Lise8

“She wanted all of Thorn's attention as she finally released the words so long trapped inside her.
"I-I love you too."
She jumped. Thorn had spun around fast as lightning to block her wrist. His reaction was so abrupt, the glint in his eyes so hard, Ophelia thought he was going to push her away once again.
With a totally unpredictable opposite movement, he pulled her toward him. The stool tipped over. Ophelia felt as if she were landing with all her weight between Thorn's ribs. As they fell together, to a clattering of steel and an avalanche of boxes, the viewer exploded into fragments of glass on the floor beside them. It was the most spectacular and baffling fall Ophelia had ever experienced. her ears were humming like hives. The frame of her glasses were digging into her skin. She could no longer see a thing, could barely breathe. When she realised that she was crushing Thorn, she wanted to extricate herself, but couldn't. He was imprisoning her in his arms so tightly that she could no longer distinguish between the beatings in their chests. Thorn's bushy beard became buried in her hair as he said, "above all, no sudden gestures."
After the way he had just flung them both to the ground, this warning was somewhat incongruous. The arm vice relaxed, muscle by muscle, around Ophelia. She had to lean on Thorn's stomach to back up. Half slumped on the floor, his back against a bookcase, he was watching her with extreme tension, as if expecting her to trigger a catastrophe.
"Never - do - that - again," he said, stressing each syllable, "take me by surprise. Never. Have you got that?"
Ophelia had too much of a lump in her throat to reply to him. No, she hadn't got it. She was starting to wonder whether had even listened to her declaration. She was dismayed at the sight of bits of metal scattered on the carpet. There wasn't much left of Thorn's leg brace.
"Nothing that can't be repaired," he commented. "I have some tools in my bedroom. This, on the other hand, is more problematic," he added, glancing at the shattered pieces of the microfilm viewer. "I'll have to get myself another one.
"I don't think that is a priority," Ophelia snapped. She bit her tongue when Thorn pressed his mouth against hers.
At that moment, she no longer understood a thing. She felt his beard pricking her chin, his disinfectant smell going to her head, but the only thought that crossed her mind, a stupid obvious one, was that she had her boot stuck in his shin. She wanted to pull away.
Thorn stopped her. He cradled her face with his hands, his fingers in her hair, pressing against the nape of her neck, with urgency that knocked them both off balance. The bookcase showered them with papers.
When Thorn finally pulled away, short of breath, it was to stare sternly straight through her glasses.
"I warn you, the words you said to me, I won't let you go back on them." His voice was harsh, but underlining the authority of his words, there was some sort of crack.
Ophelia could see the quickened pulse in the hands he was awkwardly pressing to her cheeks. She had to admit her own heart was swinging to and fro. Thorn was, without doubt, the most disconcerting man she'd ever met. But he did make her feel wonderfully alive.
"I love you," she repeated firmly.”
― Christelle Dabos, A Winter's Promise / The Missing of Clairdelune / The Memory of Babel