But when our mouths collide, the intention slips.
Her warm, defiant lips yield without surrender. She tastes of spearmint gum and…herself. Alive, vibrant, and painfully authentic. A fervent contrast to the frigid mechanism I’ve become.
I brace for the coming resistance. Anticipate the reflex of fear and disgust. Instead, her chin tips back, bridging the gap in height. A surprised gasp claws its way out of her.
And then, against all reason, she kisses me back.
The change hits me like a live wire. Her raw, immediate reply is pure voltage, burning through every layer of self-control.
I want more than the act. I want to shatter.
Her or me?
I move without thought.
Releasing her hand, I slide my palm to her waist. My fingers splay over the curve of her hip, the threadbare fabric a useless barrier to her heat.
She trembles as she gravitates closer.
I bury my other hand in her delicate, silken hair. Too soft for my violence.
The kiss deepens. A slow, careful exploration. I’m not prepared for the gentleness she offers. Her lips part in invitation rather than defeat. A floral scent—lavender, I realize, thanks to that little bottle from her bag—clings to her skin, mixing with notes of citrus hand soap.
I tug her tighter against me, that subtle scent invading my nose and numbing my nerve endings.
Her body melds against mine, the heat of her enough to singe the clothes right off my body.
She is present. Vivid. Every sense occupied.
She’s real. I’m real. In her kiss, I breathe.
For a single, devastating heartbeat, I’m gone.
The fire that kindles in my chest and sparks off through the rest of my body obliterates my intentions, thoughts, and mission.
A molten wildfire inside me turns everything brittle and bright.
She melts, molding into me until she fits like a secret meant to be kept. Her sharp, involuntary breath catches, and her hands come up to rest against my chest.
Thirty seconds stretch like a wire knotted with need and hunger. And in that stretch, every line in me blurs. I forget the parameters, the labels, the cold geometry of bodies stacked in alleyways.
This reckless, inescapable connection erases everything. The connection’s one I never asked for and can’t even name but also can’t refuse.
Then the world snaps back in sharper focus than before.
This isn’t me.
I don’t surrender to feeling.
Only control matters. Control keeps you alive.
I jerk away and rear back so quickly that she rocks on her feet, thrown off-balance by the sudden emptiness between us.
My lungs claw for air, my heart hammering so wildly against my ribs, I half-expect a bone to break.
What the fuck was that?
She shifts, her shoulder scraping the wall, the back of her hand pressed to her lips and white-knuckled. She staggers forward and pivots away, her hair swinging down to shield her face.
