Fleur's POV:
He was fuming. Driving like a madman for real. His grip kept tightening on the steering wheel if that was even possible anymore. I was honestly scared to talk and didn't know what to tell him even if I wanted to, so I said what I always say in situations like that.
"I'm sor-"
"Don't." He stops me, "it's not your fault. He's a dick; he deserved it, probably deserved even more."
"God, I wanted to punch his face until he couldn't smirk that smug smile of his anymore." He added looking at the road, focusing all his energy there as he drove. It's a miracle we haven't crashed yet, taking into consideration how furious Fillip was.
"Thank you," I tell him, putting my hand on his knee trying to calm him down. Looking down on my hand, he gulps and visibly relaxes, letting go of the steering wheel a bit. Breathing out, he keeps his eyes on the road, "you do not have to thank me, Fleur."
We stayed silent for a while after that, my hand resting on his knee as he drove. I absolutely had no idea where we were going, so I just assumed we were driving home. That was until he stopped the car suddenly. I looked at him, and he continued to pull his key from the car and open his door.
Where the hell is he going?
I get out of the car following him; that did not look like the house for me. The wind blasted the moment I was out of the car, pushing my hair backwards, and it was chilly. I hear waves crashing hardly on the shore, so I assume they were coming from behind this fence we were standing next to; there was no way to tell, though the lights were barely illuminating. Pouring small poodles of orange light on the street side, but none were close to the beach. The dark surrounded us as i tried to take a good look at Fillip. "Come on," he simply said, jumping over the fence.
"What?"
"Come on, Fleur." He urges me. Sighing, I walk over to him. "Jump over," he orders as usual.
"why?"
Suddenly he jumps over the fence again, and with no warning, he picks me up.
"WHAT THE HELL PUT ME DOWN.'
"I would think by now you would know, Fleur, that this has no power over me," he said as he put me over his shoulder and jumped over the fence.
"I do not care, Fillip put me down." He continues to walk, ignoring me, as he pulls off my high heels. I mean, at least he is a considerate man; these were killing me.
"Whatever my lady asks for," he announces in his deep voice. For a second, I am thankful he will finally put me down, until I hear the waves again. They are louder now, he wouldn't-
Cold stings my skin the moment I land. I stay numb down there for a moment, my mind trying to register where the hell I am even though my body knows and is screaming for me to get out of there.
He did. He threw me into the water.
Finally, my head breaks through the water as I gasp for air and search for that damn bastard that threw me in here. Fillip's waist isn't even close to the water. Only his legs until his knees are covered with water, and he can't feel half the cold I am feeling right now. When my eyes finally land on his face, he is smiling, hands crossed over his chest, and again not feeling the cold I am feeling right now.
"You fucking bastard." I said this as I leapt onto him. His hands catch me easily, and they wrap around my body. I try to make myself heavier so we can fall into the water, but he just won't move; he's a stone stuck to its place, not even swaying.
"Not happening, Fleur."
"Let me go then," and he does, but instead of doing it normally, I'm in the air for a short moment before falling with a loud splash again. My eyes and nose are now filled with salty water and are burning, and oh my god, he is paying for this. When my head is out of the water again, I am startled. His laugh fills the air, booming louder than any wave crashing out here. It was heavy with bliss as it hung above us, lingering. The skin on his face crinkled, forming lines and crow's feet around his eyes that I had never seen before. It was so contagious, his laugh, that as it continued, it made me smile too. I continued to beam even after his laughter stopped; now he is only staring with a grin, and I kept hearing it echo again and again in my ear. I miss it already.
"Are you going to keep staring Fleur?" he asked, saying my name in that way of his. Like it was the first of its type, dripping down his lips like water droplets doing so. Too light escaping his own mouth, but too heavy while settling in my stomach.
Maybe I will...right now, something is different; right now, I am stuck, as if time stopped with his smile. Why can't it stop? Why can't I live here forever? Carefree, with no memories of the past but glimpses of a future I would forever keep longing for and dreaming of. One that I know I will never get; it hurts knowing I won't, but the feeling I am feeling right now makes up for it. I feel light and free, as if I am the luckiest person on this planet. Who knows when he will smile at me like that again? Who knows when he will deem it appropriate to laugh freely like that again when we are in front of people? So maybe, yeah, I will continue to stare.
He slowly starts approaching me, and his playful grin is still present. No. I'm not falling for that again. I started splashing water at him like a kid, as hard as my numb hands could let me. He laughs again and attacks me, but I dodge him and jump on his back while being wet. He continues to laugh. I don't want him to stop. Trying to make him fall in the water again, but I fail. Then he easily pulls me off his back, instead holding me against his chest. My legs wrapped around his waist as his hands held me so close to him that drops from my hair were falling on his own face. His hands kept moving up and down my torso, tender as the night we were sucked in and untamed, just like the water that was rocking both of us together.
"Ok stop. That's unfair." I tell him.
"You had your shots, Fleur; you are just no match for me."
