"Are you sure you want me to stay, Miss Roberts?"
Celine couldn't describe the exact tone of his voice at this moment as he asked her this question. It sounded like a warning, a very dark warning that should have frightened her.
His eyes had a captivating mixture of beautiful nature green and earth gold colors swirling in his orbs. Like a dance of the forest green with a beautiful sunset. Those eyes...they were infinitely beautiful, yet equally dangerous.
The warning in his voice held a quiet threat, not a kind of threat that Celine knew would harm her, but something akin to a deadly carnal intention.
Her heartbeat increased, taking a rivetingly speedy pace.
He leaned downwards, his face level to her own.
"Answer me, do you really want me to stay?"
Her breath hitched, the nearness of his face to hers made her feel like her breathing would soon stop.
"If you stopped me from leaving because you see me as some hero who saved you from your fiancee then you're certainly mistaken. I'm not a good man, and I most definitely am not your hero, for a delicate little flower like you Celine, I'm a danger you should be quick to run away from."
"I don't think of you as a hero." She said and he raised a brow, narrowing his eyes in curiosity.
"I'm not asking you to stay because I want you to be a good man, I don't know who you are, but for the first time in my life, I don't want to care about that, I don't want to care if you're a danger that destroys me, I don't want to care if you're the most terrible person I could be around.
Freedom, you were right when you said I needed freedom, and I want to take back my freedom from this very moment on."
He took a step back, standing with his full height now but his eyes still laid fixed upon her, he folded his arms against his chest, a move that made him look even more massive and intimidating, towering over her. He looked like he was listening to whatever he knew she had to say, and he wasn't interrupting.
Freedom, isn't it?
Celine's whole life had been a bubble, a tiny little bubble that caged her in, keeping her in the same place, keeping her with the same thoughts, never changing, never allowing herself to step out of where she had always been.
She was a doormat even before her fame, and after it she still remained one. Being stepped on by everyone she knew but never fighting back.
"Ever since I was a little girl, I had dreamt of this day. The day I would get married, wear a beautiful white dress, hold a beautiful ceremony and have the dreamiest wedding night, one I would never forget." She said with a bitter, reminiscent smile, recalling that little girl who dreamed of fairy tales. Recalling that teenage girl who after suffering hardship at the hands of her stepmom, hoped for a tall and handsome prince charming who would come sweep her away.
The wedding in her head was the type that happened in fairy tales, and a week ago, she might have still been smiling to herself thinking that Ian was her fairy tale prince, but she was woken in reality now.
Fairy tales...truly did not exist, and no matter how badly she wanted it, there was no way it would be come true.
"All my life, I've never once broken rules. I always remained in the good girl zone, never stepping out of the bubble my life caged me into, never attempting to do anything even remotely close to being daring, never taking risks, never tried to break out of my shell, conservatively keeping my innocence for some husband in the future, where has that led me? Betrayed by my beloved sister and fooled by my fiancee, thrown into a trap of his lies..." She paused to take a deep breath, however there was a firmly determined look in her lovely blue eyes now as she gazed steadily into his frightening hazel eyes.
"...but not anymore. Tonight, I have decided to take the first step of getting out of my comfort zone, and I have decided to do an outrageously daring thing tonight." Her gaze didn't falter or waver for even a second, she looked steadfastly certain of whatever she had decided.
His face was unmalleable and stern, Celine could sense in that moment that he rarely lost control but she suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to see him lose that control. She had no idea where these thoughts came from, but the urge rose higher, gathering with force within her.
Tristan silently listened to her without saying a word, deep inside his unshakeable heart, there was something welling up within. Something that felt like pride, her confidence as she spoke, the certainty in them told him she would be just fine.
He saw her as a caterpillar forcefully breaking out of it's cocoon and finding it's wings, spreading them out to fly. He didn't know why he felt immensely pleased that she had chosen to take a stand for herself, however the daring thing she said she would do, was something he completely couldn't have anticipated...
Before her mind could try to rationalize her actions and the decision she had suddenly made in the heat of the moment when she saw the man walking away, Celine moved forward to do the one thing she had been craving to do since a while ago.
She popped up on her toes and fearlessly grabbed his face in her soft palms, suddenly pressing her lips to his own firmly.
The flames in the depths of her stomach flared up again as she clumsily pressed her mouth against his, it felt soft and warm and even if there was no reaction from him, it was arousing an intense need within her, one that she knew only he could extinguish because he was the only one she had ever felt this way for before.
A while later, she reluctantly pulled her lips away from his, her crystal blue eyes staring straight into his fiery hazel ones which held what looked like shock but along with that there was an unmistakably blazing heat which made her feel like she was going to be scorched alive by the intensity of his gaze.
She kissed him!
Even after realizing this, she felt no fear or disgust towards herself for doing it.
"I..." Her words cut short when she felt heat flaming her cheeks at the realization of what she wanted to say to him. But looking into his eyes pushed a blazing boldness into her. It was the kind of boldness she had felt when their eyes had met at the wedding hall earlier. "I want to be with you... just for tonight."
When she said them out loud, Celine felt quite frightened by the intensity of her own words, but she knew she had no remorse whatsoever for the decision she made. She had sheltered herself all her life and now she would break out of that shell no matter what.
"I...I want you to make love to me." She whispered.
It was something she knew she wouldn't take back...this man, this stranger who didn't feel like a stranger at all...she had decided to give her first time to him.