Tightrope

All I Want is Your Firstborn Child

Jace loved me. He loved me. He loved me.

And he whispered it against my lips, over and over again. I love you, Elle, and I gasped his name in return. Jace Hartley loved me. I was the mystery girl, the one who he had been holding a steady, long-burning candle for. The girl who'd haunted his thoughts for over a decade.

"Did you really not know?" he pulled back to say. He was smiling that devastating smile, and I knew I was returning it. I was breathless and breathtaken, which wasn't a word but somehow encapsulated how I felt. Jace Hartley was breathtakingly beautiful, and he was mine. "How could you not know?"

"Because you hated me!" I exclaimed.

"And I was very bad at that," said Jace, laughing. "I fooled literally no one, except for you. I only pretended to hate you, and only because I knew you wanted me to. I didn't think you'd have any time for me if I played nice, because you liked to have someone to argue with. But you definitely should've known, still. I mean, you would fight with me and yell at me, and I would just find it adorable and laugh."

"My anger is not adorable," I muttered with a small pout. "It's fearsome and terrifying." He tapped the end of my nose. "Besides, I thought you were laughing to try to rile me up. I thought it was a strategy."

"Because you thought everything was a strategy," said Jace mildly, dropping a quick kiss to my forehead. "Which I love about you. You're so stubborn and defiant and a little bit violent. And always so very dedicated to the cause."

I pushed him back against the bed and lined my body up with his, peering down at him through a curtain of dark curls. "You could say some nice things about me, too. You know, if we're just naming attributes out there. I have plenty of good ones. Unbelievably sexy, for one. Like, you could start with that."

His hands came to the back of my neck where his fingers laced through my hair. He pulled me into him for a slow kiss. "Fine," he said, when he pulled away, looking a little bit dazed. "You're beautiful." A featherlight kiss to my jaw. "You're funny." A brush of lips against my cheekbone. "And you're the best thing that ever happened to me." A gentle kiss.

Something in me stirred, and it felt as if someone were fiddling with my heart strings as if they were playing the harp. "Well, now you just sound soppy and totally lame," I said, but my cheeks hurt from smiling. "Do you watch a lot of romantic comedies?"

"Daria is my best friend," Jace pointed out. "So, yes."

I just bent down to kiss him again, to kiss that stupid little smile that I'd both hated and loved, but had always managed to draw from him. I loved making him smile. I wanted to make him smile forever. Jace laughed into the kiss, his arms winding around me to pull me closer and closer and closer, and my heart had never been so full.

His lips on mine were endlessly soft, and the sound of his gasp as I pressed open-mouthed kisses against the line of his throat made me feel as if I was burning all over again, heat flaring my gut. Kissing Jace Hartley always felt like I was burning or flying, and I welcomed it, basked in it. It felt a little bit like love and a little bit like hate. But as it turned out, hating Jace Hartley wasn't even half as good as loving him. But, as it turned out, he'd never even hated me. Not even for a second.

"Did you really love me?" I asked him softly. "All that time?"

"Forever," said Jace. "As long as I can remember. Elle, we were in kindergarten and I thought you hung the moon. You were funny even then, you know? Everyone wanted to be your friend, because you wanted to be friends with everyone."

"Well, except for you."

"Yeah, no, that part sucked."

"You shouldn't have peed in my sandbox," I sung, with a small giggle as Jace rolled his eyes.