Her cheeks flush pink and something about that makes me happy.That I'm still the one that does that to her.
"Happy birthday Leni."
"Thank you for bringing me here," she says softly, turning from the painting to face me.In the gallery light, her skin looks luminous, ethereal.
"Thank you," I say, kissing her once more because now I can't seem to get enough."For saying fuck it."
Her hand comes up to rest against my chest, right over my heart.I wonder if she can feel how fast it's beating, how just her touch makes my entire nervous system light up like fucking Christmas.
"I'm glad I did," she whispers.
And then I'm kissing her again, she responds immediately, her body melting against mine as her hands tangle in my hair.When we finally break apart, both of us breathing hard, I rest my forehead against hers.
"We should go," I say, my voice rough with want.
"Yeah," she agrees, but neither of us moves for a long moment, caught in the gravity of what's happening between us.
The driveback to the villa is a blur—streetlights, empty roads, and Nora’s hand in mine like she’s afraid to let go.Or maybe I’m the one afraid.Hard to tell.
‘All Kinds of Time’plays through the speakers, and for a second it hits me how stupidly right this feels.
Her hand.
Her laugh still lingering in the air.The way she keeps glancing over at me like she’s working something out.
I keep telling myself to be responsible.
We should get back, go inside, say goodnight and act like two adults who understand boundaries.
But there’s another part of me—the part that hasn’t touched her in eight months—that doesn’t give a shit about boundaries.I'm already imagining what happens if I pull the car over and kiss her.
How one kiss would turn into another.
How fast all our carefully built distance would disappear.
The Greeks had two kinds of time, I remember reading that somewhere.One waschronos—normal time, the predictable kind that tells you to slow down and think.
The other waskairos—the right moment.
The one that doesn’t come around twice.
Right now, chronos is telling me to keep my head straight.
Kairos is telling me this might be it.
The last moment before she gets back on a plane and goes back to a life I’m not part of.And I don’t know which one I’m supposed to listen to.
All I know is her hand is still in mine, and letting go feels impossible.
By the time we pull into the driveway it's 1AM, my heart is hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape this moment, this inevitability.Eight fucking months of wanting, of thinking I'd lost my chance, of believing I wasn't good enough for someone like her, and now she's here, choosing me one last time before reality catches up and this all just becomes another memory shared between us.
I barely get the front door closed before she's kissing me again, so I back her up against the wood with desperation.
Her hands are everywhere—clawing at my shirt, gripping my hair hard enough to hurt, tracing my jaw like she's trying to burn the memory into her fingertips.I can't get close enough.
"Upstairs," I grit out between kisses, my voice cracking like my control is hanging on by a thread.
She nods against my mouth, and I grab her—fuck, Ineedher—her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist as I take the stairs two at a time.Her lips are everywhere, her hands in my hair, her breath hot against my neck.She’s kissing me like she’s trying to memorize me, like she already knows this moment has an expiration date.
