Micha


After the plane lands and we check into the absurdly fancy hotel my father booked, we decide to go sightseeing. The sidewalks are packed and the traffic is practically at a standstill. It’s midafternoon, but chilly and the buildings are so tall, hardly any sunlight hits their lower sections or the sidewalks.


Ella has on a hooded jacket and fingerless gloves, but she shivers from the cold as she sips on her coffee.


“Are you cold, baby?” I ask, pulling my hood over my head.


She nods with the coffee close to her lips. “I think I might have gotten a little too used to the Vegas weather.”


I step up behind her and rub my hands up and down her arms a few times, building warmth from the friction. “Imagine how bad it’s going to be when we go back home for Christmas. Star Grove is like twice as cold as here.”


She drinks her coffee as I encircle my arms around her, maneuvering us through the crowd. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere for Christmas.”


I return to her side and capture her gaze. “What do you mean you aren’t going? You can’t stay at the campus by yourself for three weeks.”


“I don’t want to go back to an empty house, Micha,” she says. “And I won’t be by myself. Lila’s not going home either.”


We stop at the crosswalk and wait with the crowd for the light to change as traffic zooms by.


“You can stay with me,” I offer. “I would even give you my bed.”


She looks at me crossly. “Just like how you got us two beds in the hotel room?”


“Hey, my dad booked that room,” I say as she picks some pieces of her hair out of her mouth. “It’s not my fault.”


“Yeah right?” She rolls her eyes. “How convenient for you.”


“It’ll be very convenient for me.” I am treading on thin ice. “That way if I’m feeling really hot and bothered I can just get you to put your leg over me and you’ll let me feel you again. You know, you’re kind of naughty when you’re in a dark room.”


She glances at an older guy with thin hair and glasses who is listening to our conversation with a big grin on his face. “That’s not what happened,” she says.


I target an intimidating gaze at the pervert and he quickly turns around. “That’s exactly what happened, pretty girl, and you know it.”


She gulps her coffee to obscure her mortified expression. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”


Threading my fingers through hers, we walk across the street with the mob of people and stop on the other side to take a look around.


“Did you want to go anywhere special while we’re here?” I ask. “Central Park? We could go ice skating?”


Her head tips back as she shields her eyes and stares up at the Empire State Building stretching toward the sky. “I want to go up there.”


My chest constricts as the memories of her on the bridge rush through me: her standing on the beam over the water, ready to throw away her precious life.


“Are you sure?” I check, releasing a slow breath. “Because there’s a ton of stuff we could do.”


Smiling, she yanks on my arm. “Yes, now come on.”


I shove the memory out of my head the best I can and reluctantly allow her to lead me across the street, because I’d go anywhere with her, even if I don’t want to.


Ella


We have to wait in line to get on the elevators, but it takes us up to the top fast and gives me a little bit of a head rush. When the doors open, we step out and my stomach rolls with my nerves. Tossing my empty coffee cup into the trashcan, I head for the lookout area, which is blocked off by bars.


Micha tags along with me, even though he doesn’t want to be up here. It makes him edgy, so I entwine my fingers with his as I peer through the bars and down at the lively city below. It’s getting dark and colorful lights sparkle for miles. That’s when it crashes into me, like the wind has been knocked out of me, the same helplessness I felt on the plane.


Micha senses my uneasiness and his arms enclose around my waist. “Take a slow breath and just relax and enjoy the scenery.” He smothers my neck with kisses until I settle back down.


“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. “Like really amazing.”


He sucks on the sensitive spot below my ear, before moving his mouth away. “It is, isn’t it.”


Shivering from the cold and his touch, I lean back against him and he rests his chin on top of my head. “And it’s real.”


Not many people would get what I mean, but he does and his arms constrict around me. People wander around us, but I remain still, discovering what it feels like to have a peaceful moment where my thoughts aren’t bunched up in my head.


Somewhere along the line, I begin to cry, but do it noiselessly, hoping he won’t notice.


His fingers seek my cheeks and wipe away the tears. “Why are you crying, pretty girl?”


“It’s nothing… It’s just that this is so normal,” I admit, dabbing the tears with my fingertips. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m being such a baby.”


He kisses my head and guides me closer. “You’re not being a baby. You’re being real.”


Feeling some of the burden fall off my chest, I pull his arms around me even more, never wanting him to let me go.


He gives me a piggyback ride back to the hotel because my feet hurt from all the walking we did. I can’t stop laughing the entire time, because people keep looking at us strangely, although some are envious.


When we enter the lobby of the hotel, the bellman, who is wearing a funny hat and a buttoned uniform, approaches us with a stern look on his narrow face. “No roughhousing in the lobby.”


Micha’s boots scuff against the white marble flooring. “Absolutely. We’ll save that for the bedroom,” he replies as he backs into the elevator with me on his back.


The bellman scowls as the doors glide shut with Micha giving him a little wave. I move to climb off his back, but he links his arms underneath my legs as he punches in the button to our floor and the elevator jerks upward.


When it reaches our floor, he holds me in place as he walks through the doors and down the long hallway to our room.
A middle-age couple walks by and the woman presses her hand to her heart. “Oh look, Harold, newlyweds.”


It kills my mood, but Micha laughs as he slides the keycard into the slot and opens the door. He gently sets me down, but scoops me right back up into his arms. “Gotta carry her over the threshold, right?” He winks at the woman and she smiles, smitten.


He carries me into the room and kicks the door close. “Welcome to the honeymoon suite, where only dirty things are allowed to happen.”


I swat his arm as he heads toward the bed. “We are not newlyweds, so stop pretending.”


