“Was that you?” Raph asks through the sound of the rain.
“No—definitely not. Maybe it’s Baron up there telling us to get our asses back home.”
We’re both laughing then, as the rain falls in thick sheets around us. The water soaks through my clothes and every inch of my skin is slick with rain. I tilt my face up to let the rain wash over my cheeks, and when I turn back to Raph, all laughter is gone from his face. Those vivid blue eyes blaze into mine and even though I’m now totally soaked and freezing, I can still feel the heat of his gaze and every inch of my skin burns under it.
He moves closer to me, brushing my soaked hair away from my face and I think I stop breathing altogether when I feel his breath against my cheek, against my lips.
The air is hushed, still, as if waiting for something. Time itself seems to have stopped and I feel the same stillness in my own body, every fiber hushed in anticipation. It feels like the universe itself is watching as we stand there, Raph’s lips a hair’s breadth away from mine, the rain falling around us.
“What are you doing?” I ask then, my words barely a whisper in the inch of space between us.
This time, he answers. I feel the words on my lips and they wrap themselves around my chest like a vice.
“I’m kissing you.”
Then Raph’s lips meet mine and whatever else I’d been thinking suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore but this kiss. This moment.
Just like that day in the forest, it’s barely a kiss at first. Just his lips brushing softly against mine and just like that day in the forest, I feel the touch in every part of my body. White light explodes behind my closed eyelids and every pore in my body is awakened by the sensation.
Before I can even think, I’m kissing him back with an intensity that frightens me. His arms around me are both strong, yet terrifyingly gentle, as he slides his hand up my spine, in a caress that causes my body to tremble. He buries his hand in my hair, and I hear a moan escape my lips as he deepens the kiss.
Some part of me is terrified and I can hear the whisper of danger echoing through my mind. This kiss, this touch is taking me to a place from which I know I can’t return. But it’s impossible to think of anything other than the intensity of the sensations whirling around us in that moment, threatening to consume us both.
I open myself up to him, and he makes that low sound in the back of his throat as he explores my mouth, his tongue slicking over mine, moving against it in the most intimate caress. I realize faintly that I’m clutching onto him as tightly as he’s grasping for me.
My mind is swimming in the torrent of emotion that is carrying us away and everywhere we touch, sparks arch between us. I’ve never kissed like this before, never been kissed like this before—it’s insane and at the same time, beautiful in its intensity. Too frightening to contain, too fierce to control.
I can feel the fine tremor that has overtaken Raph’s body, the way the same tremor has taken hold of mine and neither of us seems to be in control of ourselves anymore. The kisses are too much, yet not nearly enough.
Raph’s hands travel to my waist, to my hips and the urge to be closer to him is irresistible, undeniable. He lifts me in an effortless motion and I wrap my legs around his waist. I hear myself gasp as he rolls his hips into the softest part of me and I’m whimpering as he crushes the center of me against his hard length. Heat flares in my core at the contact, and I can feel the shudder quaking through Raph’s powerful body. The rain pours over us, blankets us. But neither of us seems to care.
Raph’s lips brush against mine again and again with such passion and deep heart-wrenching emotion, that I can feel something inside me shattering at the deep rooted knowledge that nothing this good can ever be right. Nothing this intense can ever last. Even the brightest stars burn out. But as all the pent up longing and emotion that we’d both denied since that first day on the beach in Arcadia washes over us, drowning us, it’s almost impossible to remember caution or reason. It’s impossible to think of the consequences of indulging in this kind of earth shattering passion, for allowing ourselves to fall into the chasm that’s gaping before us. I can’t remember the hate that I once felt for him and the equal hate that he has felt for me. Except the way that he’s kissing me, the way that he’s touching me, makes me think now that perhaps it hadn’t been hate at all.
His hands are everywhere, as if he can’t touch enough of me, can’t hold me hard enough and everywhere he touches, my skin burns and awakens. He is the fire and I throw myself into it.
We’re both gasping for air like two divers resurfacing when we break away from each other. He’s still holding me against his body and my legs are still wrapped around his waist when he touches his forehead to mine. My lips feel swollen and still tingle with the ghost of his kisses. My skin feels raw and aches at the absence of his touch.
Raph’s eyes are locked onto mine, his chest rising and falling rapidly. The emotion smouldering in the depths of those midnight blue eyes convince me that all those months, it hadn’t been hate that I thought he was feeling. It hadn’t been hate at all.
I draw a shuddering breath as I try to speak then.
“Raph …”
My voice is barely a ragged whisper and I trail off because I have no idea what to say in the wake of everything that came before.
But he smiles then, a small smile that wraps itself around my heart. There’s something like wonder in his eyes, so fragile and so at odds with that icy glare that I saw that first day on the beach, that it takes my breath away.
“Say it again,” he says.
I don’t know what he means.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever said my name to me.” The realization that it’s true, hits me then, too.
“Not asshole, not prick …”
I let out a laugh, and it sounds shaky as hell, because my senses are still fried from those kisses.
“Or dickhead, or fucker …” I add, which only makes his smile widen.
That smile turns wicked as he nips the bottom of my lip with his teeth.
“I want you to say it again. But next time, I want you to be screaming it when I …”
He whispers something in my ear that sends shivers through my body and makes me feel like I’m going to burst into flames.
“Let’s go home,” he says, the promise of that whisper in his eyes.
I remember where I am and a few months ago there was no way anything could drag me back through that portal and back to that world. But now … now the only place I want to be is in these arms. As foolish as that might sound, and as much as I don’t want to think of that place as home, I find myself nodding in response and when I open my mouth, it’s to tell him to take me home.
I take one last look at the night sky above us, and it seems like even the stars are smiling down on us.
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