"Still not fair. I'm a small, vulnerable woman. You shouldn't be doing this." I say it sarcastically.
"I wouldn't call 5'7 small, Fleur."
"5'8, and have you stood in front of you? Still not fair."
"Yes. In the mirror every morning." He says it seriously, and this man's ego is on another level. Makes him more attractive right now. It's not like he was lacking; he already was, with his hair messy and dripping on his face. Eyes incandescent, as if the moon was shining from the inside. The black circle in his grey eyes is luminescent; how could they be in this pitch-black darkness? The moon in his eyes could have lit the way, and I would have followed suit, as it led me so far away from where we both were right now.
It takes some time to form my next sentence. "Still, I should drown you." It comes out breathless. I don't want to drown him, but that's the only thing that my brain can get out of me right now.
"I told you, Fleur, you already tried that and failed; good luck next time, though." His voice lowers as well, and his hand's grip continues to drive me crazy.
"I will do it again." I warned him.
He chuckled confidently, saying, "Well, we can put that into action, and you can go ahead and try; you'll end up in my arms like both times anyway." and I'm stunned; honestly, I don't know what to say.
"You are infuriating, Fillip." I say while slipping from his arms, trying to get out of the water. He stops me by pulling me back to him. And here we go again, feeling short in front of this man. What did they feed him as a child?
"Come on, Fleur, don't be a sore loser." His eyes glint playfully, and my breath is taken away once more by his beauty up close. I couldn't trust myself any longer, my body, my thoughts, or how far they would go. So I walk away again. Just to be pulled back to him, only this time my back is sticking to his chest, wet clothes hardly making this any easier, and if I'm being honest, I was a bit thankful for the coldness against my heating body.
"Don't you walk away from me, Fleur. Never walk away from me." His voice rasped as his head rested on my shaking shoulders. Was it because of the cold biting my skin or his words sinking even deeper inside of me? I didn't know.
Don't you let me go, Fillip.
Was the only answer I could come up with; despite that, I remained silent because I couldn't afford what would happen if I chose to say it out loud. Instead, I heard the sentence replay in my head, begging him in torturous silence with every crash of the waves. Instead, I stayed in his hands while the air remained frigid and the darkness persisted. For as long as he was willing to hold me, because if one thing my mess of a brain was sure of was that I wouldn't let go first.
All of a sudden, I feel something on my head, and I gaze at the sky. Water droplets quickly started getting heavier, hitting my face harder.
"Come on, let's go," he says quickly, pulling me out of the water, but I want to stay here.
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Fillip's POV:
"No, let's stay here," Fleur protested as I tried to get us to the car before the rain could get any heavier.
"You're shaking." I tell her in case her stubbornness would actually make her not see that. She definitely was cold, and I'm not going to lie, I was starting to get a bit cold too. She stood there in the sand, her heels long forgotten, closer to the waves when I took them off. "I don't care." She established, and then she said the most insane thing I've ever heard Fleur say.
"Let's dance." She demanded
"Dance? Fleur, it's pouring; we are drenched right now, and it's midnight."
"Even better," she simply said, jumping a little too excitedly as she pulled me after her. How the tables turn.
She jumped over the fence and ran back to our car. She looked amazing. Red dress glowing, showing off her body as it stuck on her from the rain, hair looking longer than I'm used to it, I liked it. She opened the driver's seat and leaned inside, drenching my seat.
"Come on, Fleur, what are you doing?" I yell for her to listen over the sound of pattering rain.
"Putting on some music." She answered, and I can tell she's yelling too in order to be heard.
A minute later, 'Sway' by Michael Bublé blasted out of my car in the loudest volume possible.
"People will wake up."
"I don't care." She tells me as she makes her way towards me. This is something else; right now, she's a different person. Different from being in the mansion and even since we came here. Tonight is the most open, adventurous, and ambitious I have ever seen her. It's as if the Fleur I have been living with for the past couple of months was the complete shell of the person that is standing in front of me right now. Living her life fiercely—I guess that's how she's always been before Alberto took her, and to see her like that right now, I hate him even more for it.
I'll make him pay, just not at the moment. It's all Fleur right now; she's everything; she's filling my space. Filling my heart with so many feelings I thought I never would feel again, and yet as she took my hand and placed it on her enticing curves, tantalising me, memories came flooding back. As if she's jolting life back into me as we sway to the music.
The song is still playing. While the waves continued to crash in the background, the rain fell heavily around us, making me pull her closer to me to stop her body from shaking. I was utterly enthralled, mesmerised, and spellbound by her scent. I closed my eyes, falling into her neck and inhaling even more of her, needing more of her as I felt her soft skin rub mine gently. Fragrant like spring, she smelled, mixed with the briny smell in the air from being so close to the sea. I was incredibly hypnotised, feeling like I could never get enough. She'd bewitched me, causing ecstasy to course through me just like a drug.
