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"Is there anything you can't do?"
"The jury is still out on that," I tell her as she lifts the spoon and blows on the liquid.
Her eyebrows pull together. "Why is that?"
My eyes drop to her mouth as she parts her lips and slides the spoon between them. My cock twitches in my pants as she sucks the liquid from the piece of metal, her throat bobbing as she swallows. Now is not the time, but apparently my dick didn't get the memo.
I do love the way she looks when she's swallowing…
"I haven't made you mine, so that might be something I can't do."
Aria's head snaps up to look at me, her body momentarily turning rigid as the tension hangs heavily in the air between us. She needs to know the truth. I was coming here to talk to her whether she was sick or not—it just so happened to work out that I had an excuse to show up.
"I didn't come here just to make you soup."
She inhales sharply. Her eyes are glued to mine and I don't miss the way they widen the slightest bit. Her pupils grow, like her vision is trying to soak me in. "Okay," she says quietly before pausing to chew on the inside of her cheek. She sets her spoon back in her bowl, not taking her gaze from mine. "I feel really stupid for reading this all wrong," she admits with a quiet, awkward laugh.
My eyebrows pull together. "What did you read wrong?"
A sigh escapes her, followed by a small cough as she turns her head and covers it with the inside of her elbow. "It doesn't even matter." A sad smile lifts the corners of her lips. "Were you planning on finishing the rest of this season together or did you want a clean break now?"
Her question throws me off completely and I can't help myself as I'm the one laughing nervously now. "I'm sorry, I'm failing to understand what you're saying right now."
"You came here to end our skating partnership," she says matter-of-factly, like I should know what she's talking about when we are clearly on two different fucking pages. "The soup was like a consolation prize. Like a 'thanks for playing, try again.'" She pauses and shakes her head . "I'm sorry if I'm the reason this didn't work out. I tried not to let my feelings get involved and obviously, I failed."
My jaw is literally on the ground. She is coming from left field with a claim that she has little to no support for. I don't even know where any of this is coming from, but I plan on getting to the bottom of it… right after I tell her what I really came here for.
"You're right," I tell her, nodding in the most convincing way possible. "You failed miserably." I pause, watching her eyes drop from mine as she directs her gaze to the bowl of soup in her hands. "And so did I."
Aria's eyes snap back to mine again. "What?"
"I'm in love with you, Aria Reed. Addicted and infatuated. Hopelessly and irrevocably in love."
Her lips art, her nostrils flaring with emotion as she blinks twice. I watch her throat bob as she swallows roughly. "Don't you dare say things you don't mean, Leo Wells."
"You are so goddamn difficult, you know that, right?" A soft laugh leaves me as I shake my head at her. "You want more, I tell you I'll give you everything. I tell you I'm in love with you, and you're still questioning me." I pause, reaching for her soup and set it down on the coffee table before taking her face in my hands. "What do you want?"
Aria's eyelids close, her dark lashes resting against her lightly tanned skin. The silence is deafening as it stretches between us. Slowly, her eyes open once more and I count the freckles in her irises. The same ones I've had memorized for years.
"You," she whispers as her tongue darts out to wet her plump lips. "I want you, Leo, and I'm sorry for making you think otherwise yesterday." She pauses, a smile breaking out across her face as tears shimmer in her eyes. "You terrify me."
My thumb catches one of her tears before brushing it away from her perfect face. "Why?"
"Because I know I won't survive a heartbreak from you. I'm teetering on the edge of giving you every piece of me and I know if I do, I'm not sure what will be left of me if you decide you no longer want me."
"You silly, silly girl," I whisper as I bite back my grin. Shaking my head, I chuckle softly. "You don't get it, do you? You're it for me. I promise there will never be a day in my life that I don't want you. Believe me when I tell you, I will never hurt you."
She gives me a playful smile as she reaches up and wraps her hands around my wrists. "My brother threatened you, didn't he?"
"He did," I admit, feeling the butterflies fluttering away in my stomach. "But that doesn't change anything." I pause, pressing my lips to her forehead before I press my forehead against hers. "My heart is yours, Aria. To have, to hold, to throw in the trash. It's yours now and even if you decide you don't want me, I don't want it back."
"What if I told you I wanted to keep it forever?"
Her words warm my soul and I can feel myself falling even harder for her in this moment. When I look at my future, I can't imagine it without Aria anymore. I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late—until she had already situated herself inside my heart.
She took that black hollow organ in my chest and nourished it back to life before making it her home.
"Can I tell you something?"
