Chapter 29: Chapter 28

‘Adeline…Do you have feelings for Rigel?’

Adeline lowered her cup. I saw surprise in her eyes.

‘Why are you asking me that?’

Maybe Anna was right about me: my heart was very transparent, and I couldn’t lie. I had never been good at hiding my emotions, and this was no different.

‘Nica,’ she whispered, ‘if you’re talking about that kiss…’

‘I want to know,’ I said, bluntly. ‘I…I need to know, Adeline. Do you feel something for him?’

I knew I couldn’t tell anyone about Rigel and me. Even though Adeline had known us our whole lives, since long before we had been taken in by Anna and Norman, this just wasn’t something I could tell her.

If it got out, the consequences would be disastrous. But I had to ask her.

She looked down. ‘I’ve known you both a long time,’ she whispered. ‘We grew up together. Rigel…is also part of my childhood. And even though I’ve never been able to understand him, I’ve learnt to not judge his behaviour.’

I got the feeling that I was missing something, again. I didn’t understand. I had never seen them together at the institute, but Adeline seemed to know him in a way I couldn’t interpret.

‘Rigel has taught me a lot. Sometimes, the greatest sacrifice comes not in our words, but through what we leave unsaid. He taught me that there are some opportunities you have to seize, and others when all you can do is…step aside. We have to accept that there are some things we can’t change, and the measure of our love is how much we are prepared to sacrifice to protect them from a distance. He taught me that we have to have the courage to let go of the things we care about the most.’

Adeline looked up, piercing me with her sky-blue eyes.

I did not fully understand her words. I did not grasp their hidden meaning. It would only become clearer at the very end.

Her eyes glistened, a labyrinth of things left unsaid. Maybe she, too, had desires that she had learnt to restrain, choosing silence over speech.

‘Believe me, Nica,’ she smiled gently. ‘All I feel for Rigel is a deep, deep fondness.’

—

I chose to believe Adeline.

Maybe I hadn’t understood everything she had said, but there was one thing I was absolutely certain of: I trusted her, and knew she would never make fun of me.

I wanted to be open with her, to confess what bound Rigel and I together, but I couldn’t. I needed to share my fears and insecurities with someone, but I knew I had to keep them inside.

I was alone with those feelings.

Alone with him.

‘So?’

I blinked. Billie was looking at me with a concerned expression.

‘Sorry, my head was in the clouds,’ I apologised.

‘I asked if you want to study together,’ she said flatly. ‘If you want to come over to mine after school.’

‘Oh, I’d love to, but I can’t today,’ I replied regretfully. ‘Anna’s got me an appointment at the doctor’s.’

Billie looked at me for a moment, then she nodded slowly. She had not seemed at all herself the last few days. The dark circles under her eyes made them look shiny and sunken, and she seemed so tense and dull, so different from her usual bubbly self.

I knew why: she and Miki hadn’t said a word to each other in days.

However straightforward the solution seemed, I knew that it wouldn’t be enough for her to simply grab the phone and make up with her best friend. Something had broken that afternoon. What they said to each other had shaken the most fundamental aspects of their relationship, and the more time passed, the more the rift between them seemed to deepen.

‘I’m sorry, Billie,’ I said sincerely. ‘Maybe another time…’

She nodded again, without looking at me. She let her gaze wander over the hustle and bustle of students. When her eyes came to a stop, I knew who she had seen.

Miki was walking along the corridor, her backpack slung off one shoulder and her hood lowered. I realised then that she wasn’t alone. She was walking alongside another girl. It must have been one of her classmates. I had previously seen her saying hello to Miki a few times, so I wasn’t that surprised to see them together. I noticed a hint of uncertainty in Miki’s eyes. She hesitated for a moment, then came towards us.

I was so happy to see her approaching that I couldn’t help but smile sweetly.

‘Hey,’ I greeted her happily.

Miki looked down, which I interpreted as a greeting.

‘I found it,’ was all she said, holding out a small backpack to me. It was the one with the clothes I had left at her house the afternoon of the party.

‘Oh,’ I replied, surprised. ‘Where was it?’

‘Evangeline had put it with my things.’

