Page 422 of Eternal
“Let me show you.”
I draw one big star, a little off-center, glowing, above where her head rests.
“That’s you,” I murmur.
She looks at it for a beat, then snatches the pen from my hand and scoots closer, almost on top of me as she reaches up.
“Fine. But then that’s you,” she says, and draws a second star, bigger, right beside the one I made, their edges touching. Glued together.
And underneath it, in her messy, tilted writing, she adds: A + D = ETERNAL
She drops the pen and sinks into my chest, a smile blooming into my shirt like sunlight.
“I’m gonna make you draw the whole damn sky,” I whisper into her hair.
“Good. We’ll live in it.”
The stars are dark on the ceiling, but it feels like they’re glowing.
She’s lying there, laughing softly, arms above her head like she belongs in the sky, and I lean over her, palms bracketing her hips, breath brushing her lips. “You know what the problem is with you, birthday girl?”
She arches a brow, all mock-innocence. “There’s a problem with me?”
“You make it impossible to be good.”
My lips graze her jaw, then down her throat. I kiss her slowly, like I’m spelling out prayers on her skin.
Hold you in my arms… I just wanted to hold…
I press my forehead to hers, whispering, “I’ll take you there tonight.”
“Where?” she breathes.
My hand trails up her thigh, sliding beneath the hem of the soft shirt she stole from me. I kiss her bare knee, her hip, her ribs.
“The sky. The one you drew. That’s my first gift to you.” I look her in the eye. “And I want to ruin you underneath it.”
She shivers, lips parted, pupils wide, she’s so open with me, every part of her begging to be touched, loved, undone.
I tug the shirt over her head slowly, and when she’s bare beneath me, I don’t move for a moment. I just look. Like I’m taking a picture in my head. Framing her again. Immortalizing her.
Because I want to remember it with violent clarity.
And tonight… The sky is ours.
She’s panting beneath me, skin flushed, lashes fluttering like she’s caught between this world and the next. And I don’t want to stop touching her.Ever.
I slide lower, trailing kisses down the valley of her breasts, tasting her skin, until I reach the ink on top of her heart.
The butterfly. The wings stretch delicately across her chest, laced with soft blues and violets, fading into the shape of an iris, her favorite flower.
I press my lips to it, licking slowly and gently across the curve of one wing, and feel her twitch beneath me.
She gasps, chest rising, and I swear the wings move.
They rise with her breath, fall with her sighs. It’s like the butterfly is alive, like it only moves for me. “This one,” I murmur against her skin, voice thick and low, “is my favorite.”
Her fingers thread into my hair. “Why?”
