Page 119 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
Something that didn’t feel so superficial.
Something I had never felt.
Not once in my fuckin’ life.
That old voice whispered in the periphery of my mind. Where she would forever haunt me. A reminder of who I was.Your black heart is too sick and twisted and selfish to love, and you’re never going to know what that really means.
I ignored the clutching of my guts and muttered, “You just let go, baby, and let me send you soaring time and again.”
“And what if I get bored?” A smile pranced across her pink, plush lips.
Lightness swept through my chest. “Get bored, huh?”
“I mean, you are kind of…” She lifted a shoulder as those eyes sparked in the mirror. “Meh.”
Laughter threatening to erupt, I swept her up and off her feet.
She squealed as I tossed her over my shoulder.
“Theo Mallin, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she whisper-shouted.
I reached up and grabbed a fistful of her ass, giving it a good squeeze as I carried her back out into her room.
I tossed her onto the bed.
Bouncing on the mattress, she tried to suppress the giggle that slipped out of her, girl arching back and fighting a grin and looking like the light that had been lost as she wiggled in the middle of the bed.
I dove on top of her, being sure to brace my weight on my elbows so I wouldn’t crush her before I started digging my fingers into her sides.
“This,” I told her as I tickled her into the same disorder that she was.
Piper gasped and writhed.
“Oh my God, Theo, stop,” she rasped, her words just breaking the air, these little adorable screeches coming out of her mouth. “I can’t…I’m gonna…pee.”
“Just meh, huh?” I teased as I kept tickling her.
She squirmed and thrashed, though a pulse of joy burst from her being.
Something so fucking gorgeous it stole my breath.
Her face alight and those eyes dancing with something I had never seen in them before.
And still she was razzing, “Totally meh. The meh’est I’ve ever met. I take it all back. There is no amending that review. A solid one-star.”
A bolt of laughter I kept subdued rolled up my throat. “Is that so?” I muttered into the lapping shadows of her room.
I tickled her more, my chest stretching wide, something trying to break out from the place where I had to keep it contained.
But it was there. Tendrils forcing their way out as she playfully fought against me.
“Absolutely so,” Piper gasped.
“You really are trying to break a man, aren’t you?” I gently pressed my fingertips into her ribs, tickling her a little more before I slowed.
Shifting course as I brushed them over that tattoo on the inside of her forearm.
In sorrow we must stand.