‘Just think…well, thanks. Oh, yeah!’ I looked for something inside my backpack and held it out to her. ‘Here…these are for you.’

Miki reached out a hand to take the cookies, perplexed.

‘Anna wanted to thank you for your hospitality. And for the lift, the make-up and the sandals…so we made cookies together.’ I scratched my cheek. ‘Yeah…the ones I made don’t look that pretty,’ I admitted, looking at the ugly shortbread bears with their lumps and deformities. ‘But I’ve tried them, and…after the first few bites…if you chew for a bit…they get a bit softer.’

Miki’s friend smiled at me. ‘They don’t look all that bad.’

‘I hope so,’ I said, appreciating her intervention. Billie, behind me, was watching us wordlessly.

‘You shouldn’t have.’ Miki seemed lost for words. ‘There was no need.’

‘Come on…is that all you’ve got to say?’ Her companion laughed, giving her a playful nudge. ‘She baked them for you! You can at least say thank you!’

Miki gave her a gruff look, but I saw her blushing under her make-up.

‘Of course,’ she stammered, in that slightly crabby way that made me realise how much she actually did appreciate the cookies. ‘Thank you.’

‘Always as surly as a bear,’ her friend good-naturedly teased her. ‘Like when you don’t have your coffee. Did you know that Makayla is impossible if she hasn’t had her beloved caffeine?’

‘It’s not true…’ Miki grumbled.

‘Oh, but it is! She’s a beast, I swear,’ she laughed. ‘If I didn’t know what she’s like…’

‘What do you know about what she’s like?’

We turned around.

Billie’s arms were crossed, her hands were clasped a little above her elbows. There was a hostility glinting in her eyes that I had never seen in her before. She seemed to realise what she had just said only as we all turned around to look at her. Instinctively, she clamped her lips shut and walked away, her arms still tightly wrapped around herself so she wouldn’t fall apart.

‘Thanks for the cookies.’

Miki lifted up her hood and left in the other direction.

Her friend watched her go. When our eyes met again, neither of us could think of the right thing to say.

The rift was getting wider.

Ever wider.

In the end, it would swallow everything: dreams, memories and happy moments.

Nothing would be left.

Just ruins.

Just emptiness.

—

The waiting room in the psychologist’s office was simple and elegant.

A tropical plant broke up the cold tones, and on the anthracite-coloured walls, there were several abstract paintings that, despite my patient efforts, I couldn’t reach an interpretation of.

I risked a little glance at the person next to me.

Rigel’s arms were folded, his ankle was resting on his knee and his mouth was creased in a scowl.

He was irritated. Very irritated.

His body was seething with the annoyance of being there. Anna had convinced him by saying, ‘Seeing as Nica’s going…why don’t you give it a try too? You might find it useful…’

I could imagine how he was feeling. Rigel, sitting down to talk about himself? Rigel, who had built himself such a thick mask that it even covered his heart? It was so absurd it was almost inconceivable.

I examined the profile of his face. His manly jaw was tense, his upper lip slightly curled. He was as magnificent and captivating as ever, despite his extreme irritation.

At that moment, I noticed the girl sat at the far end of the waiting room. She was holding a magazine in front of her face, her legs were crossed, and her eyes were practically glued to Rigel. She was staring at him so intensely that I was surprised his skin wasn’t melting off his bones. As Rigel inclined his head, she crumpled the cover of the magazine in her hands.

I looked at her more closely…She had shining brown eyes and an extremely delicate face. She was pretty. Very pretty.

Feeling an emotion I didn’t know how to describe, I wondered whether he had noticed her.

I turned around.

Rigel’s head was leaning against the wall, his face turned to one side. And his gaze…his gaze was planted on my hand, next to his leg. I hadn’t even realised that I had brushed his knee. He seemed enraptured, as if, despite his irritation, that touch had been enough to enchant him.

‘Goodbye!’

A well-dressed man appeared in the doorway in front of us. He held it open to let a man in his forties walk out.

‘See you next week, Timothy,’ he said. ‘So, the next appointment is…’

He let his gaze wander until it landed on Rigel and me.

‘Oh, you must be Mrs Milligan’s children,’ he burst out. I saw a muscle twitching in Rigel’s jaw. ‘You’re already here, excellent…Miss, would you like to go first?’

