Daybreak (Sorrowsong University, #2) — Chapter no 13

Chapter 13

OPHELIA

When, three minutes past the start time of the class, not a single person has shown up, I should feel maybe a little disappointed, but what courses through me is pure relief.

“Maybe no one is coming?” I say to Colette’s disheartened expression.

The sound of the main door opening and closing echoes loud and clear in the empty hall. I shut my eyes, a fresh wave of dread engulfing me. “Why did I say that?”

Muffled voices sound from outside the door to the hall. I sit there in silence, like I’m awaiting execution.

The door to the hall opens. I can’t even bring myself to look, my whole body turning pink with embarrassment. The sheet is too small, my skin too exposed. The goose bumps on my arm are almost painful.

This was a bad idea.

“Um … Ophelia,” whispers Colette, from behind me. The edge to her voice makes me snap my eyes up.

Green. Bright green, like fresh rain on the English countryside.

It’s a shade of green I’d know anywhere.

Alex looks at me from the doorway, dark hair wet from the rain. Seven tickets dangle from the hand at his side. His lips are parted, breathless. The

shirt that clings to his frame is damp.

He’s devastating.

“Alex,” I whisper. It comes out like a question, like a request, like a desperate prayer. I don’t even know what I’m asking him for. Leave me alone. Don’t you dare walk away. Give me space. Let me love you forever.

Don’t touch me. Touch me everywhere.

I don’t think he’s noticed that Colette is here. He’s holding my gaze in such a way that I’m not sure he’s even noticed that I’m naked, either.

The silence unravels between us like a thread pulled too tight until, finally, he snaps it. His voice is hoarse, thick with emotion. “I’m really, really in love with you, Ophelia Winters.”

I love him so much it feels like a sickness.

Colette slips out the door behind him. The hinges creak closed, and then

we’re alone.

“I was going to call you.”

“You were going to end things.”

“I just … you have enough things, Alex, and I’m just one more thing. A long-distance relationship is just one more thing.”

“You’re everything.”

He’s got it the wrong way round. He is everything. He’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the fireplace in a cold house. He deserves better than bland and boring and never-ending jet lag for a girl he’ll only see a couple of times a year.

I go to move, but he shakes his head. “I’ve paid for this session.”

“You have to be kidding.”

“London is expensive. I want my drawing practice.”

“Alex, you could buy this whole building if you wanted to.”

“Good thing I don’t want to, then,” he says, dropping his duffel. My heartbeat is a dull, syrupy thud in my chest as he strides over to the table of cocktails, picks one up, and walks over to me.

The few precious inches between us don’t stop the heat from his skin from warming my own, his presence a balm over my tender flesh. The rim of the glass is ice cool when he presses it to my bottom lip.

I say nothing. I do nothing, stunned speechless by his arrival, his appearance, the hunger in his eye unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

“Now, now, Ophelia,” he drawls, hooking his thumb between my lips to part them. “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”

Holy shit. I shut my eyes, trying to block him out. I need to keep my head together around him, and whatever it is he’s doing here has scattered it into a hundred pieces between here and Tower Bridge.

A drop of sweet, sharp liquid lands on my tongue, passion fruit and vodka and undiluted lust. His familiar scent wraps around me like a cocoon,

warm and welcoming. He leans in, so close I think he might be about to kiss me, but his lips bypass my own, stopping at the shell of my ear. The only solace I have from the embarrassment of being more turned on than I have ever been in my life is the fact that I can see that he is, too. “I paid one hundred and forty pounds for the privilege of drawing the most beautiful woman in the world, and I hate wasting money.”

With that, he’s gone, cold air rushing in to fill the void he left. I stare at his muscular back, watching him pick out colored pastels from the boxes beside the cocktails.

“You live in New York now,” is all I can choke out, once I finally find my voice. He straddles a stool in front of the first easel, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt, and Jesus Christ, I have to look away. I could get lost in those thighs.

“I’d live anywhere with you,” he says, over the soft sound of pastel on

paper.

