Page 79 of Shiver
“Hold on,” I cut him off, kissing him quickly. Just because I can. “I don’t want you to treat me any differently. You’re sorry. I accept and forgive that. But I need you to just be you. Be the Rake that you’ve always been with me. Okay? Don’t treat me like I’m fragile because of this. I’m a hockey player; I’m not going to shatter if you don’t use kid gloves.”
The small smile that dances across his lips has butterflies dancing in my stomach. “Alright.”
“Good,” I say, breathless. Wow, how my body is just all over the place. “Then demand whatever it is you were going to.”
“You’re mine,” he says, his voice a deep growl. “Everyone is going to know that. Understand?”
My heart races. “Everyone?”
“Yes. I’m not hiding this. The world is going to fucking know you belong to me.”
“Boyfriend?” I ask, amused.
He gives me a demure look. “I don’t care about labels. The only one that matters ismine.”
I grin far too wide. “So, I can tell my team, then?”
“You tell whoever you want, Egon Wolf. I don’t care what happens next; the only thing that I care about is that you belong to me and I willneverlet you go again.”
Those are the only words that I want to hear. And I want to hear them over and over and over again.
TWENTY-NINE
EGON
We don’t leavehis bed much on Saturday. In all the times I replayed every single day and conversation and interaction with Rake over the last month, I thought I’d been romanticizing how good sex with him was.
I wasn’t. It’s so much better than I remembered.
There’s something different about it this time. Maybe it’s in the way he touches me. The way he looks at me. How he speaks to me. The words haven’t changed. Nothing about it has changed. And yet everything has. It feels better. Deeper. More intimate.
He’s changed a little, despite me telling him not to, but I’m not sure it’s a conscious decision he’s making. He’s always been very attentive but now it’s nearly obsessive. And he anticipates my needs and wants before they even make themselves known to me.
Rakesh Aahnu is making me fall in love with him all over again.
On Sunday, we move back to studying. Which is… disheartening when I see how far I’ve fallen. One month can ruin you. I know. I just pulled off some epic fails.
I watch Rake stare at my student portal with my lip between my teeth. He doesn’t say anything. Just stares. Scrolling and clicking. He’s pretty expressionless while he does so, which makes me fidget nervously.
“Alright,” he finally says and I blow out a breath. But he continues to stare quietly. Finally he mutters, “Fuck.”
My shoulders fall. “I can’t fix it, can I?”
He looks at me and for a minute, I’m not sure what he’s thinking. Or if he’s seeing me at all. Then he puts down his phone and pulls me into his lap. “We’ll figure it out, Egon. I won’t let you fail. Promise.”
“That’s a big promise,” I say, shaking my head.
“It is. And I will make good on it. But now we’re going to get to work. You’re going to breathe, eat, and sleep these damn classes.”
I grumble, but he cuts it off with a kiss. Against my lips he says, “I will help you undo this, baby.”
My heart jumps at the word. I’ve always taken calling your significant other ‘baby’ as just something that’s expected. This is the first time Rake’s done so outside of sex. And it makes my heart flutter. Maybe because I know he’s never called anyone else baby. I know he hasn’t. Because there’s never been anyone else.
I’m his first boyfriend. His first relationship.
I kiss him hard and deep, gripping his face to keep him to me. He allows me to kiss him, commandeering our make-out session for a few minutes before he pries me off with a chuckle and blown pupils. “We can do that later. You’regoing tokeep your scholarship. Let’s get to work.”
And to work we get. I hate every minute of it. That’s a bit of a lie because I’ll take any and all time with Rake. For Monday and Tuesday, we’re up super late getting together assignments that I missed. And by missed, I mean completely slept through. I cleared it with three of my four teachers to allow me to turn in some assignments late. My hospital stay helped that along.