I nibbled the edges of my Band-Aids, nervous, and got to my feet.

He smiled, letting me pass.

‘Anna isn’t actually our adoptive mom yet,’ I corrected him faintly.

The doctor looked at me, realising his mistake.

‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘Mrs Milligan told me about the adoption. I didn’t realise the process was still ongoing.’

I wrung my hands. My palms were sweating. He noticed my jitteriness. His gaze was deep and perceptive, but the attentive way he looked at me didn’t make me feel intimidated. It was just unexpectedly sensitive.

‘Would you like to talk to me?’ he asked.

I swallowed. I felt my body trembling, whispering no, but I tried to pay it no attention.

I wanted to do this for myself.

I wanted to try.

Even though my guts were twisting with terror and reality was crashing down on me.

Slowly, I nodded. It took me an enormous effort, maybe the most effort anything had ever taken me.

An hour later, once again I walked through that door.

I felt clammy, tense and shaky. I had told him a little bit about my childhood, but I hadn’t been able to tell him about my traumas, because every time I tried to open the doors to that part of my mind, my anxieties were there, ready to ambush me. I had gotten upset, frozen and fallen silent many times. I had only managed, with difficulty, to tell him a few things, but he reassured me that I had been good. It was my first time.

‘We can meet again, if you’d like to,’ he said gently. ‘No rush. Next week, maybe.’

He didn’t force me to reply. Instead, he let me process in silence. Then he looked up at Rigel.

‘Your turn,’ he said, as I sat back down. ‘This way, please.’

I realised that Rigel hadn’t moved an inch from where I had left him.

He looked at me closely, as if to check if I was all right. Then, after a moment, he unfolded his arms and decided to get up and cautiously walk into the psychiatrist’s office.

He walked through the door with measured steps, but his first thought was that he didn’t want to be there.

Lately…he was always feeling in a strange frenzy.

It was a sizzling sensation that ignited his blood. It was visceral, like a poison. Twisted and delicious.

It was her.

Impulsively, he spun around to seek her eyes. He met her shining gaze just for a moment, just long enough to imprint the image of her on his mind.

It was as if he had to keep looking at her, to see her, to make sure that she wasn’t a dream.

That if he turned to look at her, she would meet his eyes.

That if he touched her, she wouldn’t be frightened.

That if he ran his hand through her hair, she wouldn’t fade away like a dream, but stay there, in his hands, her eyes locked on his.

She was real.

She was so real she made his blood shudder.

The disaster was roaring inside of him. It was scraping and scratching the walls of his heart, asking if he was mad, if this was just another illusion. Rigel turned to look at her, desperately searching for her eyes and desperately, urgently clinging on to them.

He imprinted her inside him, her and her pale eyes. And that light that flooded everything.

And even though his heart was still delirious, inside him, something was pulsating with tenderness.

Something that knew how to be gentle, that warmed him, that lay in the shadows of his thorns and placed colourful Band-Aids between the cracks in his soul.

For a moment, as the door closed on Nica, so small, light and real, he reminded himself that even if he couldn’t see her, she would still be there…

‘Okay, Rigel. Rigel, right?’

The doctor’s voice tore him away from his thoughts.

He had almost forgotten him. Almost.

‘I understand this is also your first time,’ he heard him say, as he appraised the office. Something on the desk caught his attention. They looked like cards, but they were as large as the pages of a book. They were arranged in two neat rows, and on each of them was a series of black dots that formed vague shapes.

‘Interesting, aren’t they?’

Rigel’s eyes flitted back to the doctor. He was standing near him, staring at the pages with the dots.

‘It’s the Rorschach test,’ he informed him. ‘Contrary to what most people think, it’s not a tool for evaluating mental instability. It’s used to show how the subject perceives the world. It aids in assessing personality.’ He moved some of them aside, revealing ever more abstract designs. ‘Some people see anger, lack, fear…Others see dreams, hopes. Love.’ The doctor looked up at him. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

Rigel felt like laughing, in that exaggerated, malicious and unrestrained way that made people see him as a wolf.

He and love had a lifelong battle. They tore each other to pieces. But neither of them could survive without the other.

