I was startled awake in the dead of night with a knife to my throat.
"Tate? What the fuck!" I screeched, pushing him backwards.
"The more I get to know you, the more I understand that what I thought about you when you first moved to this house was true." He muttered.
"Would you like to enlighten me?"
"Violet…she's all alone and she needs someone…and if she won't let me keep her company…it has to be you...I'm so sorry."
"Do you still love her?"
He stared at me, tears pouring out of his eyes. "I-I have to. I swore I'd wait forever. I-"
"Tate, do you love her or are you trying to cling to an old promise because it's all you know?"
He started to raise the knife again as he edged closer to me. "I have to."
I gripped the wrist of his arm that was coming towards me, taking him by surprise. "You're not going to kill me."
"Jetta…"
"You're not going to kill me if you're in love with me." I finally finished.
Merely that statement, those words, caused the knife to slip from his hand and catapult to the floor with a triumphant crash.
"I love you." He whispered to himself as more of a realization that had just hit him rather than a statement to me.
His hands were gripped around my neck then, pulling my face to his so he could kiss me hard and eagerly and passionately, leaving me breathless with a raging fever that only he could cure.
He fell back on the bed, pulling me into his lap as he ripped off my shirt and began to trace down my spine with his fingertips. His hands stroked my chest as the trail of kisses that started on my jaw progressed down to my collarbone.
My body had felt like it had been frozen behind layers of ice and his touch was the only thing that made it all melt away as I was brought back to life.
My mind was spinning. I hadn't even thought about Tate in this way before, but with every kiss and touch and bite, I found myself burning with desire for him. I wanted every part of him in every way I could have him.
It all happened so fast that I couldn't even begin to keep up. One minute I was sitting on him and the next he was on top of me with our pants hurled onto the floor. It all became a blur then, a lustful blur of perfection as I cried his name into the atmosphere.
When it was over, I laid on top of him, my head resting on his chest as he stroked my hair.
"Tate…we just…" I muttered.
"Made love?" he answered for me.
I turned my face to him. "Yeah. It was incredible."
"It was for me, too."
"This night has been bizarre."
"Jetta, I really meant what I said. I'm in love with you."
I hesitated for a moment, trying to comprehend what I felt for him. "I…I think I'm in love with you, too."
It made sense why I hadn't seen any of it coming, I had never been in love. When you're an individual in a town full of replicas of each other, there's no question as to why you've never had that sweep you off your feet kind of feeling about anyone before.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you." He said as he slipped my pink hair behind my ear.
"You have my undivided attention."
He grinned towards my hair, fully displaying his dimples. "Why pink?"
My face instantly flushed to the color of my hair. "I don't know, really. I just wanted something to make me stand out. Oh, god. Do you think it's stupid?"
"No, I love it."
He quickly stole a kiss from me which lead to another heated moment that seemed impossible to tear myself away from.
"Are we going to put a title on this?" I asked him.
"I don't care what it's labeled as long as you're mine."
"I'm yours." I whispered back.
