Page 21 of Promise Yule Be Mine (Christmas Falls: Season 2)

21

KODY

T he next hour was torture. I couldn’t stop going through every nightmare scenario in my head and imagining the worst of outcomes.

What if Nova didn’t believe Jenna? What if he didn’t care? What if this whole situation gave him the ick?

The sliver of hope I’d felt after talking to Jenna was diminishing a little bit more with each passing second until there was none left and any possible happiness I’d manage to picture faded away like burned film in a projector.

And the worst part, I already felt like I couldn’t lose him. It didn’t matter that until a moment ago I couldn’t imagine backing down from the promise I’d made to Jenna, those moments since that I’d thought a life with Kody was possible had built a nest around my heart that would haunt me forever.

It was scary how much I needed him. How much I cared about him. How much I missed him already and I’d barely spent any time with him.

What if he didn’t feel the same? What if he was scared of how fast I’d fallen for him? What if, despite everything, he still didn’t want to give me a chance.

By the time I heard the key in the lock I’d given up. I couldn’t imagine any positive outcome. I was already nursing a broken heart.

But then Jenna opened the door and Nova walked in, and that sliver of hope I thought had died out was reborn like a phoenix rising from its ashes.

“Hey,” he said.

“H-hi,” I said.

“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Jenna smiled and started closing the door when Nova stopped her.

“This is your home. Where are you going to go?”

She patted Nova’s shoulder and kissed his cheek.

“I’m going to Mom’s. Take all the time you need.”

And with that she was gone, leaving Nova and me behind. It might not have been the first time we’d been alone in the same room together, but it felt as if it was. The air was palpable. Words lingered unsaid between us like dust bunnies. Admiration and adoration growing to an almost excruciating level inside of me.

I had to keep filling my lungs in order to breathe properly.

“I’m sorry about—” I started when I felt like I could speak again.

“I’m sorry I ran,” he said at the same time.

“You…you don’t have to apologize about that. You must have thought I was a sleazeball?—”

“I don’t think you’re a sleazeball. I was just…scared. And frustrated with you. With myself for kissing you back. With life for bringing you into my life when I couldn’t have you,” he said.

I couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. How true they rang for me too. How similar to everything I’d been thinking of since I met him. Only it must have been worse for him because he didn’t even know the truth about Jenna and me.

“Jenna is just a friend. We don’t—” I started.

“It’s okay.” He shook his head and took a step closer to me. “Jenna explained already. I know.”

“Oh. She did. That’s right.” I put my hands together because I didn’t know what to do with them and to stop the shaking that threatened to knock me off balance with its growing intensity.

Nova took another step.

“She also said…you’re in love with me.”

“She-she did?” I stuttered.

“Is it…not true?” He stepped closer and closer with each sentence, each word until we were so close I could breathe him in with very little effort. And once I started, I didn’t want to stop.

“I…it…Nova…” I leaned into him, almost closing any gap between us but not quite enough.

“Uh huh?” His gaze moved from my eyes to my lips and he swept his tongue over them.

“I…I can’t stop thinking about you,” I said, and when I connected with him it was with the side of his face, his cheek.

“Oh-kay,” he mumbled, rubbing against me, his eyes blinking slowly.

“I can’t deny myself around you.”

“Yeah?” he said, taking a deep breath that threatened to undo me. To scar me for life. And I wouldn’t even complain.

“I can’t stop wanting you more and more each day.”

Nova stopped and pulled back, staring right at me with big, needy eyes.

“I want you Nova. I want you with all my might,” I told him to drive the point home.

“God.” He smiled. “And I thought it was all in my head.”

I shook my head.

“I want you too, Kody. I…I’ve been falling in love with you since the first time I laid eyes on you. I can’t get you out of mind. Out of my heart. I’ve never met a man like you.”

I brought my hand up to cup his cheek. The sparks on contact electrified my entire body, made my hairs stand on end. Made me instantly breathless.

“I’ve never met anyone…who made me feel like you do,” I told him, and as if in sync we crashed our lips together.

