Page 116 of King of Hollywood
“We don’t talk about our feelings if we can help it,” Felix countered. My belly fluttered. This was fun. This was so fun. Was this flirting? I loved it. I loved him. I love-love-loved him.
“That’s fair,” I replied, beaming back at him. I should’ve been angry, seeing as I was covered in icing and our romantic night had been ruined by Barry, but I wasn’t. Because this was…well… This was romantic, wasn’t it? Special.
A mirror of the first night we’d actually spoken to one another.
A redo.
“I like your suit,” I countered, lifting another branch. Felix noticed this time every time I did it, hopping beneath them with a pep in his step that had rarely been there.
“I like your face,” he flirted back, awfully. “Thank you.”
I laughed.
Giddy, I continued, faster this time. “Having a lover is fun.” My heart fluttered like crazy. Crickets chirped. The stars hung in the sky above, dancing above us. I felt lighter than a feather.
“It can be,” Felix hummed, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “It can also be bloody.”
“Yes,” I agreed, biting my lip to stop from laughing. I knew he knew what I was doing. And he didn’t stop me. In fact, he looked even more delighted than I felt as he waited, eyes wide, ready for me to continue the game I’d started. “You are quite small.”
“I am.” Felix agreed, snorting out a happy little laugh. “I am vertically challenged.”
“My perfect little fangy hobbit.”
“Rude!” Felix smacked my chest, and I stumbled back a little, gasping out a laugh when I realized he’d forgotten to hold back. The fact he’d been stronger than me all this time hit me like a freight train and my dick became suddenly, painfully hard.
Chuckling, I stalked after him, ducking between the tree trunks, my cock stirring as I watched him flit through the woods in a merry blood-splattered chase. I didn’t worry about getting caught. Didn’t worry about unkind eyes, or nosy townspeople. Because now I knew Felix could fix whatever mess we found ourselves in.
It was freeing.
I felt like I could breathe.
“You have very nice biceps!” I called after him as he ducked behind a tree. Only, seconds later, I felt him at my back—so quickly I hadn’t even seen him move—and his arms were wrapping tight around me.
He squeezed, and I sighed, tipping my head toward the stars, my fingers curling around his wrists. They were so dainty, such fragile bones for a man that could snap me in two.
“I was so in love with you,” Felix admitted, face hidden against my back. The mirth in his words was gone, replaced instead with the fragile truth. “I still am.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, staring up at the stars as my heart fluttered unsteadily.
“How long?” I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer, but I wanted it anyway. Needed to know he loved me as much as I loved him. Needed to know he needed me as much as I needed him.
That we were steady as the stars.
“Since the day you moved across the street.” Felix’s voice quivered, and his arms shook. He rarely admitted things like this. Things so close to the heart. “I saw you and I thought…my god, he’s beautiful.”
He could hear my pulse racing, and that should’ve felt invasive, but it was comforting instead. Like he could read my body when my words were clogged and my mouth grew stuck.
“Looking up at the stars was the closest to seeing the sun as I’d gotten, till I saw you.”
“Oh, Felix.” I twisted around, grabbing onto him and pulling him up into my arms. He went willingly, wrapping his legs around me like a goth koala as his head buried inside my neck.
“I was so nervous—that day you saw me with the body.”
“You were?”
“I wanted you to help.”
That was a shocking revelation. I blinked, hands stuttering to a stop for only a moment before I resumed petting him, leading him through the woods toward our destination now that the chase had ended—my prey caught.
