Page 3 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

The moment I lock my gaze to Sully’s concerned gray eyes, I instantly feel more grounded— yet lighter at the same time. He’s wearing a dark-blue suit and a crisp white shirt that has way too many buttons undone to be at all proper.

Roz, casting her gaze around the otherwise empty campus, slows her pace so she falls farther back behind me.

I practically barrel into Sully’s arms. He hugs me to him, too tightly. The marble urn between us is seriously uncomfortable, but I ignore it to tilt my head so I’m pressing my face into his warm neck.

He huffs — likely in response to my frozen nose — but then just tightens his hands around me while shoving his own nose into my windswept hair.

I don’t ask why he’s here, or how he found me. We’ve exchanged a few texts in the last twenty-four hours, but I didn’t mention my plans. And I thought he was headed to Zurich for some yet-to-be-disclosed reason.

Completely irrationally, struggling to not burst into tears all over again, incapable of greeting him properly as I should, I cry out into the warm skin of his neck, “I broke the sealing spell on the lid.”

Sully pulls back just enough to gaze at the marble urn held between us. He swallows harshly. Skin-to-skin, and with only the loosest of reins on my own power, I can feel the underlying simmer of his grief.

I try to pull away, reaching up to straighten my askew sunglasses, but Sully keeps me tucked against his side with one arm curled around me.

He raises his hand. Slowly, as if he thinks I might stop him.

I don’t want to stop him.

I never want to stop him.

He brushes his knuckles across my cheek, leaving a touch of his essence in the wake of his caress. Then he lowers that same hand between us, places those same fingers to the lid of the marble urn, and seals it with another touch of his essence.

“You should be able to open and close it now,” he murmurs quietly. “With just a touch of intent.”

I sniff noisily. Instead of bursting into more tears.

Sully gently tugs the urn out of my hands.

The wind catches in my hair, whirling it around us. But I don’t do anything to try to tame it because I can’t do anything but look at Sully.

Our shared grief weaves between us, tightening everywhere we still touch. As if it’s tying us together rather than tearing us apart.

I let Sully take the urn.

I let him slip around behind me, unzip my backpack, and place the urn within it.

His touch is gentle, skin warm as he runs his fingers down my arm to take my hand, tugging me toward a perpendicular path that leads to the nearest building.

I should be asking questions … or at least talking … but I just curl my fingers around Sully’s, watching him instead of noting where he’s leading me. Watching him instead of letting the grief have me, own me.

Sully opens a side door of whatever building we’re closest to with another press of his essence. Then we’re stepping into the warmth within. The lights are on, but the wide halls are empty.

“We need a moment,” Sully murmurs politely to Roz behind us. But my guard is already settling back against the wall next to the exterior door and pulling out her phone in anticipation of just that.

A few more steps down the hall and Sully leads me into a bathroom.

Its placement and set up — three sinks across from three stalls, and half-height tiled walls all in shades of cream and chrome — instantly orient me to the fact that we’re in the humanities building.

I took the bulk of my literature and language classes here, from my teens into my early twenties.

Sully seals the door behind us with a flicker of his power.

I still don’t speak. I don’t question him.

It feels as if we’re wrapped in a protective bubble, and I don’t want that quiet, that understanding between us, to be confused with conversation. Don’t want it broken.

Sully tugs off my backpack, setting it on the counter. He’s not smiling or smirking as usual, but he’s not … sad. His essence is vibrant, filtering through to me with every brush of his fingers.

A brush across my shoulders as he sweeps my hair back. A brush up the back of my neck as I lean against the counter, letting my head fall back to gaze up at him.

“Sunglasses,” I say, making it a request even though I’m really just acknowledging where this is going between us. Where I want it to go. My voice is husky with restrained grief.

Still cradling the back of my head, Sully reaches up and removes my sunglasses. I blink against the brightness of the bathroom, feeling oddly exposed for a moment.

That feeling fades almost instantly, withering under the brush of Sully’s gaze across my face. His gray eyes gaze steadily into my own. His grief still simmers just under his skin, along with a weary acceptance. But …

He looks at me as if I’m precious to him.

Salvatore, my Sully, always looks at me that way.

And not only when he’s smiling and playful.