“But you can’t.”

“No, not yet. But once I’ve left Green.”

“You have enough on your plate. I can be difficult.”

“You’re the easiest decision I’ve ever made.”

“You deserve better.”

“We deserve each other.”

“I’m bland and boring.”

“You’re every color I’ve been missing.”

I stare down at the white sheet that covers my pale chest, licking a salty tear from my upper lip. “I’m scared we’ll lose each other again, that the

distance will eat us alive.”

“So am I.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“It bothers me less than the idea of a life without you.”

I stew on his words while he sketches. That’s it in a nutshell, so succinctly put. I’ve overthought it so much, I’ve forgotten that all of this boils down to a simple decision. Life without him in it, or a future together.

And I don’t know whether it’s the look in his eye, the vulnerability of my position, or the fact that he’s here in front of me, but I feel the churning cogs in my mind slow down. I feel my overactive brain roll toward a decision.

I’d rather be terrified at his side, than fearless and alone. My smile is watery. “You really want to watch me do crosswords until I’m old and gray?”

His hand flies across the paper, but he’s looking at me. “It’s everything I

want, Twist.”

“I want it, too. But—”

“We’ll figure out the logistics another day.”

“I get stalked like it’s an Olympic sport.”

He stifles a yawn, the corners of his mouth tipping up in a boyish grin.

“Boring. Stalkers are boring.”

“Not when they’re trying to stop us getting a happy ending.”

“They’re especially boring then. Your stalker, my mom, the girls, your fear of flying, the distance, my father, the media. We’ll figure it all out.”

I wave my hand, like these are just tiny things and not the giant obstacles most couples split up over. “Minor semantics.”

He laughs. It’s hoarse and genuine and happy. “Now you’re getting it.

We’re young and stupid, but I know we’ll work it out.”

He stands, admiring his handiwork. I sit up, but he pins me with a glare, sliding onto the stool for the second easel. “What are you doing?”

“Seven tickets. Seven drawings.”

“There’s only so many times I can watch you straddle that stool and keep breathing.”

He sketches the next one in silence, and the next. I understand why he’d watch me do crosswords until we’re too old to remember each other’s names, because I could watch him do this until the sun sets on this miserable planet for the final time.

He swipes the excess white chalk on his finger over the corded muscle of his forearm, a muted rainbow of oranges and blues and pinks across his raven tattoos.

We’re doing this, giving this a real try. The excitement outweighs the terror.

The moan that slips past my lips when he sits on the stool again has him adjusting his slacks, eyes blazing. “You’re dirty, Ophelia.”

“And the thoughts running through your head right now are perfectly innocent?”

“If I spoke my current thoughts about you out loud, that church across the road would burst into flames.”

I press my thighs together, praying he won’t notice. Obviously he notices; I’m fucking naked. “So fuck me then.”

His hand freezes on the fifth sheet of paper, like he didn’t expect that from me. But I’m desperate, wanting, yearning to feel his callused palms skate along my hips, the gentle nip of his teeth over the skin that covers my pulse, the unthinkable things he whispers when he’s buried deep inside me.

It’s been months.

“And waste two tickets?”

“Fuck the tickets.”

He kisses his teeth, humming thoughtfully. “Might not feel as good as

you.”

“Alex.”

He smiles fondly, sketching as though he has all the time in the world.

“Seven letters, first letter O. The sun, the moon, the world, and everything in it.”

I’m so breathless, so needy that it’s embarrassing. “Four letters, first letter A. Somebody help, he’s torturing me.”

“The torturing part comes later.”

I slide my hand down my lower stomach, sick of waiting. He puts down the chalk. “Don’t you dare. I’ll draw twice as slow.”

My cry of frustration is strangled, head tipped back against the red velvet.

After fifteen minutes that feel like fifteen hours, he takes pity on me and stops after the sixth drawing, pacing a slow circle around the easels. He spins the first one, and there I am, formed of messy, muted lines. My skin is pale, but my hair is a fiery red. I’m draped across the chaise, and maybe Colette was right, maybe I do look beautiful, because he’s certainly made it look that way.

