my body shifts, claws its way up the walls of my inner skin and bites its lusty teeth into me. I’m hypnotized. His body, his voice, and especially his eyes. This is new and I’m not good with new, but all I want is to feel him. Figure out different ways he makes my thighs clench together or my heart pace rapidly. I want to be an experiment he never gets tired of testing.
He's talking right now. Something about architecture, the buildings, the creative design. But I’m looking at him. The shape of his lips and how the top moves more to the left when he’s amused, how he doesn’t let my hand go despite how clammy it is, or how he’s actively trying to smile more because he’s seen me smiling because of it.
My last crush was in high school. His birthday was a day before mine. Our names started with the same letters. We bonded over our fated friendship until we grew apart and naturally stopped talking.
I thought he was my greatest love.
But if what I felt then was love, then how can what’s occurring within me right now be stronger?
We turn left on a street. Tourists crowd the area, people shopping, taking pictures, looking at the mountains visible from here.
But I’m looking at him.
The sun hits those glimmering greens.
“…still waiting on trying cheese fondue and?—”
“I think I like you, Dean.” I blurt out.
He freezes. Doesn’t turn his head.
“I think that I’ve been liking you. But I’m feeling—realizingit now.”
There’s no other explanation. Why else would I have been upset about his conversation with Azar a month ago? There’s no beginning to my feelings, just a swindle of turns and twists until my finger pricked the needle.
Dean swallows hard, then drops my hand.
My stomach drops right after.
“Maybe you’re confused,” there’s utter anguish on his face. Unfiltered and wholly open for me to see every ounce of fear, affection, and desire.
I shake my head. “I like you, Dean Vuk. It’s taken me a while to get here, but I know there’s no way out. There’s a reason why I was mad at you for saying I mess everything up or how I notice who you’re on a date with. Before, I thought it was professional. That, I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing anything to ruin why I’m here. But that’s the thing… you’re the reason I’mstillhere.”