Even when the world frustrates him, or when he needs help with some class or understanding a confusing interaction.

I’ve seen him in pain — both emotional and physical.

I’ve seen him on and off meds that made him manic or depressed, before I — we — convinced him that he should be the one deciding how he wanted to live, rather than any medication making that decision for him.

That we would happily navigate the world with him, as he wanted, as he saw it.

I’ve seen him angry. I’ve hauled him away from beating the shit out of multiple people. Including Bolan once. Even through being berated as I washed the blood off his knuckles, he looked at me as if I was … precious.

And I had simply accepted his friendship. Accepted that look as the love between friends. Because he was also Armin’s. He was Armin’s more than he was mine.

But … Armin is dead.

“He left both of us,” I whisper.

“Yes.” Sully sighs.

Holding his gray-eyed gaze, I deliberately arch into him, brushing my chest up against his taut body. Then I tease my lips against his in invitation, in welcome, in reverence.

He shudders, likely in response to the touch of my essence.

He groans into my mouth when I lick playfully at his bottom lip.

Desire crashes through me abruptly, painfully.

I’m suddenly not grieving or playful or poised at all.

I simply need.

Energy tangles between us. There has always been friendship and laughter and shared experiences between us, but it’s all tighter now … woven together by our shared grief.

And I need.

“Sully …” I cry, aware that I’m not remotely articulating myself as I fist my hands almost helplessly in his shirt.

But Sully understands me. He’s always understood me.

His mouth crashes over mine.

Maybe he’s always wanted this between us, and I’ve been the fool who didn’t understand. Or maybe losing Armin has fundamentally shifted something in who we are.

I’m suddenly, almost viciously alive in his arms. Not able to touch enough of him at once, wanting more even as he gives all of it to me. Our tongues dance. Our energy, our essence, entwines. Desire pulses between my legs. I’m warm and wet.

I can’t reach enough of Sully’s skin. The buttons fly off his shirt, one actually hitting me just below my right eye.

Yanked out of the moment by that pinpoint of pain, I hesitate for a breath, worried I’ve lost too much of myself, unleashed too much.

But Sully doesn’t pause. He palms my ass, bending his knees to press his hard cock right between my legs before lifting me up on the counter. Kissing me fiercely as he works his hands up under my thin sweater, not bothering to remove my duster.

I allow myself to relax into the energy weaving around us, shoving his jacket and ruined shirt off his shoulders so I can reach more of his skin.

He groans as I tweak his nipples. Then he’s arching over me, kissing down my neck with a hand holding me steady on my lower back.

He gives up trying to get my sweater up and simply nips at my breast and nipple through all the fabric between us.

Another fierce wave of desire and need shoots through me, then I’m pushing him back from the counter and scrambling to get his belt undone. He’s panting, alternating kissing me, tangling my tongue in his, with sucking lightly on my neck. While massaging my ass hard enough to bruise me.

Utterly irrationally, I want those marks on me. I want to claim Sully, make him mine even if he isn’t actually mine. Even if he was supposed to belong to Armin. We’re both untethered. And though Armin wasn’t my soul bonded, I know he was Sully’s.

So … why can’t we try to claim each other now?

I get Sully’s pants undone, reaching in to palm his cock through his blue silk boxers. He bucks his hips, muting his shout against my neck.

“Is this okay?” I ask. I remember to ask. Consent goes both ways.

Sully cups my face, taking a moment and a shaky breath to simply gaze down at me. “I want you. I always have, and … I … I didn’t want to lose you if you didn’t want me back.”

“I … we can still be friends even if we fuck, yes?” I’m feeling undone, exposed, even as I’m cradled within the weave of essence around us.

So I understand his caution. “I can’t lose you, Salvatore.

I’ve … I know it’s my fault, but I’ve been so lost …

” My voice cracks as grief and a whole lot of self-recrimination threatens to break into our perfect, thoughtless bubble.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sully says.

I pull his head down so that I’m kissing him instead of trying to formulate more thoughts, pile on more concerns. He presses against me just as eagerly.

I free him from his boxers. He’s warm and thick in my hand. And …

“Um, is that a piercing?” I pull slightly away to try to get a look at what I’m feeling.