The city blurs even more behind a veil of my tears. “Bas?—”
“I want you to come to the gala with me. Not as my employee, but as my date. My partner.” He stops himself, swallows, continues. “I want you there asmine, Eliana. In front of everyone.” He cups the back of my neck. “Not just for the gala, either. I know we signed a deal and that I’ve paid you a lot of money to stick around, but I’m asking you to stay past that. I want the real thing with you. Not ninety days of it. I wantallof it.”
I pull back, though the barest outline of his face is all I can see in this much shadow. “What happened to lying to ourselves?”
“Fuck lying.” He runs his thumb across my cheekbone. “I’m done with that.”
The city keeps bleeding light below us. My heart is doing a strange contradiction in my chest—expanding and contracting at the same time, like it can’t decide whether to open or protect itself.
I think about my mother holding my hand on her couch, admitting she’d spent her whole life waiting for someone else to fix her. How she finally understood that’s not how it works.
Bastian’s not trying to fix me. He’s just asking me to stay.
“I’m terrified,” I tell him.
“Me, too.”
“I mean really terrified. Like, bone-deep, existential-crisis, pee-the-bed terrified.”
“I know.” He rests his forehead against mine. “Say yes anyway.”
Still, I hesitate. But you can only push off fate for so long. Eventually, it has its way with you.
“Okay. Yeah. Yes.”
His mouth finds mine in the darkness, and the city disappears completely.
Bastian knows exactly what he wants. His lips are soft but insistent as they part mine. His hand slides from the back of my neck up into my hair, fingers tangling in the copper mess of it. My hands go to his chest, palms flat against the rumpled cotton of his shirt.
His heart is a constant; mine is going haywire; but I guess that’s how it’s been from the start, hasn’t it?
He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and I taste wintergreen. His other hand grabs me by my waist and pulls me closer until there’s no space left between us. My fingers curl into fists around his collar.
He breaks away just long enough to inhale, his forehead pressed to mine, before diving back in. This time, it’s a little messier, like the seams that keep us both stitched up and proper are starting to fray. When his teeth catch my bottom lip, I whimper.
His palms slide down my sides to the hem of my shirt. He separates just enough to tug it over my head, and I lift my arms to help him. The fabric catches on my hair before coming free, and then I’m in my bra and jeans in the darkness.
His fingers trace the line of my collarbone, then lower, following the curve of my ribs. When he reaches the clasp of my bra, he pauses, his breath hot against my neck.
“Yes,” I whisper to answer the question he didn’t have to ask.
The clasp gives way. He peels the straps down my arms, and then that’s gone, too.
His mouth finds my throat, my shoulder, lower. I press into him as his hands cup my breasts and knead. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, clumsy and urgent now. I get three undone before giving up and just yanking the thing over his head.
Skin on skin. His chest against mine. The cool air of the empty building raises goosebumps along my arms, but everywhere he touchesburns.
His hands move to my jeans, working the button free, dragging down the zipper. I kick off my shoes and help him wriggle the denim down my hips.
I’m huddled on the floor in my underwear in the dark, with a man who’s already seen me naked and kissed me from head to toe—but suddenly, I’m embarrassed. I’m acutely aware of every imperfection. The softness of my stomach. My thighs touching. Stretch marks I’ve had since I was sixteen. I haven’t shaved in almost a week, for God’s sake.
“Hey.” His voice cuts through my downward shame spiral. “Where’d you go?”
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not.” His hands palm my waist. “You disappeared on me.”
I open my mouth to deny it, but he speaks first. “You’re perfect,” he says simply. It’s a fact when he says it. Water is wet, two and two is four, Eliana Hunter is perfect.
