“Alexei,” he corrects quietly.
And then he kisses me.
It’s not how I imagined a first kiss with someone like him would be, and I haven’t imagined it, Ihaven’t,except for maybe once on the plane and possibly twice during the Expo and okay, fine, the point is that this is nothing like what I would have expected.
Because it’s gentle.
His lips meet mine, and everything about it is soft and aching in its restraint. He kisses me like he has all the time in the world. Like this elevator could stay suspended between floors forever and he would be content to spend every second of eternity right here, his fingers on my jaw, his mouth on mine, coaxing me open like he’s asking a question he already knows the answer to.
And my body answers.
I don’t decide to kiss him back. I don’t make a choice. My body simply...responds. My lips part under his. My hand finds the front of his shirt, not pushing, not pulling, just holding on, because my knees have stopped working and the only solid thing in the world right now is the fabric beneath my fingers and the warmth of his mouth.
He tastes like something I don’t have a name for. Something cool and deep that goes straight through me and settles in a place I thought Billy had permanently destroyed.
And the pull, that terrifying, undertow, riptide pull that I’ve been fighting since the moment I sat across from him on that plane, doesn’t just intensify.
It sings.
Like it’s been waiting for exactly this. Like my entire body has been holding its breath for months and this, his lips, his hand, the warmth of him close enough that I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, is the first full breath it’s been allowed to take.
When he pulls back, I can’t move.
I can’t think.
I can’t do anything except stand there with my hand on his shirt and my lips still parted and my heart crashing against my ribs, staring up at him like he’s just rewritten every law of physics I thought I understood.
His thumb traces my jawline once. Slowly.
And then, gently, so gently it almost breaks me, he says:
“I think you’re mistaken, Zia.”
It’s the first time he’s used my first name.
It sounds like it was made to be spoken in his voice.
“I’m not offering you a choice.”
A pause. His eyes hold mine. Nothing cold. Nothing predatory. Nothing that says ownership or conquest.
There is only certainty.
The sort that has waited a lifetime to arrive.
“But I’ll give you a week to get used to the idea.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DAY TWO OF SEVEN, ANDthe Prince of Atlantis has stolen four kisses.
I’m keeping count because I’m a rational, organized person who processes her emotions through data, and also because if I don’t quantify what’s happening to me, I’m going to lose my grip on reality entirely.
Kiss number one was the elevator at The Hive. That one doesn’t count because I was in shock and my brain had already shut down and you can’t be held responsible for kissing someone back when your entire nervous system has been replaced by static.
Except it does count. Obviously it counts. I can still feel it when I close my eyes, his fingers on my jaw, the aching gentleness of his mouth, the way his thumb traced my jawline after like he was memorizing the shape of me.
So. Four kisses. Five if we’re being honest.
