Page 34 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

How could I? Looking at him, feeling his soft skin against my face and the steady, reassuring beat of his heart as his chest rises and falls under my arm.

Observing the natural sulk of his rosy lips and how his dark lashes fan his cheeks, strands of hair tangled with his earrings (which I gently and patiently detangle—I don’t want him to get hurt).

He is perfect. Beyond perfect. In the moment I feel as if I can do this forever, kiss him and hold him close. I want to stave off dawn indefinitely so it never has to end.

And now I’m chastising myself for feeling this way.

For letting myself feel this way because I’m not supposed to.

It wasn’t in the plan. I told him I didn’t want anything serious from the jump and he agreed to that.

But the way we’ve been carrying on...

and maybe that’s my fault, because I don’t know how to do anything halfway.

I knew it would be an adjustment to have a casual relationship, no strings attached or whatever, but I didn’t expect this .

For him to work his way into my heart and curl up, making a home there.

To be so completely and utterly entranced by every single facet of his.

His creativity, his drive, his wit, his moodiness, his beauty.

And I didn’t expect that what we had would make me feel so free.

Because it has. This is the one place I don’t have to hide at all.

I can finally shed that veneer of my old self, that facade of a person who was play-acting for the benefit of everyone around him, and just be unapologetically me.

And Noel likes the unapologetic me. He doesn’t want me to pretend I’m someone else, he wants me to be more me.

He’s the whole reason I even booked this trip.

So I could find my way back to the person I was and wanted to be.

The wisdom of a twenty-three-year-old put things into perspective more than anything else I’ve heard in three decades of being alive .

That’s not giving him any of the credit he deserves, though.

He’s not just some twenty-three-year-old.

He might be one of the cleverest people I’ve ever met, mercurial moods and all.

He’s complex as hell and I know I’ve only scratched the surface, and I still want more.

I want to know everything about him, want to know what’s going on under the hood.

Why he is the way he is, who made him that way.

Where those “souvenirs” came from, exactly. All of it. And?—

Oh.

Have I actually caught feelings for him?

I sit with that for a moment. The idea that I have fallen in love with this boy almost two months after my marriage has ended.

Basically the first guy to walk into my life and give me more than a cursory glance and stir my yearning after a decade of suppressing it.

Is that even possible? Is it rational? Is it even real?

Not infatuation or limerence, but those first tender and emerging shoots of love.

I rub my cheek against the back of his shoulder.

I have been infatuated plenty of times before, and it’s a feeling that has subsided with time.

The high disappears as quickly as it comes, especially when the chase ends.

But I’ve had Noel since practically the day I met him, and any novelty should’ve worn off by now, especially on our second month in.

That electric chemistry hasn’t fizzled out—it’s only gotten stronger.

“I think I really like you, stunt girl,” I whisper into his skin. “I think I like you a lot.”

He still doesn’t stir, but that’s okay.

I take a quick shower before I dress in all the new ski clothes I’ve bought myself.

Another expensive treat, but my old ones were donated to Goodwill a long time ago.

I’m not sure they’d fit, anyway, even if I had them.

I’ve put on some muscle since then, since the gym has been a long-standing substitute for all the things I used to love.

I pick up my board and things, then pause.

Noel is still fast asleep. He looks even younger like this, his face smooth and unburdened by any of the things that weigh on him in his waking.

He is so damn beautiful it makes my throat constrict and my heart ache.

I almost, almost want to leave without saying goodbye, just so I don’t have to disturb him, but I can’t. I want to hear his voice before I go.

I approach slowly, prolonging the moment where I have to wake him up, taking in the sight of him for a good minute before I lean down. I touch his face, gently and carefully, and his unblemished cheek is almost silken beneath my fingers. “Hey,” I say softly.

He stirs, mumbling into the pillow and blinks open his big brown eyes. It takes a few seconds before they focus on me, and a sleepy smile spreads across his face. “Hey,” he echoes faintly. “Hey, you.”

