Page 80 of Midnight Wishes

‘Why did you want to go in the first place? If you care so much about me, why were you so ready to leave?’

‘Because I couldn’t conceive of a world where we worked out. Alex.’ Sarah sighed. ‘Look at yourself. I’m still not entirely convinced you’re human. And that was fine when it was justphysical. It was kind of a power trip, actually. But then I got to know you. I got to see that you’re thoughtful and sweet, and you like looking after people. I got to imagine what it would be like to be looked after by you. And when my heart got involved, the insecure little girl in my head did too. Suddenly there were stakes, and not having you at all felt less ruinous than getting attached and getting my heart broken again. And the people you’ve dated… They’re not me, okay? I know I’m hot when I put the effort in, but on the daily you’re going to see me in leggings and oversized shirts and no makeup. And the women you’ve been with in the last few years? They look an awful lot like the person my ex cheated with.’

Anger washed through him at the comparison. ‘I wouldnever—’

‘I know,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘But do you see how I got a little in my head about it? I know you’re nothing like him, Alex. You are…infinitely better than him, in every way. But ifhethought I wasn’t good enough…’

‘What about me?’ Alex asked. The heat had gone out of his voice now, replaced by a stirring in his chest at everything she’d been carrying. Because he got it. Understood that strange dichotomy of knowing you could be attractive and funny and everything another person could want. But still believing no one else would think the regular you underneath it all was worth anything. They both knew how to perform. Alex had just perfected the act, integrating it flawlessly into every facet of his life.

‘What about every time I told you how attracted I am to you? Every time you made me laugh? If you know my fucking smile is only real with you, why didn’t you listen tome?’

‘Because I fucked up, okay? Because I refused to see the things you were showing me until it was too late.’ She paused, eyes thoughtful, before holding out her hand, that small black book still clutched in it. ‘Will you just look at this?’

Alex set the long-forgotten champagne bottle down on the grass and grabbed the sketchbook roughly, flipping the cover open to find a small print of a painting, a landscape in shades of gold and blue. ‘What is this?’

‘Flip backwards.’

As he turned the pages, he saw elements of the composition devolve. A gold wheat field became strands of hair. The multi-hued sky unblurred to form deep blue eyes. Sandstone boulders smoothed out into skin stretched over muscles. And between the remnants of the painting, other studies. Pale skin and lavender nails contrasting against stark black tattoos. His fingers pressing into her stomach. A soft smile gracing his lips. Her hand in his hair, holding his face between her thighs. A few full sketches of him. Including one dated—

‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘That for weeks now, I’ve thought about you constantly. And before that…even when I told myself I didn’t like you, even when we’d just met’—she nodded at the open page, the date in the corner marking it a week after that fateful hook up at Neon—‘I thought about you more than I should have. I want you, Alex. If you’ll have me again.’

He did. He wanted her like crazy. In the haze of hurt of the past week, in the rollercoaster of emotions since their conversation had begun, it was the one thing that hadn’t changed. So it was probably good that she stood slightly too far away for him to grab her. But then she stepped closer. Less than an arm’s length away. And resisting her plush, softly parted lips had always been impossible for him. Even more when she breathed his name and reached a hand towards him.

So he gave in.

Another half step and one hand was on her waist, the other on her face, the sketchbook joining the champagne on the grass with a dullthud.

Then the taste and smell and feel of her consumed him.

His fingers touched brick, and Alex was dimly aware that he’d pressed her into a wall. It was enough to wake him up.

‘You mean it?’ he breathed against her lips. ‘Because I’m not doing this again if it isn’t real.’

‘I mean it,’ she whispered back, angling her head so she could look up at him. ‘I want to go for dinner with you. I want to go to gallery openings together and show you my paintings before anyone else and walk your dog and go to the farmers market and cook steak with you. Alex, I want everything with you.’

And it all lined up so completely with everything he’d been imagining in the last few weeks. Everything he’d spent so long thinking wasn’t meant for him.

‘You stopped calling me Aleksander.’

‘You hate it.’

‘Not when you say it.’ Alex brushed his thumb over her cheekbone, savouring the warmth and softness of her skin.

‘You stopped calling me Princess,’ she said.

‘You don’t like it.’

‘I think I like it a little too much, actually.’ His thumb slipped down to her lips, so he felt the warmth of his name when she breathed, ‘Aleksander…’

An embarrassingly needy sound escaped his throat as he drew her back in, kissing her soundly. Her hands roved under his jacket, tugging at his shirt and sliding over his ass.

‘We should— go upstairs—’ she panted, as he brushed his lips down her jaw.

Alex smiled against her neck, parting his teeth to nip at the skin there and enjoying the shiver that rippled through her. ‘I thought you didn’t hook up at weddings.’

‘Is it still a hook-up if you’re my boyfriend?’ Her voice had never sounded sosweet. And even if it felt tragically juvenile, he wanted that descriptor desperately.

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