Page 102 of Sweet Chaos
“Thank fuck.” He scrubbed his hand over his face and yawned. “I’m too jetlagged to beat the shit out of anyone today.”
A laugh burst out of me. “You’re ridiculous.”
He kicked off his Vans and flopped down on my bed with the comforter I’d brought from home, his head on my pillow, and patted the space next to him. There was barely enough room for two on that bed and he took up most of the space. I shook my head no.
“Get over yourself. Lie down next to me.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I won’t even touch you.”
As if I had no control over my own body, my feet carried me to the bed. I stepped out of my flip flops and lay down next to him, rolling onto my side, my head propped on my hand. He rolled onto his side to face me, and we were close. Too close. I could see the silver flecks in his black-rimmed irises.
“So you worked with kids?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know that. As if he hadn’t donated boxes and boxes of supplies to the childcare center. He’d sent them anonymously. Even though there was no return address, I knew they were from him. No one else would have done something like that.
I smiled, thinking about the kids. My volunteer assignment had been for twelve weeks and yesterday was my last day. Tomorrow I was leaving Hanoi to go traveling with Oscar and Georgia. I had a feeling he knew that my time here was up. “Yeah. I worked at a childcare center. The kids were great. We did a lot of art projects.”
“And your designs?”
“Still working on them.” I was starting to make money from them, but I suspected he already knew all of this. Cruz or Remy probably kept him updated. “Why are you here?” I asked again.
“I love you, Starlet. I’m no good without you. Come back to me. Or I’ll stay here. Whatever you fucking want.”
“I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not? We love each other. We belong together. You can’t tell me we don’t.”
“Nothing has changed. You’re still my sister’s ex-boyfriend. What we did was wrong.” Dylan had tried to make it right. I knew that. A few weeks after I got here, Ollie had called me and told me about his conversation with Dylan. Since then, we’d been texting and I was happy to have my friend back but like so many other things, it would never be the same. That wasn’t Dylan’s fault though.
“You say wrong and I say right. What I had with Sienna was bad love. It was toxic. Nothing like what I have with you. I can’t fix what happened, but the damage has already been done. Us not being together won’t change a damn thing.”
He was keeping his promise. Not touching me. But he didn’t have to lay a single hand on me to make me feel him. Just being this close to him, I was hyper aware of his scent and his body and the way his eyes darkened when he looked at me. I felt like he’d stripped me bare. I felt like I was more naked than I’d ever been with him. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t.
“Do you miss me the way I miss you? Do you dream about me at night? Do you crave me? Do you want me so badly that it’s physically painful? Do you, Starlet?” he asked, voice low and husky, going straight to my core. The air around us was charged, my body trembling with want and need. “Tell me.”
“Yes,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.
“I never thought I’d find someone like you. And now that I have, I can’t let you go.” He took my hand in his and guided it to his beating heart. “You’re here. In my heart. Under my skin. In my fucking head. And I can’t get you out. What’s more, I don’t want to. Tell me you love me.”
His eyes bored into mine, waiting for me to say the words. “I love you. But—”
He placed his finger over my lips. “No buts. There are no buts in love. You’re either in or you’re out. You’re not my second choice. You’re not a consolation prize. You’re everything I never knew I needed. You’re my number fucking one. Youownme. And I’m not leaving here without you.”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked. The question was more for me than for him. When it came to Dylan, my heart didn’t stand a chance. I had never had a choice, it had always been him.
“Here are your choices. Choose me. Or choose me.”
Who was I fooling? No amount of time or distance would ever change the way I felt about him. I could run to the ends of the earth and it still wouldn’t make a difference. He’d always be there, in my heart, in my head, under my skin. “I choose you.”
“Good. Because I’m going to fuck you so hard, all of Hanoi will hear you screaming my name,” the charmer said.
I laughed and then he sat up and whipped off his T-shirt and the laughter died on my lips.
The space over his heart wasn’t blank anymore.
Epilogue
Scarlett
One Year Later
“Are you on your way home yet?” Nic asks as I drive along the coast with the top up and my windows rolled down. Dylan gave me the Mini Cooper convertible for my twenty-second birthday. It’s cream with camel leather interior and I love it.