“Alex,” I whisper, swallowing the lump of emotion in my throat.

He takes my hand, tugging me to my feet. The sheet drops to the floor between us, and I fight the instinctive urge to cover myself. He sucks in a sharp breath, both hands in his hair like he has to touch something, anything, that isn’t me, and suddenly, I’m on Clemmie’s side.

This is empowering.

He tugs me to the second easel, and there I am again, but not on a chaise, not in a hall in rainy Camden. I’m in the back of a car, holding a cup of noodles between both hands beneath a string of Christmas lights.

My breath is caught in my throat, any clever comments I had planned long forgotten as he walks me from easel to easel. I’m floating on my back in water, hair spread around me like swirling flames. I’m sitting on a bed, facing away from him. I’m biting the end of a pen, frowning down at a crossword. I’m showering, head tipped back against the spray. He’s left in the soft swell of my lower stomach, the pale stretch marks on my hip.

And then I’m blurred through my own tears, a soft hand cupping the back of my neck as I stare at the artworks in front of us.

“I know you’re worried I’ll panic and leave you again when things get hard. I haven’t exactly proved otherwise,” he says, thumb tracing a line between my shoulder blades. “I know you’re worried about long distance, that it’ll stretch our strings too far. I’m so sorry I let you believe that.”

I drop my head, but a gentle finger tilts my chin up and to the left so I’m looking at him when I speak. “I just don’t want this not to be enough. I don’t want you to forget me.”

“I don’t need you in front of me, Ophelia. I don’t need you as a model. I know the curves of your waist better than the hallways of my own home. I could draw you in any lifetime, together or apart. I haven’t produced a drawing since January that isn’t you in some way or another. If we have to be long distance, I know I could do it, because you’re never further from me than my pencil.”

I bury my head in his chest and let an unapologetic sob hiccup its way out of my throat. I’ve never needed to thicken my skin around him.

To be loved by Alex Corbeau-Green is unlike anything I’ve ever known.

He steers us to the final easel, lowering onto the stool. He pulls away, those tortured eyes regarding me through messy hair in need of a trim.

His eyes drop down to my lips, his tongue running a slow line behind his teeth. We haven’t kissed yet, but he’s hard beneath his dark jeans, practically vibrating with want.

It’s too much, too hot, too tempting. I’ve lost control of my pulse, my self-control is abandoned at the bottom of the Thames. I thread my fingers through his hair and straddle him where he sits. His groan is animalistic. “I think Tangerine is standing outside.”

“Clementine?”

“Satsuma?”

I wriggle my hips against his, impatient. “Are you gonna keep naming soft fruits all evening?”

I can’t remember the last time he smiled like this. Like the weights that burden his shoulders all day have been temporarily set down. “I wouldn’t go raisin your blood pressure like that.”

“Alex!”

His laugh echoes around the hall, a little blush forming on his cheeks. I fall in love all over again, ridiculing the girl inside me who thought no strings would last. He sighs, expression sobering as he regards me like I put the moon in the sky and arranged the stars around it, just for him. “I’m pretty sure she’s listening outside.”

I run my fingers over his chest, worried he’s not real. Maybe Clementine murdered me with her giant kombucha bottle, and this is the afterlife.

Maybe Eike is a dangerous driver. “I don’t care.”

His hands on me are shameless and clumsy, flying from my waist to my hips to my breasts to my thighs like he can’t quite believe I’m here, either.

His thumb traces over my lips, pupils so dilated that his eyes are an inky

abyss. “Can you be quiet, Ophelia?”

“Can you?”

A breathless laugh tickles my throat. His hands move dangerously close to the top of my thighs, scorching a path across the freckled skin. “I wouldn’t have thought so, no.”

His fingers dip between my legs, spare hand steadying my waist. My head tilts back, his name a desperate gasp between my lips. He guides my legs farther apart, skillful fingers sinking into me to ease an ache that has plagued my nights for so long.

