blackheart ➵ m. clifford

➵ twenty one

➵ jett

Excitement.

That was the only word I could use to describe the feeling that was coursing through my veins at this very second. There was manic butterflies slamming into the walls of my stomach and making their way into my lungs and I was so excited to see the exhibition. Countless hours of planning with Gracey and Dr. Vega had finally allowed me to actually go, and as far as Michael was concerned, it was a surprise.

I was getting more and more jittery as I waited for Luke’s car to pull up on the curb, my fingers twisting and my eyes constantly flickering down to my watch. I couldn’t wait to see Michael’s face light up when I was the first person to step over the threshold, and I couldn’t wait to see Michael’s face light up when I told him I loved him like I had the last three days in a row. I couldn’t wait to see Michael’s face.

Michael was the absolute and definite entity of everything I wanted, loved and deserved in a person. Kind-hearted, sweet, but just sexy enough to turn me on, and I loved that about him. The way he smiled was sexy and the way he laughed was even more so. The way his stomach jiggled when he flopped down onto his bed was sexy, and the way his lips moulded to mine was sexier. Michael was sexy in every way that wasn’t even sexual.

I wasn’t even denying it now, I had thought about it. I had thought about his lips and his teeth and his frame hovering over mine and how our legs would tangle together and how my hands would grip his shoulders and how he looked when he was close and I decided that I wanted that. I finally wanted it, and I wanted it with Michael and only Michael.

Sex had been completely taboo in my life, ever since I heard about the birds and the bees and ever since my mother told me that it didn’t matter until I was married. It had been forbidden for me to even think about something as vetoed as sex, but as I was getting older, I wanted to explore. I wanted to explore Michael and I wanted to explore his ticks and his kinks and I wanted him to do the same to me.

I’d never been in love with anybody before, and I’d told Michael that, and he knew that he was special and that I was one hundred percent enamoured by him. I was in love with him and he finally knew and he hadn’t left and I trusted that boy with everything in my life and I always would. Michael was the only thing I wanted.

I wanted his arms around my waist and his lips against my neck and his teeth against my skin and his fingers on my spine and I wanted to completely naked for him. I wanted to be raw and powerful and I wanted him to see me bare. He deserved to see me as I was, without this unfathomable and unobtainably toxic cloud of anxiety that hazed my vision. I was ready for him to see me as I was and as I were and as he wanted me to be. I was his and he was mine and I wanted him to know that every inch of my soul was his and he owned me whether my body was his or not.

And Luke wasn’t coming.

“Of course.” I mumbled to myself as the excuse of Ruby’s asleep and I don’t want to wake her up popped up on the screen of my phone, but I understood.

I understood why Sam spent every waking minute with Sam Two, I understood why Ashton and Gracey were never separated, and I understood why Luke was desperate to keep Ruby as his own. I understood what it felt like to have somebody that was the other part of you, in your life, and to be drowning in your love for them and drowning so fast that they left you completely breathless with every lungful of air they took. You would give up your own breath to see them breathe and I understood.

I’d never been so desperate for another person before; never, not once in my life, not even when my parents left the Earth. I hadn’t been as desperate for them in eight years as I had been for Michael in a day. My body was his kingdom and he ruled it with a throne right in the middle of my chest. He was in the brick of my skin and he was in the tapestries of my brain and he was in the rivers that flowed through my veins. He ruled me.