CRYBABY | mitch rapp ✔️

33. declaration of love

CRYBABY

DECLARATION OF LOVE

Their lips slammed together in a frenzy. Angeline swore she had never felt so many butterflies in her life, her entire body tingly as her hands frantically searched his chest, snaking past his neck and grasping at his floppy dark hair. Mitch grabbed her face with one hand and her waist with the other, keeping her as close to him as possible, their tongues overlapping as she shifted their heads to change angles, his nose ever so slightly brushing her cheek.

"Fuck," Mitch breathed, "I... You're insane, Angeline."

Angeline laughed against him, intoxicated by his scent, her heart fluttering. She replayed the last five minutes or so on repeat in her head and wished with all of her heart that it was possible to never ever forget the exact way she felt as soon as the confession had slipped past Mitch's lips.

"Say it again," Angeline whispered as his large hands tangled with her long hair, the pads of his fingers pressing against her head, holding her close to him from where she lay beneath him on the bed.

Mitch couldn't help the smile that crossed his face, or the breathy laugh that followed. Angeline looked so beautiful beneath him. Cheeks rosy, eyes brighter than he had seen them in weeks. He couldn't believe that someone as pure as Angeline Lewis could ever love him back. Not in a million years.

And maybe he'd come to regret telling her how he really felt about her, but right now, he wanted to soak himself in her beauty. To drench himself in the being that was Angeline.

"I love you, Angeline," Mitch repeated his words from earlier. "I love you."

"I love you too," Angeline exhaled, and was grabbing him again, bringing their faces back together, tongues meeting as they kissed and kissed. "Make love to me," she breathed as they pulled apart. "Don't fuck me."

Mitch kissed her forehead, and then her nose, and then her lips. "I'll do my best," he promised.

His hands found her shirt and he pulled it over her head slowly. Angeline released a shaky breath when her eyes caught sight of all of the scars and bruising littering her body, as if reality had just come crashing back, rearing its ugly, violent head in.

"I —"

Mitch pressed his finger to her lips. "I have scars too. Look."

He sat up on the bed, straddling Angeline but with no weight actually on her, and peeled his own shirt over his head. Of course Rowan had seen Mitch shirtless countless times before, and she'd seen his scars, even wondered about a few of them, but she'd never thought too deeply about it.

He ran a hand over his torso. "I was shot here. And of course here too." He pointed to his shoulder which was still wrapped in gauze. "This white line is from a knife attack. It hurt a lot. I have a similar one on my hip, but that one was impaled."

Angeline felt her eyes water but pushed it back. She smiled at him, reaching her hand out so she could brush it over the long scar that had apparently been created by a knife. She felt her forearm throb at the reminder of what it felt like to be sliced open and to bleed out, terrified, unknowing if you would survive.

"You're beautiful," Angeline murmured.

Mitch barked a short laugh. "I'm not too sure about that. You certainly are, however."

From where he loomed above her, Mitch traced her collarbone, and then went down the valley of her breasts, his thumb smoothing at discolouration around her ribs.