"There's really a lady on the moon."

I held up my empty glass, its bottom superimposed over the moon to see if it could somehow magnify it. Don't know why I thought the thick bottom of a glass would do that but that's what I did. And no, it didn't work. The glass just looked brightly warped. Or that could be the alcohol-induced haze.

"According to Chinese mythology, her name is Chang'e," Stellan said, stretching an arm over his head. He was on a lounger next to mine, a little bit more drunk than when we started two hours ago but no less intelligent. "She was an immortal banished to earth with her husband. She didn't like living here and drank an elixir to become immortal again. She ascended once again, rested on the moon, immortal as she'd always wanted to be but forever apart from the man she loved. It is said that on a clear night, Chang'e can be seen sitting alone on the moon with a small white rabbit as her only companion."

I couldn't help myself. "I didn't think you'd know that kind of stuff. It's not very science-y."

"I'm interested in everything. Folklore and mythology provide so much social and cultural context which in turn explains a lot about the innovations of the time."

"Ooookay, then," I said as I processed the story, foggy as my brain felt.

"It's a bittersweet tale, isn't it?" Stellan asked, turning his head to look at me. His glasses were long discarded somewhere in our little area just outside of the greenhouse where we'd pushed the two lounge chairs together so we could sit back, drink, and watch the sky. I adored him with glasses on but I couldn't complain about seeing his warm brown eyes this up close, even in the poor light.

"Sure, but my question is," I started as I felt for the bottle of whiskey in the small gap between our chairs. "How the hell did a small white rabbit get on the moon?"

Stellan laughed and looked up at the sky. "I don't know. Not in specific story, anyway. I never thought about it. Which is unusual of me. I think about everything. Ask every possible question there could be."

"I'm sure it's great to be smart and all that but don't you agree it's super exhausting?" I said with as sigh, pouring myself some more alcohol. There wasn't much left in the bottle.

"What? Thinking?" Stellan asked. "If you think all the time, you won't think about it anymore."

"Haha. Thinking about thinking. Very funny." I snorted and tipped back my drink. "That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?" Stellan pulled himself up to a full sitting position and turned to face me, his legs in the gap between our chairs.

"Being smart, you usually know what the right thing is," I said slowly, momentarily distracted by the moonlight glinting off his now disheveled hair. He'd run his hand through it a few times tonight, leaving it looking as rumpled as I'd never seen it before. It was doing bad things to my stomach.

"True in most cases," he agreed.

"And when you know what's right and you're not that much of an asshole, it's really hard not do it," I continued. "And the more you know, the greater the responsibility. And that's just too much for some of us."

Stellan gazed at me for a while, not saying anything.

In the last two hours we've been drinking, I learned that Stellan is a master at wordless stares that ask or say more than any words could. It unsettled me but at the same time, I couldn't turn away. For someone who absolutely disliked being stripped raw, here I was, helpless to it.

"Thank God, I'm not very smart. Nothing like you, anyway," I said with a laugh, hoping to distract him away from his unnerving study of me. "I don't think I can handle the pressure of having to solve big world problems like hunger or illiteracy. Or find a cure for cancer or AIDs. Or take down terrorists. Or find life in Mars."

Stellan blinked and slowly smiled. "There is pressure. And most of the time, it's from ourselves. I wake up some days feeling like I'm on the verge of something that could change the world. And most of those days end with me never figuring it out. It's frustrating. But I'd rather keep waking up and trying every day than wake up resigned that the world will never be better. That not much can be done to help people. I don't need to die having answered every question and solved every problem in existence. Maybe just one or two or maybe none at all. It's just knowing that I tried."

"Intelligent and idealistic—a dangerous combination," I said with a smile. "But that also makes you a great human being. Some of us will just have to be content with getting by and trying not to fuck it all up."

Stellan picked up the bottle and emptied it into his glass. "I think you're a great human being."

I choked on my last gulp. "Now I know you're really wasted. You're finally starting to make noooo sense."

"I'm not drunk," Stellan argued, draining his glass. He winced at the burn and closed his eyes briefly. Then he grinned at me. "Well, maybe a little buzzed. But completely coherent."

