Page 95 of Ghost Ribbon

Alexei’s hand stayed near my face, his thumb resting lightly against my temple.

“It isn’t dumb.” His voice was very quiet.

“Alexei?” I asked hesitantly. “Are you okay?”

He blinked once.

Then the strange softness in his face smoothed over, replaced by the familiar calm mask I knew better.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Get dressed. I’ll take you home.”

I stared at him for a second, certain I had missed something important.

But I was too tired and too happy and too overwhelmed to chase it.

He slipped beneath my skin

like a poison,

finding every place

I had sworn no one would ever reach.

Now he lives in the spaces

between my heartbeats.

I cannot scrape him away.

I cannot bleed him out.

He is buried too deep.

Chapter 24 - Alexei

It was getting weird. Really fucking weird.

I thought having him would fix it. That once I had Marco, the obsession would ease up. That this hunger would finally settle once I’d taken him completely. That claiming him would shut up the part of me that wouldn’t stop thinking about him.

It hadn’t.

It was worse.

I couldn’t stop wanting him close. Couldn’t stop needing him near me. The hunger had never been just about fucking him. Not really. It was something else. Something I didn’t understand. And now that I’d touched him, held him, watched him fall apart under me… it had only gotten stronger. Darker.

I wanted him.

Constantly.

Not to break him. Not even to touch him, though that remained a persistent and irritating distraction. I just wanted to be in the same space as him. To watch him exist. To see the way his face changed when he was nervous versus when he was genuinely happy. To hear him talk too much when his thoughts ran faster than his mouth could manage. To observe the small, absurd rituals he had. The way he always fixed his ribbon before speaking. The way he pressed his thumb against his wrist when he was anxious. The way his whole expression softened at the sight of strawberries.

These weren’t normal observations.

Normal people didn’t catalogue another person’s habits with the precision I applied to Marco. Normal people didn’t feel physical discomfort at distance from someone. Normal people didn’t find themselves dragging that someone to a beach at sunset simply because the thought of him going home and spending the evening without me was suddenly unbearable.

And yet here we were.

The beach was empty. The water was still, catching the last of the evening light in rippling gold. Marco sat beside me on a blanket I had brought, knees drawn up.