The song ends, and she looks up at me. Those were the same blue eyes that stared at me that very first day, but this time they felt different. At this moment, the rejection in her eyes, the hardness in her body, and the disgust in her stance that had been there since day one finally melted away, washed away along with the rain falling down our bodies. All gone, as we gazed at each other and her eyes glistened. Right now, I'm not New York's don; she is not the girl who hates me with all her heart and soul.
Right now, I was just Fillip, and she was Fleur, stripped away from everything that made us wrong for each other, that made us dislike each other. Although I felt how wrong this could turn out and how it could hurt both of us in so many ways, I didn't stop. Nothing has felt more right than this. Than moving closer to each other. Inching our lips closer together, I gave her enough time to pull away, to push me, to call me disgusting, and every other thing that came with that, because I couldn't stop
myself. I was a mad man. Pulling her into my insanity, the oblivion I called my heart, killing her own like the murderous monster I was. A raging beast who fell for the beauty, but now I couldn't just stop. Only she didn't back away; instead, she inched closer, going slower by the second, as if thinking about pulling away.
Occasionally she would look up at me, her blue eyes now darkened to the ocean's colour, and god, this was torture. Everything—her scent, her eyes, her soft, rapid gasps hitting my face—made me go mad and grow impatient. The way her body fit perfectly in my hands was like the missing piece of a puzzle. My hands locked around her curves as if they were crafted for each other. Before I could go insane, she finally kissed me, and I just became another person. All those feelings I tried to lock away for years just coursed through me the moment her lips touched mine. It was enchanting, magnificent, splendid, and I forgot everything; it was just her lips on mine, sweet and soft but wild, just like her. I forgot everything and just swam with her as our bodies mended with that one kiss and became one, just like liquid. And I finally felt free, liberated from the shackles of fear that held me for six years, and she did that to me. She set me free as our lips danced and moved together, discovering their own magical rhythm.
"You taste amazing, Fleur." I had to tell her as we continued to kiss, rain falling down our faces, making it hard to see each other, but that didn't matter. As of this moment, I felt her, and that was all that mattered. This felt right. We break the kiss once more, and she's panting for breath while staring at my mouth. Then I attacked her lips, not giving us enough time to breathe. Our kisses quickly grew frantic, going from gentle to needing in seconds. Yet I can't get enough, as my hands roam her body and move up to her head, pulling it backwards so I can get better access to her mouth. She moans in my mouth, making me lose it, making me kiss her harder, and pulling her head backward even more. I push her backward, and we are leaning on the car now, not breaking our kisses.
"God, I can fuck you right here, right now." I said, as I went down to kiss various other parts of her gorgeous body. Tilting her head to the right, Fleur gave me access to her neck and shoulder blades, arching her back when I planted kisses there.
"It's still raining," she finally said, her voice hoarse, "we should go home." She's still shaking, I realised when I stopped. I look up at her, and she is not even looking at me; her eyes are somewhere else, lost somewhere between here and the dark, dim sea. Taking off my soaked suit jacket, I wrap it around her shoulder and hug her tightly before walking her to the car and opening the passenger seat. I get seated in my place and start the car. It's silent all the way back there; I wouldn't say it was uncomfortable, but it wasn't peaceful either.
When we get home, Luc and Christian are seated on the coach, watching whatever is playing on the TV. "Where the fuck have you both been?" Luc almost yells.
"What the—why are you both drenched?"
"Not now, Luc." I dismiss him with my hands and walk up the stairs, following Fleur. She didn't wait when we got here; she just went to her room. I catch her before she closes her bedroom door, and she sees me. We lock eyes, and she moves forward for a second, then stops. Not being able to stare at me anymore, she closes her door, denying me a look at her beautiful blue eyes.
Without them, it's dark again, and I feel nothing. I feel empty again, everything that filled me earlier was suddenly drained. I don't blame her, though; I actually understand. Even our evident attraction to each other is not enough to make up for being with the man I am.
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Fleur's POV:
When I saw him standing there on the stairs, still soaked in water in his white shirt that was sticking to his sculptured body without the jacket that he gave me I almost ran back ito his arms, just to feel like I did with his body on mine. When I saw his grey eyes, crazed, starving, and pleading, I almost went back and kissed him again. I am sure I know what this kiss would have led to, so I could not do it.
I end up closing the door and walking into the room, void of any emotions other than sadness. This was my first kiss—well, I mean a real kiss—that I wanted and sure enough couldn't get enough of. He gave me something I never had and made me yearn for and crave the warmth of his body on mine in ways that my body had never asked for before. I could have let him have me right there on that car, and I almost did, but as much as that felt right, I knew inside me that it was wrong...maybe I will come around.
I will keep his jacket with me, and I won't give it back. It has his smell; it is a part of him. I leave it to dry on a chair and go take a hot bath. If I get sick, which is most likely to happen, I won't be mad. I would do it all again, even without him throwing me into the sea. I would have jumped in with him, hugged him, and kissed him all the same. I would do it all again, just to feel his lips on mine and to feel half as free as I was tonight.