"Let's not talk about me or you'll end up saying things that you'll regret and won't want to remember tomorrow," I said, sitting up and grabbing his glass away from him. "Although I'm surprised you can somewhat hold your drink."

His grin just broadened. "What? Because I'm a nerd, you didn't think I could? Let me remind you that I grew up with three wild boys who partied hard every chance they got. It was inevitable for me to acquire the skill."

"You didn't acquire all the same skills they did," I said, swinging my legs over to the gap between our chairs. "They went on to become playboys and you can't really say you did too."

Stellan laughed and shook his head. "That I concede. It's never appealed to me."

While I was relieved that I'd been right all along about him, I couldn't help but tease. "What? You never wanted a long line of women to keep sex interesting for you?"

"I can appreciate women and all their charms—for lack of a better term," he said. "But I'm never more than mildly interested until I get to know a woman well enough and realize that I want more of her. Sex is sex but I prefer it to mean something to me and the lady involved."

For whatever it is that I expected of Stellan, I still found myself surprised to hear him say the words and see their stark contrast to what I've been used to my whole life.

Before I knew what I was doing and the alarms in my head could render me deaf, I touched my fingertips to his cheek, softly trailing them down to the sharp line of his jaw.

His eyes had snapped to mine at the moment of contact and stayed there. "What is it?"

I smiled faintly. "I just wanted to know if you're real. I was having doubts."

His hand moved to wrap around mine and stayed there, pressed up against the side of his face. "I'm real. And I don't know about being great but I'm very much a human being. One who makes mistakes."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, one mistake. Named Rachel."

"She wasn't the mistake," he said. "In hindsight—and with perfect clarity despite some heavy drinking—she was a... consequence. Of a mistake I made the night I met you."

I raised a brow, having trouble interpreting his words.

He smiled. "You said earlier not to talk about you or I'll end up saying something I'll regret. Well, I've already done that. The night we first met, I said something stupid, trying to be slick. And you rightly shut the door in my face."

I could pretend I didn't remember. But I did—in excruciatingly vivid detail.

To this day, I still feel like I lost something that night. Something I couldn't put a name on.

Someone I wouldn't put a name on or I'll have to answer questions I can't ask myself.

"Well, people say and do stupid shit all the time," I muttered. "Just like I did right after you. I shouldn't have pushed you on to Rachel."

Stellan still had a trace of a smile on his face. "That's alright. You did what you felt was..."

"What?" I asked with a snort. "The right thing to do?"

"No," he answered gently. "You did what you felt was safe. For you. For me."

My heart stunted, the stupid thing. No one ever looks that closely.

I gave him a teasing glance and lied through my teeth. "You're the least dangerous man I've ever met."

His eyes crinkled in the corners. "It depends on what you consider dangerous."

You. And how you make me feel. What you make me want. What you make me do.

And just like last year, mistake or not, I should scramble as far away from him as I possibly can. I should shove as many different people as I can between us, to make sure he would be forever out of reach.

The worst kind of danger is the one that makes you not want to run.

So I didn't.

Not quite yet.

Not right now.

Not from him.

Not again.

"Stellan..."

I didn't know what I was trying to say.

I just wanted to say his name, to feel it cling to my lips as if it was a part of his body. It felt as I imagined he would feel as close to me as my own soul was—warm, solid, and safe.

"I'm right here."

His words were a whisper because it seemed like the world had fallen silent around us. I couldn't hear the river rushing past. I couldn't hear the traffic in the distance.

All I could hear was his sudden, ragged breathing over my own.

All I could feel was the warm, sure hold of his hand around mine.

The intimate press of our legs side by side.

The ache deep inside me to feel more—of him. Of us.

You can't do this. You can't let him do this.

I tried to speak. To save us again. "We shouldn't... I shouldn't..."

His gaze dropped to my mouth and slowly, his forehead pressed against mine. "But we want to... I want to..."

One kiss and you can walk away.

One kiss will have to be enough.

