“It can be fixed. No biggie. I’ll just get it wet and start from there. I don’t have to recondition or anything,” I assure him. “Easy peasy.”
“I’ll help you,” he says. He pulls away from my neck, leaving me cold and bereft without him warming my skin. “I’ve watched videos, and I’m a good student. We can fix it.”
That is so…sweetof him. Normally, the answer would be a hard and fastabsolutely notwhen it comes to people doing my hair, but… he’s swimming in a hurt that is so familiar to me, we’re practically in the same waters. And he’s said before that touching my hair brings him comfort, and he’s been so raw tonight I don’t think I can stand to keep him from whatever comforts I am able to give. I don’t want to. Truthfully, all I really want to do is stay right here, holding him until the pain goes away and the idea that he is not enough feels so ridiculous to him that he’d never so much as let the idea flit through his mind beyond this night.
I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
It occurs to me, quite suddenly, that I’m still holding back with him, even as he lies in my arms baring intimate pieces of his soul. I’m waiting for a gotcha moment—some proof that everything he’s told me about wanting to change and about his feelings for me was just a momentary lapse in judgment on his part. That he never meant any of it, and that the second I give inhe’ll laugh and tell me that I would have done well to guard my heart instead.
I open up to him, but only so much as I have to, and only so much as feels safe. I told him I’d give him a chance, but when have I been vulnerable enough with him to be able to say I’m following through on that promise? When have I, of my own accord, opened up to him?
I haven’t, that’s when.
I inhale, breathing in the scents of cinnamon and clove, and resolve to do better for him. Do bettertohim.
“If you want to help me with my hair, you can,” I whisper. “But before you do that, I want to say… youareenough, Roman. More than enough. Better than enough. You always have been, and you always will be. Our siblings move on because they have different dreams than we do, but that never means that we don’t have value, to them or in the world. You hold so much value. To your sister, to your brother, to your parents.” I bite my lip as warmth slithers over my cheeks. “To me.”
He watches my blush bloom, eyes intense as he brings a hand up to run a finger over my cheekbone, then down, to my lips. They part under his touch, and my breath hitches.
“Enough…” he mutters. “You make me want to believe it. You make me think maybe I can.” He sighs, pressing his finger into my lips. “So many sweet words to make me feel better,” he whispers. “I wonder if they taste as sweet on your tongue as they sound in my ears. I wonder if they have the same power to heal me when they’re on my mouth as they do when they fill the air.”
“You could find out,” I offer, wanting nothing more than to make this man feel loved in as many ways as he’ll allow me.
His nail digs into my lip until I feel the sting—until my tongue darts out to soothe it, hitting his thumb as well. “You said that’s how you’ll know, right?” he asks, a thread of desperate hope winding through his question. “If I’m your soulmate?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, fisting his shirt in my hands. “True love’s kiss.”
Arctic-blue eyes soften as his lips tip up. “True love’s kiss,” he echoes softly before his thumb leaves my mouth, replaced by his breath, then his lips.
Softer than I could have imagined, but no less bossy than I would have thought, he takes charge of the kiss, sliding a hand into my still-damp hair to move me where he wants me—where best he might blow every other kiss I’ve ever had out of the water.
He gives, biting and soothing in equal measure. He takes, teasing me with the threat of retreat until I follow, then sucking—on my lips, my jaw, my neck.
“Roman,” I whimper when he nips behind my ear. “Please, come back.”
He obliges, pinning me to the bed so that all I can do is cling to him.
His lips return to mine, rougher, his stubble leaving a burning trail in their wake. I relish the sting. Beg him to give me more. “Please,” I pant when he moves away to breathe, his thumb returning to stroke my swollen lips.
“What do you think?” he rasps. “Soulmate worthy, my sweet? Am I enough for you?”
Uh… yes. Absolutely, categorically,yes. “In every lifetime,” I answer, throwing my head back as he bites at my collarbone. “In every universe. In every way.”
He groans. “Yes.” Tongue, teeth, lips,suction. “In every lifetime, in every universe, in every way, you’re mine, Sweet. And I’m yours.”
His mouth meets mine again, and I welcome it. His hands travel, gripping and caressing in time with his kisses, confirming the bond of our souls over and over. Confirming that we are, together, more than enough.
In the end, my hair doesn’t get fixed for a long, long while.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A totally normal wedding!
Elodie
Elevators are the most romantic place to exist, and I decide immediately after Will says his—completely ridiculous, completely over the top, completelyswoon-worthy—vows that when I follow the soulmate bond to love, I will be marrying Roman in one. This one, if Liam allows.
“I’m not getting married in this elevator,” Roman whispers to me, voice wet as we watch his sister marry his best friend from halfway outside the elevator, because when we tried to climb in after them, it was deemed ‘too crowded,' so we were given keep-the-door-open duty instead.
