“Did you think I lived in a bloodstained torture chamber?”
“I hadn’t quite ruled it out yet.” I grin weakly at him.
I’m a little woozy, I notice. I might’ve cracked my head against a root when I fell.
He carries me to the couch and sets me down gingerly. Then he disappears into what I assume is a bathroom down the hall, returning a moment later with a first aid kit that looks like it could handle a zombie apocalypse.
“This is overkill,” I protest as he kneels in front of me again.
“Hush.” He opens the kit and pulls out antiseptic wipes, gauze, medical tape.
He cleans my palms first, dabbing away grit and blood. Every time I wince, his jaw tightens.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“You’re not the one who made me fall.”
“No, but I should’ve—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
Should’ve what? Been there? Caught me? Wrapped me in bubble wrap and locked me away in the highest room of the tallest tower so no one but him could ever touch me again?
That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.
He moves to my knee next, carefully rolling up my torn leggings. The skin is already mottled purple and swollen. He presses an ice pack against it, and I hiss through my teeth.
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know it hurts.”
I watch him work, this man who once pinned me against the wall of a walk-in freezer for embarrassing him, now treating my scraped knee like it’s a mortal wound.
And I wonder which of us he’s really trying to fix: me or himself?
Neither of us speak as Bastian finishes with the wipes and the Neosporin and wraps gauze around my hands. He bandages my knee with an ice pack and props it up on a pillow, stretched out in front of me.
But even when he’s done, he stays. He’s kneeling between my knees like he did at the movie theater, and one look in his eyes is all I need to see to know that he’s remembering that, too.
“Better?” he asks.
“Getting there.”
He still doesn’t move away. His hand is on my thigh, warm and heavy andthere, and I’m suddenly very aware that we’re alone in his penthouse with no movie screen behind us and no sunrise to distract us and absolutely nothing to stop whatever happens next from happening.
He’s so tall that, even kneeling, he’s almost at eye level. I look at his eyes, and even though the world is darkening at the edges, with him right here, I can see everything I care to see. Sharp jaw. Crooked nose. One blond curl dangling over his forehead. His lips are full and utterly kissable. It’d be so easy. If he just— if I just— then we could?—
“This is a terrible idea,” I whisper.
“The worst,” he agrees, but his hand goes higher up my thigh. “I no longer give a fuck.”
Then he surges forward and claims my mouth.
My hands fly up to his shoulders as his go to my hips, bracketing me against the couch. The angle is awkward until he crawls up my body and covers me.
I open for him. His tongue sweeps against mine, and I taste that wintergreen again. I missed it so damn bad.
He groans into my mouth. His hand splays wide on my waist, fingertips brushing the strip of exposed skin where my sweatshirt has ridden up.
This is it,I think to myself.No obstacles, no excuses, just the final step before I truly fall into the deep end and never, ever come up for air again. He’s going to take off my clothes and I’m going to take off his, and honestly, isn’t it kind of fitting that I’m bleeding and broken as it happens? I’ll feel his body on mine, feel myself offer myself up to him, and all the will-they-won’t-they tension that’s plagued me since the moment my life changed forever in that empty office will disappear. There’s no telling what it’ll leave behind—only that it will feel so, so good to finally stopenduringand finally startliving. So take it, Bastian—take me—take me away from this and bring me to the brink of?—
Then I hear a key in the lock.