I knew it was a lie from the moment I conjured it but it was too late anyway.

I already leaned in and caught his bottom lip, desperate for a taste and acutely aware that it wasn't going to end there.

"I'm going to kiss you," I murmured against his lips which I then felt move into a smile.

"You're already doing that," he murmured back before his hand tipped my chin up, encouraging me to open up more to him. "Kiss me more, Kady."

And holy fuck, I kissed him.

I kissed him, alright.

Things came off fast.

Sanity, first of all.

Had to so everything else can follow.

Somewhere between the greenhouse and the door to the spiral staircase leading inside, I lost my dress, my rules. The shiver running through me had nothing to do with the mild January chill.

I opened my mouth to attempt something sensible. "Bed. Now."

Nice try.

The only sensible thing about that statement was that the bed was infinitely more comfortable than a lounger for what we had in mind.

"God, yes," Stellan breathed against my mouth as he pulled me close against him, his fingers kneading my rear. He was hard everywhere—including the part of him I wanted deep inside of me.

I half-tripped on a step, busy as I was mapping my hands down the hard contours of his shoulders, but Stellan held me steady while his mouth continued a hot trail down the curve of my neck.

"Can you even see where we're going?" I blurted out as we slowly descended the stairs in a tangle of bodies, lips chasing each other, hands touching every inch of accessible skin.

A low laugh rumbled from Stellan's chest before he dipped his head to catch my mouth in a probing kiss. "I'm sure I can find the bed."

How we got there without breaking anything, our necks included, I don't know.

Fate, maybe. But I refuse to believe in shit like that.

Sheer determination then.

There was no question that Stellan and I wanted the same thing—at least for the next half hour.

Because this would have to be just for the moment.

Just for now.

A sound escaped my mouth just as Stellan sealed his own around the hard tip of my breast, his lips tightening and pulling around it until all my nerves were taut with too much sensation.

I pulled him closer and closer until he was too close yet still not close enough.

There might never be a remedy for that.

I pushed him off by the shoulders, sitting myself up so I could catch my breath.

He knelt there, over me, large and looming, in a position I'd long sworn a man would never find himself with me.

That old feeling of panicked rebellion flared, the cold creeping in.

Then I found his eyes—focused for a half-blind man.

Warm.

Wanting.

Wanting so so much.

But patient.

Always patient.

The cold left.

So did the panic.

I should run.

Because this feeling of safety was exactly the kind of danger I ran from that night we first met.

And I could run.

Stellan was close but his hands weren't on me. He was holding far back enough not to be in the way if I wanted to go.

And maybe that's why I stayed.

I smiled faintly and rose up on my knees, my arms sliding up over his shoulders until I was nearly height level with him on the bed.

And then I kissed him again, a little more slowly this time.

"Do you want this, Kady?" he murmured, tilting his head to the side to look me in the eye.

His gaze blazed with a heat that reached down deep inside of me, lighting me up like a fuse.

But there was tenderness in it too.

Like he would wrap me in his arms and simply hold me if that was all I could allow.

Who knew that was aphrodisiac to my fucked-up soul?

"I want it—I need it," I said, stunned by words I didn't realize I'd said out loud.

My eyes squeezed close, too afraid to say more, and drew him close for another kiss that was shaky with emotion.

He smiled against my mouth and circled his arms around my waist, pulling me close gently.

It was a while before our hands trailed down—his to mold my breasts and mine to tug at his fly.

In a deft move, Stellan turned us in the spot where we knelt so that when we fell back on the bed, I was on top of him. I wasted no time straddling his hips as soon as he'd chucked his jeans and his boxers. My tiny scrap of lace underwear was the last piece of clothing to go.

In the next moment, nothing separated us.

And maybe we were both insane. And stupid. But that was how we both wanted it, it would seem.

Because we looked at each other, asking the question in silence. And letting the silence be the answer.

We had a chance but we didn't take it.

Not right before he lifted me by the hips and not before I lowered myself onto him.

The glide down burned, no matter how slowly I took him in.