I can’t help but give him a soft smile in return, because the minute I’m with him the rest just falls away. This is how I want to feel, all the time. Like I’m alright being me, like it’s enough.

“I’m heading off,” I say to him, tucking his hair behind one ear. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

He raises his head. “What time is it?”

“Way too early. You can sleep in some more. There’s a cafe here you can grab breakfast at. ”

“Alright.” He smothers a yawn. “I’ll miss you.”

And that’s a first, reciprocating the I miss you at last. It’s like a step under I love you. Isn’t it? Excitement uncoils in my belly and flutters like ribbons in a breeze. “Will you?” I cajole him playfully. “You’ll be asleep.”

“And you won’t be here with me.” He lays his cheek along his arm, gazing up at me with what can only be described as adoration. “I don’t sleep the same without you.”

My heart compresses.

I close the remaining distance between us and kiss him because I don’t know what else to do or say.

I just kiss him because that’s what feels good and right and all the words I want to say might be too much right now.

More than he’s ready for. And my tongue must slip past his lips and be occupied with his, lest I’m tempted to speak.

My fingers must knot in his silky hair and keep him close, make this last as long as I can as he submits to me, opening like a gorgeous flower that only wants to give and give and give.

And I just want to take.

I hold these thoughts close to me, of Noel and this tenderness I’m feeling, as I take the gondola up to Skye Peak.

I could’ve started off easy by Ramshead but I’d rather just jump into the deep end and hit some of my old favorite blues right off, because fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?

Break a wrist, dent my skull, snap my neck and die.

Very real possibilities, I reflect, adjusting the strap of my helmet beneath my chin, but I’m either feeling invincible or a brand of recklessness so close it might as well be invincibility.

But that’s not quite right either, not really. I don’t know what the fuck it is that I’m feeling. Crazed with something half-realized, some desperate need to rip open this dusty box of things I’ve put away, this buried, lost self of mine.

Or maybe love does give you wings because I feel weightless, buoyant. I feel so impossibly full.

On the board my muscle memory kicks in quick and sees me right through, like it’s been lying dormant and just waiting around for the moment it would be let back out again.

Toe edge, heel edge, stance-dancing between both with knees bent and back straight.

My body aches, it’s been so long since it’s been used in this particular way, but it’s a good ache, the kind I can settle into—and I do.

Pain is sort of meditative in that way. Like sitting hours for a big tattoo, like being hit long enough in one place until you sort of transcend it.

It hones the focus to a razor’s edge, or maybe a bleeding one.

No other words more appropriate for it than in the zone.

I guess Noel might be onto something there. Subspace can’t be that different.

I carve my way down from Blue Heaven to Pipe Dream and the powder is perfect, spraying out behind me as the wind bites my face and knots my hair beneath the helmet.

The trail opens up before me and the trees become dark blurs as they race by.

I can feel my lips pulled back from my teeth in a wide, fierce grin, joy and adrenaline both, and I couldn’t stop myself if I tried.

And it’s not easy but it is easy at the same time, effortless even as my thighs and calves burn and the limits of my equilibrium are tested around every curve, but I don’t fall. Not once.

None of it ever left me.

Maybe the rest of me never left, either. Maybe all of it is just waiting to be found or woken up again.

It’s noon by the time I stumble back to the base area on gelatinous legs, and I want nothing more than to stuff my face and sleep for a few hours.

I haven’t known an exhaustion or hunger this intense since maybe ever.

Now that the adrenaline’s worn off it’s only left a shaky old me in its wake.

I might’ve overdone it with the blacks at the end, fairly easy runs—Highline off of Snowdon—but it was kind of a lot after not doing this in forever.

The joy hasn’t left me, though. My lips are chapped and my face is windburned but I am, for the first time in forever, happy.

I find Noel sitting outside at the hotel’s fire pit with his tablet. He gives me a broad smile and hands me his coffee, which I appreciatively chug. “You look like you had the time of your life,” he informs me. “How was it?”

I lean down and wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Come nap with me, sweet boy,” I say. “I’m wiped.”