“It does.”
He turned to me with predatory grace. “All right, Mara.” His voice lacerated my name. “You want to hear how I first learned about my ability? About being told that we were moving into yet another miserable home two days before we left by my father’s secretary, because he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself? About feeling so numb to it and everything that I was sure I couldn’t actually exist? That I must be made of nothing to feel so much nothing, that the pain the blade drew from my skin was the only thing that made me feel real?”
His voice grew savagely blank. “You want to hear that I liked it? Wanted more? Or do you want to hear that when I woke up the next day to find no trace of any cut, no hint of a forming scar, all I could feel was crushing disappointment?”
There was nothing but the sound of deceptively tranquil waves and my breath in the stillness before he shattered it again.
“It became a kind of game, then, to see if there was any damage I could actually do. I’ve chased every high and low you can imagine,” he said, underscoring the word every with a narrow look to make sure I understood what he meant. “Completely without consequence. I wanted to lose myself and I couldn’t. I’m chasing an oblivion I will never find.” And then he smiled; a dark, broken, empty thing. “Have you heard enough?”
He was terrifyingly cold, but I wasn’t afraid. Not of him. I took a step toward him. My voice was quiet, but strong. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” he asked tonelessly.
“What you did before.”
“I haven’t changed, Mara.”
I stared at him, at his expression. I still want to lose myself, it said. And I began to understand. Noah craved danger because he was never in it; he was careless because he didn’t believe he could actually break. But he wanted to. He wasn’t afraid of me—not just because he believed I couldn’t hurt him, but because even if I did, he’d welcome the pain.
Noah was still chasing oblivion. And in me, he found it.
“You want me to hurt you.” My voice was barely above a whisper.
He took a step toward me. “You can’t.”
“I could kill you.” The words were edged in steel.
Another step. His eyes challenged mine. “Try.”
As he stood there in his exquisite clothes, his flawless features staring me down, he still looked like an arrogant prince. But only now could I see that his crown was broken.
The air around us was charged as we stood opposite each other. Healer and destroyer, noon and midnight. We were silently deadlocked. Neither of us moved.
I realized then that Noah would never move. He would never back down because he didn’t want to win.
And I wouldn’t lose him. So all I could do was refuse to play.
“I won’t be what you want,” I said then, my voice low.
“And what do you think that is?”
“Your weapon of self-destruction.”
He went still. “You think I want to use you?”
Didn’t he? “Don’t you?”
Noah inhaled slowly. “No, Mara.” My name was soft now, in his mouth. “No. I never wanted that.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want—” He stopped. Tore his fingers through his hair. “Never mind what I want.” His voice was quieter, now. “What do you want?”
“You.” Always you.
“You have me,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “You inhabit me.” His face was stone but the words issued from his lips in a plea. “You want to know what I want? I want you to be the one wanting me first. Pushing me first. Kissing me first. Don’t be careful with me,” he said. “Because I won’t be careful with you.”
My heart began to race.
You can’t hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I’m in love with you, Mara. I love you. No matter what you do.”
My breath caught in my throat. No matter what. The words were a promise, a promise I didn’t know if anyone could keep.
“We’re only seventeen,” I said quietly.
“Fuck seventeen.” His eyes and voice were defiant. “If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.”
Noah knew what I was and what I’d done and he wanted me anyway. He saw me. All of me. With my skin peeled back, my heart bare. I was inside out for him, and trembling.
“All I want is you,” he said. “You don’t have to choose me now or ever, but when you choose, I want you free.”
Something inside me stirred.
“You’re stronger than you believe. Don’t let your fear own you. Own yourself.”
I turned the words over in my mind. Own myself. As if it were that easy. As if I could walk away from grief and guilt and leave fear and everything behind.
I wanted to. I wanted to.
“Kiss me,” I whispered.