It hadn’t taken me long to realize it wasn’t worth it. Each step away from them felt lighter. What should have made me feel weak made me feel stronger.
Walking away made me stronger.
Ollie squeezed my hand. He didn’t have to say anything. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a social butterfly. You become the people you surround yourself with, and I decided losing a piece of my identity wasn’t worth it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Give me a love so intoxicating,
I never suffer a hangover.”
—Oliver Masters
Ollie.
EVER SINCE MIA HAD BEEN sleeping with me, she hadn’t experienced another night terror. If only I had known what she had been dealing with, maybe it wouldn’t have taken me so long to find my way back to her.
The way her body fit perfectly against me brought a morning smile to my lips. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know she was awake, too. It still blew my mind how early she woke, but the girl loved her bloody naps later in the day.
My stubborn eyes remained closed, making this small moment with her safe in my arms last for as long as possible. Mia’s faint breathing kissed my chest as my fingers wandered over her hips and her thighs.
And what came next was what I looked forward to every blessed morning.
Mia’s dainty finger fanned over my lashes, begging them to open, and I felt the essence of the smile I knew was wearing this very moment.
“Merry Christmas,” Mia whispered, and that same dainty finger traced over my nose, across my lips, and over my chest.
Crazy. A year from now we would be spending our Christmas in the home I’d prepared for us. She still didn’t know, and the restraint in telling her took every ounce of strength.
It was still dark, most likely close to six in the morning.
Her finger swirled over the pattern of ink in the middle of my chest, and I hummed in the power she had over me—a surge flowing from her fingertip igniting through my entire body.
“Where are you now, Ollie?”
My grin was an answer in its own, but in case she didn’t know … “With you.”
“What are we doing?” Her velvet tone was playful.
I wrapped my hands in her messy long hair and pressed my forehead to hers, inhaling her natural jasmine scent and etched the outline of her lips with mine. “Whatever the hell we want.”
And what came next was the product of her and I.
Every whisper, penetrating.
Every kiss against my skin, electrifying.
Every touch, ecstasy.
And moments without, a tragedy.
The effects of feeling too much, but with Mia, it wasn’t just too much. It was everything all at once. At times, I had to pause to reel back the emotion from spilling over, but Mia wanted to see, feel, taste, and be a part of me and every intimate moment we shared. Together, we were untouchable to anyone and anything—pain, misery, loneliness. Not even death could pierce through our barrier. The whole world could be crumbling beneath us, waves crashing into us, the sun falling toward us at an impossible rate, and it would all be okay because we had each other.
Hearts hammering, blood roaring, and feelings aflame, we let go.
And the lingering smile upon her lips afterward was the reminder of how terrified and relieved I was that we had made it this far. Terrified because we weren’t one hundred percent in the clear yet, but relieved we had right now.
She held her hand over my cheek as I pinned myself inside her, still trembling from the never-ending emotion and the ecstasy we’d climbed. I laid my hand over hers and kissed the inside of her palm before moving her hand over my heart. “Calm me down, love.”
Laying my head over her chest, Mia ran her fingers through my sweaty hair, and my eyes closed again as she pulled me back to solid ground.
“You cannot throw this far, mate.”
“Fuck you,” Jake squealed through a chuckle as I took another step forward. “No, back ten more steps.” He gestured with his hand.
I walked backward five, Jake tossed the football, and it landed ten feet in front of me.
“You have to go to the ball,” he threw his arms in the air, “It’s not going to come to you.” Jake had been looking forward to Mia’s Christmas football tradition since it had been disrupted last year.
Shaking my head, I swiped the ball from the lawn and glanced back at Mia, who sat with legs crossed off to the side, dilly-dallying with the camera I had surprised her with. She wore ripped blue jeans, sex-hair pulled up messily over her head, and my oversized hoodie that read, “Poetic,” enveloping her tiny figure. The hoodie had been the first article I’d approved in my store Travis managed while I was gone.
Mia had no idea.
I picked up into a light jog toward her. “What are you doing, love?” I crouched down, and my eyes roamed over her scrunched up face as she toyed with some buttons on the camera. “That thing kicking your arse, yeah?”
Her brown eyes shot up at me, and she pushed me over into the grass. The camera flashed, and her laugh knocked me down again. “Perfect,” she exhaled as the film emerged.
I rolled to my side and kicked a knee up, admiring the collection of photos lying across the grass. “What are these?”
“Nothing,” Mia fanned the picture in the cold air, “Just messing around.”
I picked up one of the photos, seeing a side of myself I’d never noticed. I’d just caught the ball in mid-laugh. Only the side of my face was visible as I stood hunched over. Another photo of a partial Jake throwing the ball, and one of Zeke’s curls blowing over his smile from a different day. “What are you talking about? These are really good.”
“You think so?” her tone lifted.
Nodding, I scanned over each picture. “Wait, is this my arse?” I snatched it, taking a closer look. “You took a picture of my arse?” The room in the photo was dark, but sure enough, that was my white crack peeking from the top of the sheet lying in my bed facing the wall.
I dropped my elbow into the grass and looked up at her, surely grinning like a fucking kid.
Mia snatched the photo out of my hand. “It’s beautiful,” she admired her picture and tilted her head, “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
My brows pinched together. “My arse?”
Mia chuckled. “Well, yes, that too,” her laughter calmed but the smile remained as a permanent fixture on the photo, “I see this, and I feel everything I felt when I took it,” her cheeks turned pink and she dropped her head for a moment, “We didn’t even have sex. We only laid in bed naked all night playing This or That, remember? I asked you for either breakfast for the rest of your life or all meals except breakfast. You chose breakfast all day every day, saying, and I quote, ‘Our dates will consist of flipping pancakes at three a.m., sipping caffeine in our knickers and—
“Dancing to The Beatles,” I finished with a matching smile.
“In case we never make it out of here together, I wanted to always remember that vision you gave me. This picture does that for me.”
Her hand fit perfectly in mine. “We’re almost there.” A cold wind blew wildly between us, sending Mia’s defying strands against her face as she continued to look over her work with stars in her eyes.