But for once he didn’t laugh. Instead, Rigel found himself staring at those meaningless blots. He had always heard people speak of love as a sweet, tender feeling that lightened the heart. No one ever spoke of thorns, no one spoke of the cancer that was longing, or the torment of an unrequited glance.

No one spoke of how much it hurt, love, when it devours you until you can’t breathe.

But he knew he was different. He wasn’t like other people.

He sensed the man watching him intensely, as if curious about the various emotions flitting through his eyes.

‘What is love, for you?’

‘A writhing,’ Rigel murmured. ‘Bites that never heal.’

By the time he realised he had opened his mouth it was too late. He had been speaking to himself, not to the psychiatrist. It was a thought he had always kept inside.

But now, the doctor was staring at him, and Rigel felt every molecule in his body protesting against his gaze. He found it repellent, oppressive, something to shrug off as soon as possible.

For a moment, he had got lost inside himself, and Nica had pulled the unspeakable from him. He promised himself it would not happen again.

He looked away, and started to pace around the room like a caged animal.

‘I know about your condition.’

Rigel froze. Immediately.

‘My…condition?’

So Anna had spoken about him. He slowly turned around.

‘Have no fear,’ the doctor said calmly. ‘Do you want to take a seat?’

Rigel didn’t move. His stare glinted with a light as sharp as a pin.

The doctor gave him a reassuring smile.

‘You can’t imagine how good it feels, to talk. You know what they say? Words let us read the soul.’

Read the soul?

‘Everyone’s a little nervous their first time…it’s normal. Why don’t you settle down on this armchair here?’

Read…the soul?

He turned and looked at the doctor. He flashed his black, shark eyes at him. Then, out of nowhere…he smiled. His lips parted to reveal his teeth, one of his finest masterpieces.

‘Before we get started, there’s something I’d like to ask you.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he began, stepping closer. ‘It’s first-time nerves, you know how it is. Essentially, doctor, I’ve always been a little wary of the confessional approach. You know, because of my…condition.’

The doctor looked at him in surprise when, instead of the armchair, he gracefully sat down in the chair in front of him.

‘It’s just out of curiosity,’ he said, polite and innocent. ‘You don’t mind, do you, doctor?’

The man laced his fingers together under his chin, and accommodated Rigel’s request. ‘Go ahead.’

Rigel gave him a measured smile, like a tamed beast, and asked, ‘What is the aim of these sessions?’

‘To facilitate an improvement in psychological wellbeing and to help you in your personal growth,’ the doctor replied calmly.

‘And so you take it for granted that your…. clients are in need of help.’

‘Well, if they come to me of their own free will.’

‘And if they don’t come to you of their own free will?’

He gave him a calm, shrewd look.

‘Is this your way of telling me that you did not choose to come here?’

‘It’s my way of trying to understand your approach.’

The doctor seemed to consider.

‘Well…sometimes, people find it helps them feel better. Sometimes, people construct realities in which they believe they are healthy. They think they do not need help. But inside, they feel empty, useless, like a broken frame or a shard of glass.’

‘If they do not think they need help, how can the opposite be true?’ Rigel asked, enigmatically.

The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose.

‘That’s just how it is. The mind works in complex ways. We cannot understand everything. Rorschach himself once said that the soul needs to breathe too.’

‘Even yours?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You are human, doctor, like everyone else. Does your soul need to breathe, too?’

The doctor looked him in the eyes, as if seeing him for the first time.

Rigel smiled ironically, but his gaze remained icy.

‘If I were to tell you that in those designs I saw desires, traumas or fears, you would find some way to analyse me. If I were to tell you, on the other hand, that I saw nothing, or that I think they’re just meaningless blots, you would interpret that just the same. Perhaps as a refusal. Or evasion. Am I wrong?’

He waited for a reply that did not come.

‘Whatever I say, you would find something to correct. No matter the situation, anyone who walks through that door is destined for a diagnosis. Maybe the point, doctor, isn’t how people feel, but how you make them feel. The point is your conviction that there must be something that is not right, that they need to be fixed, because they are useless, empty and wrong…like a broken frame, or a shard of glass.’

The man stared at him, and Rigel held his gaze, unmasked now.

