Page 111 of Still Yours
My face freezes into one of disbelief. I can’t look at him anymore, and my feet started retreating from the moment he snapped the remaining heartstring between us.
That’s why I don’t register the cold leather of his glove on my cheek or the way he yanks my face to his so abruptly and with such finality that I don’t have time to gasp when his lips capture mine.
The fiery heat of his mouth thaws my lips. They part for him, his silken tongue sending fireworks into my mouth as he strokes. Our heads angle, our teeth cut into sensitive flesh. We press so hard together, we’re icicles forming to a deadly point.
I moan into his mouth. It comes out as more of a lament, aplease don’t gokind of sound, and it brings tears to my eyes.
Stone rips away, leaving both of us gasping opaque white clouds.
He gives me one last stare, his blue irises broken shards of beauty. “I wish you the best of luck, Noa. I really do.”
And with that, he turns, walking away for the final time.
I blink the tears back. My hands form fists at my sides.
And I remind myself that getting on that plane tomorrow is my damned decision and a chance to become the person I was always meant to be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Stone
Letting Noa go was the worst and best decision I’ve ever made.
It’s difficult to put her image at the backs of my eyes and focus on the present. Those wide eyes of hers, her stern look when I piss her off, the way she admonishes me, then strokes me with her tongue. How she looks at me like I’m still worthwhile, despite all I’ve done. And the moment she opened her arms to me, and I walked away.
That’s the worst one—the hurt in her eyes, the kind I keep causing.
I couldn’t hold her back a second time. That is exactly what I read in her eyes, that she’d sacrifice her dreams—again—for me.
I’m evolving, but I’m not so cocky as to believe I’ve transformed into a man as greedy as that. To separate Noa from her passion would be unforgivably selfish, and I meant what I said to her and go over every word every time I’m forced to be without her—she’s my home. I can turn my back on that solace in favor of her happiness, because I’m not so sure I’m hers.
And so, after spreading my mom’s ashes on a borrowed boat and even seeing a humpback whale after I did it—hi, Ma, I’d thought through a frozen body and blurred vision—I board a private plane with Aaron and go back to the place I’ve called my home for over a decade.
There’s no human component to my return. I dodge the press at the airport and hole up in my coastal mansion before getting on another flight to Singapore.
I’m ever the professional, being such a good boy that both the domestic and international media became bored with me, and my history with Noa becomes old news.
Ravynn attempted a tell-all article and all but confirmed she leaked Noa’s past, unearthed through a private investigator. The woman could not seem to let go of our brief mistake of an encounter, but the little I know of her gives me enough to understand that ignoring her cries for attention is the ultimate insult.
“Well, that seemed positive,” Aaron says as he steps into my Singapore office right as my mindfulness coach leaves. “Good to see you still working on yourself.”
“I refuse to meditate,” I grumble, “But Drake makes good points.”
“I’d hope so, considering you flew him here with us.”
“He’s decent.”
Aaron eyes me over the highball of bourbon he pours himself. “This is nice, seeing you try to reign in that unpredictable part of yourself. She do this to you?”
“Who?”
Aaron’s eyes slit. “Only one person would make you want to do both a New Agey mindfulness guru who only wears tank topsanda Zoom with an anonymous anger management class.”
“Mhmm,” I harrumph.
“Add a therapist to it and I’ll truly think an alien inhabited your body.”
“Fuck off.”
