Page 72 of Hail Marry
You’ve become boring, Jess’s voice says in my mind.
“What Imeantto say”—I wrap my arms under the sides of the pillow and cage it to my body by bending my elbows—“is finders keepers. This pillow and I are one now.”
He puts one hand on either side of the pillow, looming over me with a smile that makes my heart do things it’s never done before. Things it should never do.
“Really?” he asks.
“Yep,” I say as lightheartedly as I can. “Inseparable.”
“Hmm.” He scoops a hand under the pillow, and his fingers slide under me, splaying and pressing into my upper back. He lifts me upward, and the pillow comes with me.
I couldn’t care less about the pillow now. No longer can I pretend to be playful and unruffled. My heart’s pounding against my chestandhis, my breath is uneven, and my gaze is locked on his.
Luca’s gaze becomes more intent as it fixes on mine, and the little smile he was wearing dies out like the last flames of a fire, leaving just the glowing embers in his dark eyes.
Kiss me, Luca.
Slowly, he lowers me back to the bed, and his arm slips out from behind me.
A shard of disappointment lodges in my chest, but his arms return to where they were on either side of me, caging me in while his gaze never strays from mine.
Until it slides down to my lips.
Letting go of the pillow, I slip my arms out from underneath, then reach my hands to Luca’s face. The scratch of his stubble tickles my palms while the soft skin of his cheekbone presses against my fingertips.
His eyes search mine, then he lowers himself, and I wait for his lips.
Their touch is soft, but it sets off a chain of reactions that make it a full-body and full-heart experience. Tingling lips. Fire in the veins. Pounding heart. I want Luca. Not just physically, though I absolutely want him in that way. I want everything Luca—his hopes, his fears, his smiles, his victories and defeats. And I want him to want everythingme.
I break my mouth away and turn my head, and Luca pulls back.
I roll to the side, and he lifts his arm to let me over the pillow and out. Away.
“Sorry.” I slide my legs over the side of the bed and try to gather my self-control, which is lying all over the hotel room like shattered glass.
“No,” he says, coming to sit beside me. “I’msorry.”
I stare at the pattern of the hotel carpet and force my breath to come evenly. “I just can’t do…that.”
My words meet with silence, and after a few seconds, I look at him.
“It’s not what I want,” I explain. Have I ever told a worse lie? But Ican’twant it because I don’t want the danger that comes with it. Luca thinks Ryan’s an idiot for breaking up with me, but what he doesn’t realize is that Ryan’s just the last person to do it. The truth is that I’ve never broken up with anyone. I’ve always been broken upwith. Ryan just broke me harder than anyone else.
“Me neither,” he says. “I’m sorry. I got…carried away.”
“Me too.” And I wanted to be carried away a whole lot further. Which is what terrifies me. I know where that river leads, and I know how it feels to lose control and find yourself going over the waterfall at the end, with only sharp rocks waiting at the bottom.
I can’t do that again. I won’t. And it would be crazy to let myself when there’s an expiration date on Luca and me. It’s not a matter ofifit ends but when.
“Maybe we should have some rules,” he says.
I look over at him, wondering how he feels about all of this and what drove him to kiss me. But it doesn’t matter. Wanting to kiss someone is worlds apart from wanting them. Wantingallof them.
When I don’t respond, he goes on. “Getting physical just gets…messy. And neither of us wants messy.”
I nod, even though, right now, there’s a stubborn part of me that wants messy more than anything. “For sure. So, no kissing? Except when strictly necessary.” A flashback from our kiss outside the stadium hits me, and heat creeps into my cheeks. “Sorry about earlier. With Louie.”
His mouth quirks up at the edge. “I’d classify that as necessary.”
