Page 62 of Sleepless Beauties
“Come down from there!” I shriek.
“Come on up here!” He shrieks right back in an abnormally high voice to mock me.
I shake my head hard before placing the notebook back on the desk… and then climbing up myself.
This is so stupid.
Are we absolutely sure he’s not a murdering psychopath?
Don’t climb on top of a building unless you’re ninety-nine percent sure he won’t yeet you right off and call it an accident…
I’m… At least ninety percent sure… Ninety-nine, that’s asking a lot, really. I don’t even trust myself ninety-nine percent.
I tilt my head this way and that and eventually decide that a skinny white boy wearing tight black jeans and a “Golden Girls: That’s my Type” tee-shirt is not the way I’m meant to go. He’s safe. As safe as a bloodthirsty monster of the afterlife can be, anyway.
I cling to the top of the window as I slip my head out and shakily stand.
“This is stupid!” I hiss into the blowing wind.
My heels clatter just before I kick them off entirely. The scraping sound of them hitting the side of the building before falling out into the night claws at my nerves even more. Those were designer brands, but they weren’t my style anyway.
Aston’s crooked smile lights up his eyes when he looks down on the wet cat of a girl trying to cling to the rooftop.
“Come up,” he whispers in a sensual tone that sends shivers all down my body. His hand extends and before I can awkwardly pull myself up, he’s already grabbed my hips. And then my feet are no longer grounded.
An unsteady breath of a scream shakes through me, but as quick as the wind is against my body, so is he. My chest slides up over every part of him. He leans back to fully drag me up over the ledge, and then my breasts are pressing into his lean chest. Cold air heaves over my lips, and all I can do is blink down on the beautiful moonlit shine in the depths of his pale green eyes.
“It feels good, right?”
When he says those rasping words, I’m suddenly very aware of how my legs are spread nicely over his narrow hips. My body is melded into his like we were made to fit together just like this.
“The breeze up here, it feels good, right?” He tilts his head innocently at me and I realize with a slam of too many dirty thoughts that I’m the only one making this sexual.
Because he’s a gentleman, and I’m the fucking pervert.
“Uh, yeah,” I shove away rapidly but carefully from the safety of his arms. My ass hits the cold roof.
It’s only then that I finally get a chance to look out at the view.
“Oh!” I whisper without a breath to hang on to. “It’s beautiful.”
Warm lights like fireflies shine out across the hidden city that mingles with Chicago like a hidden lover. The peaks of old houses and chimneys lay beneath the stars in an inky silhouette of shadows.
“I used to see her up here at night, when I would be heading to my room.” He points down at the pale crosswalk below us. “She hated me, but I always thought that she was similar to myself. She was just better at handling it.”
I tear my gaze off of the shining starlight city to look at Aston.
“Handling what?”
His lips part, but he doesn’t immediately respond.
“Eh. The emptiness, I guess.” His hands lift with vague gestures. “When you turn, your heartbeat slows. It slows down, but the world around you speeds up. Years fall off and away like autumn leaves on a tree. Over time, you can forget what it feels like to be excited about the mundane things. Like good weather, or warm sunlight falling across a morning chill. The smell of rain when it falls for the first time in spring. Amusements found in the tiny moments of life. All of that grows dull with time, and an all-consuming emptiness settles in their place.”
The pain in my heart spreads the longer he speaks. My hand twitches to reach out for him. To remind him he’s not alone in this world.
The way I should have reminded Kyra when I had the chance.
Without a second thought, my hand slides over his calloused knuckles. He turns toward me, but I look away the moment his eyes almost meet mine.
