AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Isn’t it dangerous to make a fae promise like that?”
“Perhaps if I made it to someone else. For you, no oath compares to the way you’ve already claimed my heart and soul.” Letting his fingers drift off my skin, he says, “I may be unable to give you a family and a future as we are now, but I can promise to be yours. Irrevocably. Until the moment that promise becomes a burden on you.”
“It won’t.” I frame his cheeks in my hands. “You aren’t a burden. I promise you aren’t. Even though human promises are cheap, if you trust me at all…please try to believe that’s how I feel. I just…I like being with you.”
A fresh tear falls into the seam between my thumb and his skin. He sniffs and turns his face out of my hands so his can scrub beneath his eye. “Loving you is terrifying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” His head shakes. “It’s a beautiful thing… It’s proof I’ve found something important enough to be scared about. It makes everything else somehow less scary. I will figure this out. For you.”
“We will figure this out. Together.”
He smiles at me, full, and I kiss a perfect, precious dimple before wrapping my arms around him and letting his heat soak into my soul.
Chapter 22
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s nearly time to quit my job, Brit.
“I hate work. It’s stupid. The worst thing ever.” Huffing into the suspicious scent of pastries, I collapse on the couch and glare dully at the floor. It is still a mess of crafts and note cards. I can’t stand it. The very sight makes me itchy. Especially the crumpled pipe cleaner house.
Ollie pokes his head out of the kitchen, stirring something in a bowl. “You’ve only been back for two days.”
“Give me two more, and I will beg on my knees to leave society behind come the full moon. There is a direct correlation between my willingness to blindly trust fate and how many coffees I have to ferry up to an office full of people who only talk to me when the printer’s broken.”
Ollie clears his throat. “You deserve a better working environment…”
“Tell me about it.” I kick over a note card. “Why isn’t this cleaned up? You said you’d take care of house stuff while I was at work, sobbing into my spreadsheets.”
“It’s not cleaned up because.”
“Because why? Because I’m the one who made the mess? Because you hate me?”
He doesn’t humor my whining as he marches into the living room and puts the card I kicked right side up again. “Because it is my emotional-support mess.”
I cock my head, trying to get a look at what’s in his mixing bowl. Pity I’ll have to stand to succeed. “The knowledge you have to speak literally makes that a concerning statement instead of an internet-level joke.”
“It can absolutely be both. I am a versatile fae capable of employing multiple levels of humor.”
I cross my arms. “You’ve not congratulated me for coming home at the appropriate hour twice in a row. You must hate me.”
“I am very glad my existence has incited something of merit through your sudden willingness to exercise work boundaries.” He peers at me, all cool and pretty. “Healthy practices look cute on you.”
I want to kiss him.
Perhaps I’ll try flirting.
“Spending time with you is more enjoyable than donating my life to the wicked corporate machine of capitalism.”
Flirting was unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, Ollie smiles, lifts his spoon out of the bowl, and holds it in front of my lips. Whatever concoction he’s making, it smells and looks like chocolate, which makes the highly embarrassing action of licking the spoon while his eyes set every inch of my body on fire something I am capable of.
To make matters disastrously worse for my heart, the moment I’m done, he pulls the spoon back to his own lips.
I die a little. My innards become sloshy, squishy, useless mush, and I commit the action to memory. For fanfiction purposes. Because I guess having both followers waiting on chapters and an incurable aptitude for creepiness has made it impossible for me to stop writing This One’s for You, Beautiful.