‘Go ahead, doctor,’ he said sourly, looking at him from under his black eyebrows. ‘Isn’t this the moment where you try to read my soul?’

From the silence that ensued, he surmised that he had been successful. Like hell he’d let himself be psychoanalysed. He’d had enough of that as a child. He didn’t need to hear again that he was a disaster. He knew that full well. No chance he was going to let another shrink near his brain.

The way the man was watching him, as if he actually had already understood everything about him, filled his stomach with irritation.

‘You have a strong defence mechanism there, Rigel,’ he said shrewdly. It wasn’t a compliment. ‘Today you have decided that there is nothing I can do to help you. But one day, maybe, you might realise that instead of protecting you, this defence mechanism is devouring you.’

I lifted my gaze from the mug in my hands to the silent figure before me.

Rigel was sat at the piano. His hair was falling over his face and his hands were moving slowly, distractedly, over the keys.

His soft melody was the only sound throughout the whole house.

He had been like this since we got home.

When the office door had opened, the first thing I had seen was the psychiatrist’s unsmiling face. The second was Rigel’s icy, shadowy expression.

He had not said a word. I knew that it wasn’t like him to babble meaninglessly, but I could tell from his silence that the meeting with the psychiatrist had not gone as planned.

I stepped closer and placed the steaming mug down next to him, making my presence known.

‘Is everything okay?’ I asked gently.

He didn’t turn to look at me. He just nodded.

‘Rigel…what happened with the doctor?’

I tried to be as delicate as possible. I didn’t want to pry. I was just worried about him, and wanted to comfort him.

‘Nothing important,’ he replied tersely.

‘You seem…upset.’

I tried in vain to catch his eye. He was staring at the white keys as if there was a world in front of him that I could not see.

‘He thought he could come in,’ he murmured, as if I was the only one who could understand. ‘He thought…he could see inside me.’

‘And was that his mistake?’ I whispered.

‘No,’ he replied, shutting his eyes. ‘His mistake was thinking that I’d let him.’

I wished I didn’t feel that stinging emptiness inside my chest, but I couldn’t control the emotion.

It was my mistake too, I wanted to admit, but I was too frightened of his reply.

Rigel was introverted, complicated and averse to affection but, above all, he was unique. I had known for some time now that he had built a barrier between himself and the world, a barrier that was rooted in his heart, lungs and bones, that was a part of him.

But I also knew that, beyond that barrier shone a universe of shadows and velvet. And it was precisely that rare and beautiful galaxy that I wished I could enter.

Slowly, tenderly.

I didn’t want to hurt him.

I didn’t want to change him, or worse, to fix him. I didn’t want to wipe away his demons, I just wanted to sit with them and silently count the stars above us.

Would he ever open that door for me?

I lowered my gaze, defeated by my fears. Even though we had become closer, there were still moments in which we were too far apart to understand each other.

I turned around, thinking to give him some time alone, but something stopped me from leaving.

A hand around my wrist.

I slowly looked up. His eyes met mine and, after a moment, I granted his silent request. I turned around and sat next to him on the piano stool.

Before I knew what was happening, Rigel slid a hand under my knee and pulled me towards him.

The feeling of his body against mine sent a staggering shiver down my spine. The next moment, I was enveloped in his warmth and felt such a vibrant, intense happiness my head spun.

I still wasn’t used to being able to touch him. It was a strange, wonderful sensation, always new, always powerful, a rush of dizziness.

I nestled my head into the crook of his neck, snuggling into his warm torso, and he sighed softly, relaxing.

For a moment, I thought that, maybe, if he was as affectionate as I was, he might have lowered his face and rested his cheek on my head.

‘What do you think about when you play the piano?’ I asked after a while of listening to his slow, melodious chord progressions.

‘I try not to think.’

‘And can you, not think?’

‘Never.’

I had always wanted to ask him that. I had never heard him play anything happy. His hands always conjured wonderful, angelic, but heartbreaking melodies.

‘If it makes you sad…why do you do it?’ I found myself asking, looking up at him. I was entranced by the sight of his lips parting as he started to speak.

‘There are some things that are out of our control,’ he replied enigmatically. ‘Things that…belong to us, that we can’t get rid of. Not even if we want to.’

