“And you...” He trailed off, clearing his throat as he clung to what was left of his voice. “You remember what I also told you?”
Carmen nodded slowly, her grip on Asa’s collar tightening.
His voice dropped a few octaves, turning raw and husky in a matter of seconds. “Turn around.” He tugged at one of her legs, and she obliged, turning fully on his lap to face him until both her legs were on either side of him and her chest was just a breath away from his.
His arms found her waist again, and he couldn’t help but fall in love with the way his palms fitted so perfectly around the curve of her hips. He pulled her forward until she was completely pressed against him, and then leaned forward. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he said.
He felt one of her arms go around his neck and the other grab a fistful of the front of his button-down. “I want you to,” she told him, her breath fanning across his face.
Now that he’d got permission, there was nothing holding him back.
Asa closed that gap between them, angling his face as he inched closer, and brushed his lips against hers in the faintest of kisses. He pulled away the tiniest bit, before leaning in again and repeating the gesture, his lips caressing hers in a barely-there manner.
“Asa,” Carmen muttered, breathing heavily. “Stop treating me like a porcelain doll, and kiss me right.”
A laugh was making its way up Asa’s throat, but it never spilled out of his mouth. He tightened his hold on her body and then crashed his lips against hers in a full, all-consuming kiss.
He was kissing her for the first time and so was she, but to anyone watching, they might as well have been kissing each other for the last time. Their hold on each other was ironclad, almost like they were afraid that if they loosened their grip, something was going to pull them apart.
“Te amo,” Asa gasped as he pulled away to catch his breath. “Te amo, te amo, te amo.” The words kept tumbling past his lips without control, as he peppered kisses all over her face, from the skin between her brows to the bridge of her nose to the corner of her mouth.
Carmen smiled, her eyes shining as she pressed her forehead against his, her chest heaving as hard as his. “I love you too,” she sighed against his lips.
Asa might be the embodiment of the sun in Carmen’s eyes because of all the warmth he brought her, and Asa might compare Carmen’s presence to that of the moon for all the times she’d been a beacon of light for him in the dark.
Bur right then, right there, in a heart-stopping moment that’d become one of their many infinites—as their bodies melted into one another’s, and their lips found their way home to each other—they might as well have created an eclipse of their own.
47.
Binary Pairs
The funny thing about kissing Asa was that while the act of kissing someone was meant to make you short of breath, the intimacy of the moment reminded Carmen this was the same person who reminded her to live.
The same person whose name on her tongue was enough to fill her lungs with air and allowed her to just breathe.
Breathe because the storm didn’t last forever, the nightmares would be gone by the time the night had passed and the sun had risen. And Asa. Oh, Asa was proof that morning came and always would.
And Carmen loved him for it—with her heart and soul.
Asa’s hands seemed to be glued to her waist, as if that had become the favourite resting place of his palms now. But Carmen wasn’t complaining; she was used to being regarded as some fragile piece of ceramic because her gentle heart was seen as a form of innocence and gullibility. But the way Asa’s fingers dug into her hips through the material of her turtleneck, the way his lips kept claiming hers in rough, hard kisses, told her that he didn’t think of her as fragile or weak.
It was exhilarating, knowing that Asa was a perfect gentleman during school, but was purely driven by passion alone when it came to this. And knowing that it was her who was bringing out this more unrestrained, raw side of him made her nerves buzz with an electric charge that brought every single atom of her being to life with even the faintest touch from this boy with coffee eyes and golden skin.
“You were right,” Carmen breathed out when they pulled apart again after losing all sense of time somewhere between kisses.
“About?” His chest heaved against hers, and Carmen could feel his heart thumping along with her own.
“Gentle being overrated.” She chuckled under her breath, letting her eyelids flutter shut and just enjoying being in his arms.
“Mm-hmm.” He was obviously distracted, his fingers busy entangling her hair and pulling her head back and her collar down as he dragged his mouth down her throat. “God, I should’ve done this ages ago,” he groaned into her neck. “Should’ve just kissed you senseless in the parking lot that day.”
Carmen tried to find her voice, to force her brain to form words and coherent sentences amidst the explosions in her head. “Don’t be silly,” she said and gasped as he tugged at her hair harder and placed open-mouthed kisses at the base of her throat. “We couldn’t have ever done this at school.”
Asa snapped his head back, pulling away from Carmen and staring at her with a wounded look on his face.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, eyes wide and lips swollen, causing Carmen’s gut to clench painfully. “I want to be able to
