Pretty Girl

Chapter 20

Here is the next chapter, as promised!! I hope you guys enjoy! This is when it juuuuust starts to get into the climax of the book and I am so excited for the twists that are coming!!! I hope you enjoy! I love you all!! xoxox -Hannah

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CHAPTER 20: They were both turned on their side to face each other, Marcello traced the dip of her ribcage where it met with her waist and down to her hip bones while Sydney traced his face with her soft fingers. 

"You're beautiful," she whispered softly and then blushed, making him laugh. 

"No, YOU are beautiful." He said with a smile and Sydney's heart melted once again, something she found Marcello was quite astute at. 

She bit her lip then and Marcello brought his thumb up to soothe the furrow between her brows. 

"What's going on in that head of yours, Pretty Girl?" He asked. 

She shook her head and chuckled softly. "I...I dont know...So much. My brain feels numb but also is spitting out all these thoughts, too. I guess orgasms will do that, huh?" She said, making him laugh again.

 Sydney sobered. "How do you think we ended up here? Did you ever expect it?" she asked. 

Marcello stared at her for a long moment. "I think we ended up here because we were meant to...I didn't believe in a lot of things until I started falling for you and then when I did...it was like this whole new world opened up to me and I saw things, felt things, that I had never known were there before. So I certainly didn't expect anything like this because things like this..." he laid his hand above her breast over her heart where he felt it speed up under his palm. "Things like this that are so special...so rare...so beautiful...they are never expected. What I do know, is that somewhere in the timeline of things, you ripped my heart out of my chest and you kept it...and its still there, right there in the pretty little palm of your hand because Syd, I am yours...completely. I want all the things I never knew I wanted with you." 

A tear trickled down Sydney's temple and he kissed it. "My pretty girl...what's wrong?" He asked. 

She smiled shakily up at him. "It's scary loving someone...giving yourself over to them...giving your heart over to them. There are...things about me...things that have happened to me a long time ago that I haven't ever told anyone-" 

Marcello instantly was about to burst in and ask what happened when she shook her head and held her hand over his mouth, silencing him. 

"I...I am not ready to talk about it or tell you. I dont want to taint this moment with anything from my past, but what I will say is even scarier? You say that I took your heart out of your chest and kept it. For me, I've had it with me but its always been yours. For a long time, it was just shattered pieces discarded in my chest...making it hurt to feel anything and then when I am with you...it was like when I wasn't looking...you were there taking those shattered pieces and putting them back together one by one by one...and then, I started to heal without cracks of where the impact of where I shattered was. My heart was just becoming whole again...all the while, being yours. Its scary to have someone hold your heart in their hands...because one small move, one bad move...will crush it beyond repair. I don't know if mine can take another one like that." She whispered, tears streaming freely down her face. 

Marcello instantly pulled her into his embrace, smoothing her hair away from her face as he pressed kiss after kiss to the top of her head while running soothing fingers up and down her back. 

"Well guess what?" He said, his own voice shaky with held back tears. "You don't have to worry because I will never hurt your heart." 

Sydney looked up at him. "Promise?" She asked and he stared into her eyes, falling into them just as he had a million times before.