It’s different now; there are no secrets weighing down the back of my mind; we’re not trying to cram too-big feelings into a friendship-sized box.

My heart is in his hands, and his in mine.

His fingers brush my clit, lips tracing my collarbone, and while his actions may feel sinful, his words feel anything but. His words are worship.

“I can’t live without you, Ophelia,” he breathes, against my pale skin.

“Not in this lifetime, not in the next.”

“You’ve gone all philosophical on me.”

His tongue grazes my nipple, and there’s no way Clementine doesn’t hear the soft moan that echoes around the empty hall. “Well, you’ve given me hope for the future.”

My fingers fumble with his top few buttons until more of his skin is exposed to me. I breathe in his scent, letting him fill every inch of my lungs. The rush of euphoria that follows is dizzying. “And you’ve made me stronger than my past.”

My fingers flex over the zipper of his dark jeans. His breath catches in his throat, giving way to a quiet whimper. It’s my undoing. “And you’re going to make me a one-minute man.”

I laugh, slightly grateful for the turn to less emotional conversation. The last thing I need is to start crying during hot makeup sex. There has to be at least one event in my year that I don’t cry through.

His fingers move faster inside me, thumb circling my clit. A long thread of warmth unravels in my abdomen, forehead dropping to his shoulder. His spare hand splays over my stomach, both of us covered in differently colored streaks of chalky pastel.

“This is how my dreams go,” he whispers. “Every night, this is how they go.”

We’re an artwork of his creation, messy lines that form something

wonderful in all the chaos.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m gonna—”

He stops abruptly, pushing me off the stool, and I think maybe he’s as close as I am, just from a few touches. “Jesus Christ, Ophelia. Turn around.”

I do as he says, turning to face the blank canvas. His breaths are heaving when he reaches around me and grabs two of the pastels. The fabric of his jeans is rough against the sensitive skin at the back of my thighs, every graze of his shirt against my arms sending a jolt of electricity down my spine.

He swipes the colored pastels over my hands in long, languid strokes, unhurried even as the evidence of his desire presses into my lower back. A shudder racks my body, the sheer weight of the anticipation between us almost too much to bear.

A soft kiss lands on my neck; a strangled curse floats over my shoulder.

Two large hands drag my hips back just enough that I have to splay my

hands over the blank paper to steady myself. Brown and orange handprints mar the pristine white page.

Alex’s voice is husky in my ear, breath thawing the cold shell I’ve spent so many years building around my skin. “Paint me a picture while I fuck you, Ophelia.”

The noise that escapes me is embarrassing: a moan and a garbled version of his name trying to escape at once. Orange claw marks rake over the paper as I fight to keep my balance. Alex traces his thumb down the dip of my spine, murmuring a string of muttered French.

He seems keen to take his time, to drink in every detail of this moment, hands kneading the skin of my back like he’s a sculptor and I’m the prize in his collection.

But I’m more of a fuck now, examine each other’s vertebrae later sort of girl.

“What’s the hold up?” I demand, voice edged with desperation. He’s dragging this out just to watch me squirm. “Stuck in traffic, or something?”

He laughs in disbelief, wrapping a handful of my hair around his fist, forcing me to look up at the mess I’ve already made of the paper. Tears prick my eyes, every sense on high alert. His hands on my waist are red hot, branding his fingerprints into my skin, and suddenly I’m delirious with need, a frantic longing to be his again. The word please slips through my lips like a chant.

“Ophelia, baby. You’ve got yourself all worked up.”

One more please slips past my lips, and then he slams his hips forward, one hand on my waist, one on my shoulder to stop me flying into the easel in front of us.

He’s everything, everywhere. The eye of the storm, the calm in the chaos. The pleasure in a lifetime of pain. Neither of us is quiet. I cry out his name, he whispers a broken thank you, like he’s been drowning for weeks, and he’s just been given a lifeline.

And for the first time since the beginning of the year, I can see land after so long at sea.