His eyes glint wickedly and then he tosses me onto the massive bed decorated with white comforter and mints on the pillows. My body bounces when I hit the mattress and I flip onto my stomach, narrowing my eyes at him as he laughs hysterically.


“I’m going to make you pay for that,” I warn with a dark look. “Really, really bad.”


He backs toward his bag that’s on the sofa. “I’m looking forward to that.”


I roll onto my back and drape my arm over my forehead as I stare up at the ceiling, feeling happy, and I desperately want to hold onto it. “I bet you are.”


Seconds later, he bounds on top of me, bracing himself with his hands just in time so he doesn’t quite smash my body. “I know what we should do.”


“No way. Whatever’s about to come out of your mouth, I don’t want to hear it,” I say and he traps my arms above my head. “You’re in one of your moods.”


“What mood?”


“Where everything you say is going to include being naughty. You know, I’ve often wondered if you just saved it for me, or if you did this kind of stuff with the girls you hooked up with.”


His jaw tenses and he slants away from me, still gripping my wrists. “You know I was never with anyone long enough to do anything with them really.”


Our happy mood is dying because of me and I don’t want it to end. “Tell me what you wanted to do and don’t hold back.”


His aqua eyes sparkle like the ocean in the sunlight. “We should wrestle.”


I shake my head from side to side. “No way. The last time I wrestled you you sat on me for, like, ten minutes, laughing your ass off because I couldn’t get up.”


“First off, get your story straight. I was straddling you, not sitting on you,” he says. “And second off, I only stayed on you for that long because every time you tried to get away your body would rub against me and I was getting turned on.”


“We were, like, fifteen,” I contend. “You didn’t see me like that yet.”


“I was fifteen,” he retorts. “And you were a girl.”


I giggle at his goofy smile. “Alright, let’s wrestle, but I’m not holding back.”


Sucking on his lip ring, he backs off the bed, slips off his shirt, and tosses it onto the floor. “Neither am I.”


I drop my face into my hands, shaking my head, aware I’m about to walk into a mess, but Anna told me to be my own judge of situations. Right now, I’m having fun and don’t want it to end, so I get to my feet and stand up on the mattress.


“Just don’t break anything,” I warn, pointing at the glass lamps all around the room and the portraits on the wall. “And don’t break me.”


He smiles darkly. “Oh trust me, I’ve got big plans for you when I win.”


I start to head for the side of the bed, but he matches my move and blocks my path with his arms out to my side.


To throw him off, I skitter to the other side but then whirl and backtrack, shooting for the open gap as I leap onto the floor and hurry toward the sofa.


“This isn’t supposed to be a game of tag.” He winds around the couch toward me and I dash to the other side. “You have to at least try to pin me to the ground.”


I back toward the bathroom, debating whether or not to lock myself in there. “As soon as I’m within arm’s reach, I know I’ve lost.”


He stalks toward me, his lean arms flexing as he pops his knuckles. “Come on, challenge me. You know you want to. That is unless you’re too scared.”


He’s intentionally trying to get under my skin and it’s working. I search for a solution and smile when I find one. With trembling fingers, I grab the bottom of my shirt, raise it over my head, and shake my hair out.


He leisurely takes in my bare skin and black bra. “Nice move.”


I inch toward him and he matches my steps so we meet in the center of the room. I extend my hand for him, with no other plan than to graze my fingers along his stomach muscles, but he seizes my wrist and crashes our bodies together.


He lifts me up and my legs secure around his hips as his long legs stride toward the bed.


“This isn’t wrestling,” I say, throwing my head back, laughing.


His lips upturn to a conspiratorial grin as he brushes my hair out of my eyes. “I’m not going to throw you down on the floor to do this.”


“Do what?” I ask as he falls down on the bed, landing on top of me.


“This.” With a sinister look in his eyes, he gathers my wrists in one hand, rendering me captive, while putting a leg on either side of me.


My body writhes. “How do I tap out?”


He leans in closely and strands of his blond hair tickle my cheeks. “You don’t.” He grazes his finger along my rib cage and I jerk upward.


“Don’t you dare,” I advise, squirming to get away “I mean it. It’s not funny and this time I’ll get you back.”


His fingers move along my stomach, dithering, before he squeezes my side. My muscles tense as I squeal. “Micha, please don’t,” I beg, forcing back the laughter. “I’ll do anything you want, just don’t tickle me.”


He moves his hand away, looking pleased. “And that’s how you win wrestling.”


I stare up at him with anger in my eyes, but my body is ecstatic with being concealed beneath his. “That was a dirty move.”


“What can I say, I like to play dirty.” He pauses, with his eyes piercing into mine as his breathing speeds up. “Ella… I’m not sure how far to push you. I know you said you needed time to get better, but you’re lying under me and it feels so fucking good—all I want to do is touch you right now.”


My chest heaves as I imagine his hands all over me and my therapist’s words echo in my head: baby steps. “You can touch me if you want… But just take it slow.”


He waits for me to retract my statement, but I clench my lips shut with nervousness and anticipation. Purposely, his hand tracks up my side and toward my breast as he gazes into my eyes. When his hand arrives at the bottom of my bra, he stops to test my reaction. I lay motionless, craving for him to go further, and bow into him.


His aqua eyes blaze as his fingers slide underneath my bra while his mouth dips toward my neck. Sucking on my skin just below my ear, his hand massages my breast and his thumb brushes across my nipple. He doesn’t try to take my bra off and instead of his hand going into my pants, he keeps it on the outside as he rubs me between my legs.


He’s keeping a boundary, so he won’t take it too far. I love him so much there are no words to describe it. I’m extremely lucky to have him. I make a promise to myself that I will work on giving him what he wants and try to make him happy.


Seconds later, a blissful moan escapes my lips as he momentarily takes my anxiety away.