“And you hated me even more for that?” I whisper.
Slowly, setting his jaw, he nods. “Change is hard, Chase.” His fingers flex around the column of my throat, reminding me of the hold he has on me there. Like I could ever forget. He smiles a little ruefully. “And being a lowlife piece of shit who hurts people and doesn’t give a shit about the consequences is a lot fucking easier than trying to be good. It fucking sucks, actually. Because now I have to face all of the bullshit I’ve done in the past. I’m going to have to make amends and apologize to all of the people I’ve shit on before I’ll ever be worthy of you.” The muscles in his throat work, as if he’s having trouble swallowing all of a sudden. He casts his eyes down for a moment, his gaze resting on his own hand, and the sharp, hostile energy that’s always flowed out of him ebbs. Just a little. Knowing Pax, that ‘knives out’ energy will never disappear for good. But witnessing him like this now offers hope that it’ll wane enough for him to let me love him.
“You don’t need to do anything to be worthy of me. I’ll take you as you are, Pax Davis. I’ve always been willing to take you exactly as you are. Caustic remarks, sharpened teeth, claws and all. I know who you are. I see you. I accept you.”
A cold, wicked fire dances in Pax’s eyes. He drags his bottom lip through his teeth, exhaling sharply down his nose, and then he lets himself go. Like a tightly coiled spring, primed to release for way too long, he falls on me, his hot mouth finding mine and he consumes me. His hand slides around the side of my throat so that he’s cradling the side of my head, fingers in my hair, his thumb stroking over my cheek. His other hand mirrors the first, cradling the other side of my face, and he deepens the kiss.
I’m drowning.
I’m floating.
I’m dizzy.
The world is burning, the fire Pax kindled inside my chest spilling out of me and flooding into the room, singing the carpets, devouring the curtains, rolling like liquid napalm across the ceiling. The inferno will burn us alive, and I don’t do a thing to stop it.
Let it have me.
Let it take me now, on my terms, and I’ll embrace the pain of this blissful death with a glad heart. I feel everything all at once, and the symphony of emotion and sensation wrecks me.
He strips out of the rest of his clothes quickly, and then it’s my turn. I’m already trying to work my way out of my panties, but Pax’s patience has left him. He tears them from my body, ripping holes in the lace as he does so.
Then he’s on top of me, the heat of his skin burning into mine.
His hands on my breasts, pinching and rolling my nipples.
His knee guiding my legs apart…
The hardness of him thrusting inside me.
“God! Fuck, oh my god!”
He’s very, very still. Our eyes lock, and something settles between us. Some deep calm that we’ve both been missing for a very long time.
“Fuck,” Pax whispers. He rests his forehead against mine, unblinking, as if he’s too scared to blink for fear that I might disappear or something. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Presley.”
Presley.
I have never heard him say my first name before. Not like this, his voice laced with affection. I’m already addicted to the sound of it.
When he begins to move again, he doesn’t slam himself into me the way he always has before. He’s firm and determined, but there’s something more measured about him now, too. The friction between our bodies is one single wave of pleasure that keeps coming, keeps rolling, increasing in size until neither one of us can take it anymore.
It crashes over us at the same time.
We’re about to…
FUCK!
We go together, me moaning his name, him roaring mine. I’m enveloped in Pax. He crushes me to him, holding me tight, the muscles in his back working beneath my hands as he spills himself inside me. The blistering fireworks display popping all over my vision gradually begins to fade, and with it the tension falls out of Pax’s body. Eventually, he goes limp, letting his full weight rest on top of me, panting heavily, and it feels so right and so perfect that I bury my face into his shoulder and try to capture the moment in my mind’s eye as best I can. I want to save it forever. I don’t want it to end.
We lay tangled up in each other, slick with sweat and panting for a long time, until our skin cools and our breath comes a little easier. Eventually, Pax peels himself off me and rolls off to one side. He doesn’t let me go, though; his hold remains locked around me so that I have to roll with him, and I end up lying in his arms, my head resting on his chest.
“Well,” he says, gently brushing my hair away, so that it’s no longer plastered to my forehead.
“Well,” I whisper back. And that’s all either of us say, in the hushed quiet of the room, because that’s all that needs to be said.
49
PRES
* * *
THE END
* * *
The book comes to an end, as all books do.
Our story is too late for Jarvis’ writing challenge, but we finish it anyway. I’m melancholy as I write the last word of the final chapter. The project symbolizes something far more significant than an end to the warfare I engaged in with Pax, or our time at Wolf Hall. After graduation, it transitioned into our story. The characters became us, and they fell for each other, even as Pax and I fell harder and harder. The book also turned into a way for the hard, aggressive boy who saved my life to break down the barriers in his own mind, as he found ways for his character to be soft and tender. To put down his armor and to speak of love. Some of the things he’s written over the past few weeks have been so poetic and beautiful that I’ve curled into a ball in my bed at night, the white glow of my laptop screen casting off the shadows, and I’ve cried, knowing that those words aren’t for my character. They are for me, like the ones he spoke in his graduation day speech.
It's still very hard for him to vocalize his emotions. Often, he shows me how he feels instead: a single, lone wildflower waiting for me on my pillow. A shared meatball sub. A hand on my leg under the table, fingers drawing small circles on my skin; threatening grimaces whenever Wren or Dash say something I might not like when I’m in their presence. That is, after all, the biggest way that he’s shown me what I mean to him—he spends as much time with me and his friends as possible. It’s as if he’s proving to me that I’m important to him. That he isn’t ashamed of me.
At first, he couldn’t even sit still on the couch next to me. He’d thump the pillow and grumble excessively about not being able to get comfortable. And that was with me sitting on the other end of the couch. After a while, he started to inch closer, though. Then, he’d touched my leg. Hold my hand. Soon enough, he’d have his arm around me, drawing me close, arranging me possessively so that my head rested on his chest. Every time he traces his fingers along my side now, not even thinking about it, I marvel at how far he’s come and how affectionate he can be.
The academy closes its doors to its students not long after graduation, and the teachers and the students all leave the mountain. Everyone apart from us. Elodie, Carrie and I all move into Riot House. There’s no Europe trip. We have so little time left together that we decide to stay in Mountain Lakes a little longer, savoring what remains of the summer before we all have to go our separate ways.