A sense of foreboding crept over me.

I stared at his fingers sliding slowly over the keys, and it suddenly dawned on me.

‘Does it remind you of…Her?’

The memory of the matron still fed the monsters of my nightmares. Rigel had told me he hated her, and yet somehow, he had carried her with him since childhood.

‘It reminds me…of what I’ve always been.’

Alone, I could almost hear him saying. Abandoned, left by a closed gate. I suddenly wanted him to stop playing.

I wanted to tear her from his soul, wipe him clean of every trace of that woman.

I wanted her far away from Rigel.

The idea that she had loved him, with her violent hands and her eyes tainted with anger, tormented me.

She was an illness. Her love was a bruise that she had inflicted on his heart for so long that just the idea of it revolted me.

‘Why then?’ I asked quietly. ‘Why do you still play?’

I didn’t understand. It was like picking a scab, knowing that it would bleed again.

Rigel was quiet for a moment, as if he was gathering a reply inside himself. I loved his silences as much as they scared me.

‘Because the stars are alone,’ he recited bitterly.

I tried to make sense of those sad words, but it was impossible.

I knew that Rigel was trying to give me a reply, in his own way, but for the first time I wanted him to unlock the doors to his heart and finally give me the keys to understand his secret language.

I wanted to know everything about him. Everything. Every thought, dream and fear. Every worry, desire and ambition.

I wanted to enter his heart like he had entered mine, but I was scared of losing my way.

Maybe Rigel knew no other way to express himself.

Maybe this was the only way he could, giving me pieces of his puzzle bit by bit, hoping that I would be able to fit them all together.

I wished I was up to the task. To make him see how wonderful, extraordinary and intelligent he was. And beautiful, for those who knew where to look, because a soul like his shone only for a few.

‘You know what I say to myself when I feel sad?’ I looked down at my Band-Aids and smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter how much it hurts. You can put a smile on a scar.’

I gently placed my hand on top of his.

Rigel’s hands stopped when he felt my skin on his. Initially, he didn’t seem to understand, but then he started playing again. Together, our fingers lowered, danced over the keys, and as melodies came to life under our united hands, my heart swelled with emotion.

Together, we played. Slow and uncertain. Awkward and slightly faltering. But together.

And then, suddenly, increasingly lively and imperfect notes tumbled over one another. I found myself smiling as my hands clumsily followed his, trying to keep up, our wrists one on top of the other.

Our hands chased each other over the keys, brushing against each other, and I heard my laughter accompanying the notes.

I laughed. My heart laughed, my soul laughed, all of me laughed.

Together, we wiped away the sadness of the music.

We wiped away Margaret.

We wiped away the past.

And maybe, from now on, Rigel wouldn’t think of Her when he played the piano.

But of us.

Our hands united.

Our hearts intertwined.

Our melody, full of clashes, mistakes and imperfections.

But also laughter, wonder and happiness.

He would remember my Band-Aids on his fingers, my weight in his lap and my scent on his skin.

We would defeat her together. Without even speaking.

Music, after all, is harmony born from chaos.

And we were the only song, the most spectacular and secret of all.

Rigel stopped.

He lifted his fingers to my neck and wove them through my hair. Slowly, he tilted my head backwards and looked into my face.

And I looked back at him, my cheeks hot and my eyes shining like laughing half-moons. The smile on my lips glowed with all the warmth exploding in my heart.

His eyes absorbed every detail of my face.

He looked at me as if there was nothing else in the world that was worth looking at that way.

There was a beauty in fragile things that he would never understand.

There was something that made them ephemeral, rare, to be enjoyed only while they lasted.

That was how Nica was.

He would never understand.

He would never understand how something so delicate could crack him, rather than getting cracked herself.

He would never understand how she managed to get inside, even when he was buried deep within himself.

She was beautiful. Her innocent eyes and her rosy cheeks, her sweet smile and that laugh, which simply shattered his soul.

She was smiling at him.

He wondered if there was anything in the world more powerful than Nica smiling at him.

Than Nica in his arms, letting him touch her, blowing away his every thought just by looking in his eyes.

