Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)

by Tahereh Mafi

“I love it when you say my name,” he says. “I don’t even know why.”

“Warner isn’t your name,” I point out. “Your name is Aaron.” His smile is wide, so wide. “God, I love that.” “Your name?” “Only when you say it.” “Aaron? Or Warner?” His eyes close. He tilts his head back against the wall. Dimples.

“You’re going to go on to do incredible things,” he says. “I’ve always known that. I think I just wanted to be a part of it.”

I will always want you on my side.

I’d never really seen just how much he means to the people in this room. How much they love him.

aka ME!! ME I LOVE HIM!!!!

He traces the shape of my mouth, the curves the seam the dip and my lips part even though I asked them not to and he steps closer. I feel him so much closer, filling the air around me until there’s nothing but him and his body heat, the smell of fresh soap and something unidentifiable, something sweet but not, something real and hot, something that smells like him, like it belongs to him, like he was poured into the bottle I’m drowning in and I don’t even realize I’m leaning into him, inhaling the scent of his neck until I find his fingers are no longer on my lips because his hands are around my waist and he says “You,” and he whispers it, letter by letter he presses the word into my skin before he hesitates.

“I want you,” he says. He says “I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you.”

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,” he says. “The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette—”

“I want so many things,” he whispers. “I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time.” His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says “I want this up.” He tugs on the waist of my pants and says “I want these down.” He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, “I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it’s racing because of me, because you want me. Because you never,” he says, he breathes, “never want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it.”

He swallows, hard, his chest heaving, his words a breathless, shaky whisper when he says “I’m so—I’m so desperately in love with you—”

He’s holding me like I’m made of feathers.

aww

I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.

I want him to kiss me until I collapse in his arms, until I’ve left my bones behind and floated up into a new space that is entirely our own.

He has a hundred thousand million kisses and he’s giving them all to me.

But here he is. And here I am.

Warner’s forehead is pressed against mine, his skin flushed with heat, his nose touching my own. He shifts his weight to one arm, uses his free hand to softly stroke my cheek, to cup my face like it’s spun from glass and I realize I’m still holding my breath and I can’t even remember the last time I exhaled.

“I don’t want to be Warner with you,” he says. “I want it to be different now. I want you to call me Aaron.”

“So I heard through the very loud grapevine that Warner got his ass the hell out of here last night. What’s that about?”

How could you do this to me? it whispers in the wind. I gave you everything, it says to us. Nothing will ever be the same again.