Layla’s words are still playing themselves in my mind and I feel sick to my stomach. He told me once that he didn’t have more to give, that it wasn’t his to give, but I’d carried on regardless, willing to take whatever pieces of him I could have. I never thought that I’d be this girl—the bit on the side.
But I guess that’s what I’ve become and the thought of it makes me want to jump in the nearest shower and wash every trace of Raph off me. What makes it more sickening is the fact that I’m probably just living up to everyone’s expectations. Raph, Dani and Keller know the truth, but everyone else probably still thinks that it makes perfect sense that someone with my past would jump into bed with Raph the first opportunity she got, even if the guy basically treated me like shit for those first few weeks. It’s so pathetic, I would laugh, if I didn’t feel like crying.
I find a sliver of resolve from somewhere deep inside me, and force myself to step away.
“What’s wrong, Jaz?” Raph asks gently.
I don’t answer him because I don’t know where to start. We haven’t really talked about what the hell is happening between us since that day in the pool, and even then, there wasn’t much talking. I’ve been too busy letting Raph strip me of my senses. I’m not going to let that happen now.
Maybe I didn’t think it was the right time to talk about this earlier, after Devon’s words to me. But after what Layla just said? It sure as hell is the time now.
“What am I to you, Raph?” I ask simply.
Raph’s face softens and I feel like clawing my eyes out, so I can’t see that tenderness in his eyes.
“You’re mine, Jaz.” He repeats those words from earlier, reaching out to touch his fingers to my cheek. Layla’s words ring in my mind then—Raph belongs to her and she belongs to him. Layla is his. Not me.
I jerk back before he can make contact and his eyes cloud over. I tell myself not to care and when I speak again, I throw words at him like chips of ice.
“Your what? Your latest fling? Your piece on the side? Or better yet, as people at school seem to be calling me—your latest slam piece.”
Raph’s eyes flare, and he looks furious. I can practically feel the air around him heating with white rage.
“My what? Who the fuck said that?”
His anger is good in a way, because it means he had no idea about any of it and that it wasn’t his intention for people to see me that way at all. But still, it does little to ease the burning inside me.
“It doesn’t matter because it’s what I am, isn’t it? Your latest bit of entertainment, until you get bored with me?”
To his credit, Raph looks distraught at my words. Furious but distraught.
Raph takes a deep breath, in what seems to be an attempt to calm himself.
“Is this about what I just saw downstairs? Did Layla say something to you?” he asks evenly.
My temper rises and everything that I’ve been holding back these past weeks comes rising to the surface with it.
“Maybe it is, but she didn’t say anything that I haven’t already been thinking about—for a while now.”
“And what’s that?” he demands, his anger barely in check now.
“The fact that all those weeks ago you told me that you can’t actually be with me in the way that really matters, in the way that you think I deserve because your life doesn’t belong to you and there’s nothing more you can give me. But despite all of that, I ignore all sense and reason and I still let you climb into bed with me every night, let you kiss me, touch me, even though it can never be anything more than just that. God, I must seem so pathetic right now. I bet you’ve heard this so many times before from all of those other girls who jumped into bed with you in the past, knowing full well that it can never be about anything more than just sex.”
Raph catches me by the shoulders and locks his eyes directly onto mine.
“Is that what you think this is?” he asks.
I don’t answer him. I don’t think I need to.
“You have no idea.” He leans his forehead against mine and this time I’m too tired to push him away.
He lets out a long breath, closing his eyes for a second as if gathering strength from somewhere inside himself.
“What I feel for you, Jaz? It scares the shit out of me.”
His voice sounds hoarse with emotion and for a moment everything inside me stills. For a moment, I feel like I can’t even breathe.
His words floor me and I know I feel the same way. But despite how much I want that to be enough—it isn’t. It doesn’t make Layla’s words any less true.
“But it doesn’t change the truth of what you told me before—that none of this can ever matter.”
“I know that’s what I said. But now …”
He shakes his head.
“Now, it feels like it’s the only thing that matters.”
His words echo my own feelings towards him to such an extent, that it’s almost frightening.
“I told you before that my entire future was planned out for me from the moment I was born. My life was meant to be fucking perfect, but every day I lived it before you, felt like I was alive but not really living.
“You weren’t part of the plan, Jaz. For the first time in my life, I have no idea what the hell is going to happen. But I’ve never felt so alive. Being with you, wanting you, has made me come alive. You make me come alive.
“I can’t even pretend that this isn’t a mess. But it’s a fucking beautiful mess … and I don’t know how I know this, but I’m certain that I’ll never be able to give this up.”
I open my mouth to say something, but close it again, because I can’t think of a single objection. Devon’s words, Layla’s words, my own warnings, none of it seems to matter anymore and that cliff that I have been standing on the edge of? I’ve fallen right off it. But I was wrong to be scared, because Raph is there to catch me, and he’s here now. With me.
“I told you before that my life doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to my Dynasty, to my throne. But I don’t know how that can be true anymore because I’m certain that from the first moment I saw you on that beach, I’ve belonged to you.”
Layla was wrong about him, I let myself think then. Raph isn’t his father’s son. He’s his own person with his own choices—and he belongs to me.
I have no words that can even come close to what I want to say. So, I kiss him instead and I know he can feel the meaning of my unspoken words in that kiss by the way his powerful body quakes with the impact of it.
All my life I’ve been running. Drifting from one place to another like a ghost. But as Raph’s arms tighten around me, holding me so close to him as if he’s terrified at the very thought of me leaving, I feel something that I’ve never felt before. Like after all those years of running, of searching for something, although I never knew what, I’ve found it. I’ve found where I belong—and it’s here. With him. In these arms, and I don’t have to run anymore.
He leans his forehead against mine, his hands cupping my cheeks and when he speaks, it’s with those endless blue eyes locked onto mine, looking into my very core and his words mirror everything that I feel there.