Her mouth tastes of mint and something purely her. When she pulls back a fraction, her eyes flick to the bruise again, then to my mouth. “Does that hurt?”
“Only in the ways I like.”
“Ash,” she warns, but there’s a tremor in it, a heat that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“Sorry,” I say, not sorry at all, and I chase her this time. The kiss deepens—slow to warm, then catching quick like paper touching flame. She answers with a small sound in her throat that goes straight through me.
Everything tightens. The anger I’ve been tamping down all morning cracks and leaks out of me in the only way I know how to let it go. I slide a hand to her lower back, palm spreading over the small of it, and tug gently. “Come here.”
She goes without argument, knees on either side of my thighs, dress rustling as she climbs into my lap. I curve my other hand around the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair, and hold her there, exactly where I need her.
“This okay?” I whisper against her mouth, because the world can be on fire but this part cannot be careless.
Her breath shivers over my lips. “Yes.”
The word unlocks something I’d kept bolted shut. I tilt her, opening her to me as I kiss her deeper, hungrier, trying to drink her in, to steal enough softness to erase the hardness in my chest. She angles her mouth, meets me with equal heat. The kiss isn’t neat anymore; it’s messy and consuming and real. Every time I think we’ll come up for air, we find a new way to press closer.
Her hands start at my neck and move down—over my collarbone, the chest I tried to square against Liam, where I’m still wired with adrenaline. She flattens her palm, like she’s smoothing out the tension. “Hey,” she murmurs between kisses, “you’re still wound tight.”
“I know.” I swallow, tasting us. “Keep going.”
My left hand slides up beneath the hem of her shirt. My palm finds warm skin, the kind of warmth that unknots everything. I splay my fingers against the curve of her spine and pull her flush. She fits like she was made to.
“God, Olive,” I say into her mouth. “You’re—”
“Right here,” she finishes, kissing me again like it’s the only language we share. “I’m right here.”
Anger and need knot together under my ribs. I want to say something that explains both, that apologizes for letting Liam get to me, for letting his fear echo my own, but words are slow and my body is fast. I drag my mouth along her jaw and to the edge of her ear. She shivers. I breathe her in and try again.
Her fingers hook in the front of my shirt, fisting the fabric. A rough laugh cuts from me. “We’re a disaster.”
“A sexy, fixable disaster.” She rolls her hips, and I forget how to breathe for a second. “And you do need… medical attention.”
“I’m in your capable hands,” I manage, voice thick.
Her mouth curves against my neck. “You trust me?”
“With my life,” I say before I can think better of it, because it’s true in a way that terrifies me.
Her breath catches. That softness in her eyes deepens into something weighty and bright. She kisses the corner of my mouth, then the other, then mouths over the bruise as gently as a prayer. “Good,” she whispers. “Then let me take care of you.”
I tip my head back and let her. She maps me with patient kisses, like she’s recalibrating me to this room, this moment, to her. Every pass of her lips is a reminder of where I am, what matters, what’s real. Her hands move under my shirt again, pushing the hem up, and I lift my arms without being asked. The shirt skims off, and the air against my skin feels like permission.
She takes her time, fingers tracing the lines of muscle like a study, and yeah, I preen a little. “You always this thorough?” I ask, half teasing, half strung tight.
“Only with my favorite patients.”
I catch her hand and kiss her palm. “You’re such a flirt, Hart.”
When I reach for the hem of her shirt, she nods, eyes steady on mine. “Yes.”
I peel it up slowly, the fabric slipping over her head—and I forget every lyric I’ve ever written. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. Her hair falls messily around her shoulders; her cheeks are flushed; her mouth is swollen from our kisses.
“Beautiful,” I say, helpless.
Her throat works. “Ash.”
I cup the back of her neck and bring our mouths together again, softer now because soft can be its own kind of urgent. She makes that sound again and melts into me. My hand traces the line of her spine. Her body arches, and the tension that’s been vibrating through me loosens, rewires, becomes something cleaner and hotter.