She didn’t cast away his torments. She took them by the hand. Even though they were twisted, extreme and wrong.

Even though they tried to ruin her.

She tamed them with a gentle touch, astounding them every time.

And Rigel knew why, even if he didn’t understand how: even his torments were in love with her.

He wanted her with all his soul, even if that soul was a disaster.

He swallowed, and found himself tightening his grip on her hair. It was stronger than he was, his desire to hold her, to feel her, to fill his hands with her. He had never been tender, the only tenderness he had inside him bore her name.

Nica leant her temple against his arm, more calm and peaceful than he had ever dreamt of seeing her.

She looked him in the face, fearless.

And as that smile brought him to his knees again, Rigel realised that there were no words strong enough to express how he was feeling.

She was the most beautiful thing that he had ever had inside him.

And he just knew that whatever the cost, he would protect her.

At every moment. Every instant. For as long as he could.

Rigel’s mouth closed on mine and a sweet shiver swept through my body. I melted against his warmth as he held me in that embrace, his fingers still entwined in my hair.

My fingers brushed along his clavicle then curled loosely around his neck. I moved my lips against his, responding gently, drawing a sigh from him.

I wanted to tell him that I loved it when he sighed like that, so quietly, almost secretly, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear, not even himself.

He tilted my head further back, bending me to his will, and I let him. I was like putty in his hands.

His breathing was heavy, controlled, and his hands were touching me as if they wanted to probe even my soul, but at the same time were scared to.

I didn’t understand why there was always that trembling in him. Trying to transfer my calmness to him, I stroked his neck gently and sweetly sucked his lip.

He tightened his grip on me. The wet smack of his kiss, his hoarse, hot breath on my swollen mouth, the taste of him stupefied me. His tongue was a blaze of heat.

Rigel wasn’t kissing me. He was slowly devouring me.

And I was letting myself be devoured, because that was all I wanted.

Overcome, I recklessly nibbled his lower lip, and he let out a guttural moan. He grabbed my thigh and I found myself straddling him, his fingers pressing behind my knee and his other hand clenched against my side, urging my hips against his.

I was breathless.

I tried to catch my breath, but his hot, insatiable mouth seized mine, stunning me, bending me, biting me possessively.

I clung to him, trying to follow his rhythm. He pushed me against his crotch with such desire that my breath caught.

My head was spinning, my breathing ragged.

He rubbed me against him and the friction between our bodies was earth-shattering. I felt something close to panic, but hotter, more viscous, more urgent.

I tried to move, but he gripped my hips so fervently it was as if he wanted our bodies to fuse together. Our bodies were burning together, and when he bit me, I couldn’t hold back a moan. I clung to his shoulders and squeezed my knees around him, my thighs trembling against his sides.

Everything narrowed to him.

His hands on my body.

The pressure of his pelvis.

Lips, breaths, tongues, hands…

I couldn’t imagine what would have happened next, had we not been interrupted.

There was a knock at the door and I jumped abruptly.

His mouth moved away from mine. I realised I was short of breath, my cheeks flushed and my hands trembling.

Rigel lowered his face, panting slightly in the hollow of my throat. His hands were still gripping the curve of my hips and his muscles were slightly quivering, as if strained. He had more self-control than I did, more experience. His powerful body shook in a restrained manner, not like mine, which seemed wracked with destabilising sensations.

I couldn’t detach myself from him, but when there was a second knock at the door, I realised I had no choice.

Rigel reluctantly let me go. I got up, my cheeks burning, and with my heart in disarray, ran to the door.

‘Anna!’ I exclaimed, finding her struggling with an enormous bunch of flowers. I took them off her, intoxicated by their fragrance.

I carried them into the kitchen and she placed the shopping bags on the counter, exhausted.

‘It was so busy!’ she burst out. ‘I haven’t had a minute’s peace all day.’

I put the flowers in a vase and admired them. As always, they were wonderful. She noticed me looking and smiled radiantly.

‘You like them?’

‘They’re gorgeous, Anna,’ I said, entranced by their beauty. ‘Who are you sending them to?’

‘Oh, no, Nica. These aren’t for delivery. They’re for you.’ She beamed at me, then announced, ‘Your boyfriend sent them.’