"Don't stop," I say.
She kisses me.
It's not gentle. Not tentative. She rises up on her toes and presses her mouth to mine, and it's like a dam breaking—weeks of tension and longing and fear, all of it flooding out at once. I groan against her lips and pull her closer, my hands fisting in her wet jacket, her body pressed against mine.
She tastes like rain and something sweeter, something that's purely her. I've dreamed about this for two years—the feel of her mouth, the softness of her curves, the way she sighs when I deepen the kiss. But the reality is better than any dream. The reality is fire.
The rain pours down around us, but I don't feel it anymore. I don't feel anything except her—her hands in my hair, her body arching into mine, her breath mingling with my breath.
"Inside," she gasps against my mouth. "Take me inside."
I don't need to be told twice.
I scoop her up, one arm under her knees, the other around her back. She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face in my throat, and I carry her across the gravel, up the stone steps, through the front door.
The house is dim, quiet. If any staff see us, they have the sense to make themselves invisible. I take the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding, her weight in my arms both grounding and surreal.
My bedroom. That's where I'm taking her, though I don't remember making the decision. It just seems inevitable—the only possible destination for a journey that started two years ago at a charity gala.
I kick the door open, carry her across the threshold, and lower her onto the bed.
She looks up at me, her hair fanned across my pillows, her chest heaving. Her eyes are dark with want, but there's a question in them too.
"Are you sure?" I ask, even though asking feels like torture.
She reaches for me, fisting her hand in my bloodstained shirt.
"I've never been more sure of anything," she says.
And pulls me down.
Chapter 15 - Bianca
He tastes like rain and something darker.
I pull him down onto the bed and he comes willingly, his body covering mine, his weight pressing me into the mattress. The kiss is desperate, consuming—two years of longing and weeks of tension crashing together like waves against rocks.
His clothes are soaked, cold against my skin, but I don't care. All I care about is the heat of his mouth, the grip of his hands, the way he groans against my lips like he's been starving and I'm the only thing that can save him.
"Bianca," he breathes, pulling back just far enough to look at me. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, but there's a question in them. "Are you sure about this?"
"Stop asking me that."
"I need to know. I need you to be certain, because once we do this—"
I grab the front of his bloodstained shirt and pull him back down. "I've been certain since I walked out into the rain. Now stop talking and kiss me."
He does.
His hands find the hem of my wet sweater and pull it over my head, leaving me in just my bra. The cold air hits my skin and I shiver, but then his mouth is on my throat, my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, and the cold doesn't matter anymore.
Nothing matters except this. Except him.
I fumble with the buttons of his shirt, my fingers clumsy with urgency. He helps me, shrugging out of the ruined fabric, and for a moment I just stare.
His chest is a canvas of ink and violence. Tattoos cover his skin—dark designs that sprawl across his shoulders, snake down his arms, climb up the sides of his ribs. I can't make out the details in the dim light, just shapes and shadows, patterns that speak of a history I don't yet know.
And beneath the ink, scars. They crisscross his body—some old and faded, others newer, still pink. A puckered line below his ribs that looks like a knife wound. A starburst pattern on his shoulder that can only be a bullet hole. Evidence of every fight he's survived, every battle he's won.