He wasn't a small man and I was... Well. Not exactly new to this. Not technically. But it's been quite a while.

We moaned low almost in unison as every inch of him stretched me. Filled me. Took me.

Own me in a way that I don't think I can ever take back.

I should snatch it all back, whatever pieces of myself I'd given him tonight. But I wanted too much of what he gave me in return to make the slightest effort at self-preservation.

It was too late anyway.

Way too fucking late.

"Kady."

I ached at the way he murmured my name—husky and hungry and just a little bit desperate—and I moved.

I rode him hard and fast as if I could outrun the consequences. Not that I could think of them too much at the moment, grounded as I was to the reality of it all by Stellan's firm grip on my hips as he arched to meet my every downward slide. His face was buried between my breasts, his breath hot on my slick skin, his lips and tongue marking me in places I would never forget.

I was falling apart—a glorious, tragic destruction.

Pieces gone.

Forever.

Embedded like shrapnel on his soul.

Because unfortunately, he followed me right into it.

And we were a panting, sweating, unrecognizable rubble in the aftermath.

Mistakes both sweet and terrible and all their consequences.

I lifted my head, avoiding his eyes as I prepared myself to say something, but he pressed a finger against my lips.

"Let's not say anything until morning comes," Stellan murmured, shifting his hips to the side so I could fall onto the bed next to him.

We were filthy but it didn't stop Stellan from resting his cheek against my forehead and curling an arm over my stomach.

There was nothing restraining about it.

He was just simply holding me close.

And that in itself was almost too much.

Too much of what you want that you can never have.

I willed myself to get up.

To find my clothes and run.

I could probably do it.

It would be sheer torture, pulling away from all of this.

But at least I wouldn't drown.

It was the whisper of a kiss he pressed on my shoulder that decimated any kind of will I had left.

I closed my eyes.

Let out a shaky breath.

Morning would be here soon enough to take it all away.

*****

Ninya's Notes:

Hi everyone! 

So.... What do you all think? 

I know, I know, there will be reactions that this is going way too fast. I agree. And that means we get to see what happens when things go this fast.

And that's not their only reckless mistake so far. As you've probably deduced from this chapter, they lose their heads a little bit when they're with each other. And that can be both exhilarating and dangerous. So let's see what the morning brings... I think you know.

When I was writing a chunk of the earlier chapters, I was listening to Folklore so much. I was pretty sure I could fit a song from the album in a chapter somewhere. But it's proving challenging. I think I just found the mood of the album pretty perfect for the feel of where I was story-wise with these two. 

But I did bring you a popular Taylor song anyway even if it's from another album. It's a little bit upbeat but the things she says in this song echo what I would suspect Kady says in her heart. 

Hope you're all gearing up for the most laid-back holidays in history. Even if you only stay home (and I hope you do), there are so many little joys to be had. Just gotta get creative. I'm soooo looking forward to reading a ton of books even though I'm spending a lot of this supposed downtime chasing after a toddler. But gotta give it my best shot, right?  

Stay safe, everybody! Till the next post!

♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Delicate by Taylor Swift ♪♪♪

https://youtu.be/tCXGJQYZ9JA

This ain't for the best
My reputation's never been worse, so
You must like me for me...
We can't make
Any promises now, can we, babe?
But you can make me a drink...

Dive bar on the east side, where you at?
Phone lights up my nightstand in the black
Come here, you can meet me in the back
Dark jeans and your Nikes, look at you
Oh damn, never seen that color blue
Just think of the fun things we could do

'Cause I like you
This ain't for the best
My reputation's never been worse, so
You must like me for me...
Yeah, I want you
We can't make
Any promises now, can we, babe?
But you can make me a drink...

Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it chill that you're in my head?
'Cause I know that it's delicate (delicate)
Is it cool that I said all that?
Is it too soon to do this yet?
'Cause I know that it's delicate
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it?
Isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it?
Delicate

Third floor on the west side, me and you
Handsome, you're a mansion with a view
Do the girls back home touch you like I do?
Long night, with your hands up in my hair
Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs
Stay here, honey, I don't wanna share