something he’s never seen. “I tell you how I did a terrible thing, an act akin to patricide, and you offer a kiss.”
“There is much you aren’t saying, so maybe we need to streamline the conversation. Your lips touching mine. What could be simpler?”
For once, I have taken him by total surprise.
“Or more destructive,” he says.
“You kiss me with your eyes every time you look at me.”
“Ah.” He goes utterly still. “Very well, then. Yes. I think I understand.”
“I want you to do it,” I say softly, reaching out my hand. “Please. What can I call you? Aleksander?”
“No, that’s what he used to call me, the bastard who was my father. At boarding school, I was Sander and that, too, never felt right, not exactly.”
“So what do you prefer?”
“Call me whatever you like. You are the exception to my rule. The exception to all my rules.”
“Why?” My voice is breathless, more than a little unsteady.
“If I knew that, I’d be a wiser man than I am now.” His eyes close and his next breath is long, slow, and shuddering. “If I kiss you, will you hold still?”
Hold still if he actually kisses me? The idea of his full lips slanting on mine, his hard chest pushing insistent against my breasts is enough to make me writhe all on its own. “No.”
His gaze snaps to mine.
“How can I promise such a thing? After all, a kiss isn’t one-sided, at least not a good kiss.”
He stands, wiping his hands on his suit pants, his shirt a little wrinkled.
He walks to the window and looks out at nothing but night, seeing only his own ghost face reflection, and my own behind him. He places a hand on the glass and the heat from his skin heats the pane. When he turns, it remains, a foggy imprint.
I move to the end of the bed, hang my feet off, the robe slipping off one shoulder.
He is there then. I don’t even have time to register movement. He braces his hands on either side of the mattress, on the outside of my thighs, and there is no more oxygen in the room. The flame in his expression has sucked it all out.
His lips crush mine as if time has run out. We don’t have the night, or the hours left to the weekend. There is only and ever this moment. No play-acting or showing off. No coy moves. It’s need, pure and raw, urgent and fierce. His lips are cooler than I imagined. A distant place in me registers that thought. Cool except there is his tongue, easing against mine, and the contrast makes me sigh.
The moments when I realize I exist are infrequent. Flashes of realization that I am alive, and this is an actual life that I am living and for those few precious moments I’m on the outside, looking at my whole world and seeing it not for what it normally feels like, an all-consuming crushing adventure rather than a spider’s web tangling me.
And that’s what this is. His lips. My lips. Nothing else is touching. Not hands or bodies. Not even our faces. Only our hungry mouths.
What will happen if I reach out, cradle his cheek with my palm? This man who in so many ways is powerful beyond imagining, in control, who plans everything down to a meticulous degree and yet seems to have no idea that it’s all too much. That everyone needs a moment of letting go.
I don’t think. If I do, I won’t be able to make the move that I must. The move that like a kiss is so soft, so normal, so everyday it should be nothing at all except it’s for these exact things wars have been fought. People have killed and died for the price of a touch.
I lift my hand quicker than the speed of doubt and pull him into my arms, my cheek pressing against the barest hint of stubble. He freezes…no, not quite. His temperature increases as if my touch burns him. He doesn’t move. I pull and he’s strong, so strong that he doesn’t budge even as muscles beneath my hands bunch and flex. Everything about him is hard and inflexible, like steel.
I rise on my knees and slip my fingers into the neck of his shirt. A shudder
“There is much you aren’t saying, so maybe we need to streamline the conversation. Your lips touching mine. What could be simpler?”
For once, I have taken him by total surprise.
“Or more destructive,” he says.
“You kiss me with your eyes every time you look at me.”
“Ah.” He goes utterly still. “Very well, then. Yes. I think I understand.”
“I want you to do it,” I say softly, reaching out my hand. “Please. What can I call you? Aleksander?”
“No, that’s what he used to call me, the bastard who was my father. At boarding school, I was Sander and that, too, never felt right, not exactly.”
“So what do you prefer?”
“Call me whatever you like. You are the exception to my rule. The exception to all my rules.”
“Why?” My voice is breathless, more than a little unsteady.
“If I knew that, I’d be a wiser man than I am now.” His eyes close and his next breath is long, slow, and shuddering. “If I kiss you, will you hold still?”
Hold still if he actually kisses me? The idea of his full lips slanting on mine, his hard chest pushing insistent against my breasts is enough to make me writhe all on its own. “No.”
His gaze snaps to mine.
“How can I promise such a thing? After all, a kiss isn’t one-sided, at least not a good kiss.”
He stands, wiping his hands on his suit pants, his shirt a little wrinkled.
He walks to the window and looks out at nothing but night, seeing only his own ghost face reflection, and my own behind him. He places a hand on the glass and the heat from his skin heats the pane. When he turns, it remains, a foggy imprint.
I move to the end of the bed, hang my feet off, the robe slipping off one shoulder.
He is there then. I don’t even have time to register movement. He braces his hands on either side of the mattress, on the outside of my thighs, and there is no more oxygen in the room. The flame in his expression has sucked it all out.
His lips crush mine as if time has run out. We don’t have the night, or the hours left to the weekend. There is only and ever this moment. No play-acting or showing off. No coy moves. It’s need, pure and raw, urgent and fierce. His lips are cooler than I imagined. A distant place in me registers that thought. Cool except there is his tongue, easing against mine, and the contrast makes me sigh.
The moments when I realize I exist are infrequent. Flashes of realization that I am alive, and this is an actual life that I am living and for those few precious moments I’m on the outside, looking at my whole world and seeing it not for what it normally feels like, an all-consuming crushing adventure rather than a spider’s web tangling me.
And that’s what this is. His lips. My lips. Nothing else is touching. Not hands or bodies. Not even our faces. Only our hungry mouths.
What will happen if I reach out, cradle his cheek with my palm? This man who in so many ways is powerful beyond imagining, in control, who plans everything down to a meticulous degree and yet seems to have no idea that it’s all too much. That everyone needs a moment of letting go.
I don’t think. If I do, I won’t be able to make the move that I must. The move that like a kiss is so soft, so normal, so everyday it should be nothing at all except it’s for these exact things wars have been fought. People have killed and died for the price of a touch.
I lift my hand quicker than the speed of doubt and pull him into my arms, my cheek pressing against the barest hint of stubble. He freezes…no, not quite. His temperature increases as if my touch burns him. He doesn’t move. I pull and he’s strong, so strong that he doesn’t budge even as muscles beneath my hands bunch and flex. Everything about him is hard and inflexible, like steel.
I rise on my knees and slip my fingers into the neck of his shirt. A shudder
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