He still tasted sweet from the cocoa we’d had earlier, but he was also warm, and rushed, and slow.

It was impossible to pull away from him once I was kissing him, not that I would’ve wanted to. I never wanted to stop kissing him. I didn’t care about food or drink—he was my sustenance. The only one I needed. The only one I’d been denied all my life.

He leaned into me just as I leaned to him, bringing his hands to my head and combing his fingers through my hair, an act that gave me goosebumps. We rocked back and forth, deepening our kiss until there was no more depth to explore and our lips were rough and raw.

Despite kissing for what felt like forever, when we pulled apart it still didn’t feel like I’d had enough of him. He was an addiction and I was hooked. I’d been hooked since day one.

“I can’t believe this…this is real,” he whispered.

I smiled at him. Had I really been that lucky to meet the one perfect guy for me that felt just as strongly about me as I did for him?

“Me neither. Me neither, Nova. I gave up on love a long time ago. But you? You’re the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

I didn’t manage to utter another word because he peppered kisses on me, on my mouth, my cheeks, my chin.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find someone like you,” he said.

We kissed again. And again and again. Until we’d found ourselves sitting next to each other on the couch and gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Why,” he said, “did you guys decide to do that? I mean, I know Jenna said you were fed up with having your hearts broken, but…what drives someone to agree to a loveless marriage?”

I pursed my lips and stroked his cheekbone.

“I love Jenna. Very much.”

“You know what I mean. It’s not the same.”

“I don’t know. I thought…I thought it made sense at the time. I didn’t feel like I could ever find anyone who would love me for me and Jenna wanted to have a family, like me.”

He frowned.

“Why did you think you wouldn’t find anyone to love you?”

The conversation was going to bring us to this subject eventually. I expected it. And even though I'd never really discussed this with any of my exes, I knew if I was to have any chance of making it work with Nova it would only be if he knew and accepted the truth about me.

“Well, you…you need to know something about me. Before this goes any further.”

Nova sat up and held my hand.

“What is it?”

I took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes.

“I’m not like…like other people. It’s why my relationships always broke down faster than usual. It’s why I wrote off love and why I agreed to do this with Jenna. I’m asexual, Nova. I don’t like sex. I don’t need it. That’s not to say I don’t ever want to have it, but I feel like I need a level of intimacy and familiarity with someone to want to do it and even then it’s not something I need regularly. It means I can’t give myself to you physically like you might want me to and I wouldn’t want you or anyone who is with me to go without something that’s so crucial for them, so if that’s a dealbreaker, and I mean why wouldn’t it be, it has been for all the people I’ve met, then I’ll understand.”

“You’re kidding,” Nova said, eyes wide open, jaw on the verge of hitting the floor.

My stomach sank and I already felt the pang, the emptiness in my chest of the imminent heartbreak.

“I’m ace, too, Kody.”

I blinked.

Surely I hadn’t heard right.

“Huh?”

“I’m ace too. More like demi but I really don’t like labeling myself to the nth degree. I prefer a good cuddle to a blowjob and I don’t need sex to love and be with someone.”

Was it possible…could it be that Nova wasn’t just the perfect human specimen but that he was also the perfect person for me?

“So…you don’t think I’m broken?” I asked. I just needed to make sure.

He cooed.

“Not unless I’m broken too.”

“Oh,” I said and, slowly, my lips curved up into a smile. A smile I couldn’t erase for the rest of the night. Not that I would want to anyway.

We kissed again. We hugged. We lay down next to each other holding hands, rubbing our legs together to keep warm, we gazed into each other’s eyes. We did it all except for the one thing that wasn’t important to us.

“Are you sure it’s not a deal-breaker? You think we can make it work without…sex?”

I couldn’t stop asking these questions. I couldn’t hold back because I was still in utter disbelief.

“Of course we can. Why couldn’t we?”

“What…what makes this different than just being friends?”

“Because,” he said and cupped my cheek. “I don’t share my fears and dreams with everyone. And most importantly, I don’t do this with friends.”

He smiled and closed the distance between our mouths, kissing me.

And we kissed and cuddled all the way into the morning.