His jaw flexed, like the next word was particularly hard for him to say, and he had to force it out. “…feelingsaround my actions.”
“You’reaware?” I repeated.
“Yes, aware,” he answered, voice flat and controlled. “But not sorry.”
Of course, he wasn’t sorry for going behind my back to negotiate the sale of my artwork. Just like he wasn’t sorry for confronting me about my daughters. Or giving me gifts to do my newfound art that I wouldn’t have been able to afford on my own. Or making sure I was protected.
From my nightmares, and from own myself.
Even after I pushed him away. Even when I told him I didn’t want anything else from him, despite knowing he was the walking definition of Acts of Service as a Love Language.
“Fuck!” The word exploded out of me. Obviously, I’d spent too much time with Boone over the past few weeks.
But then I did it again, turning my back to Ravik to yell it at the ceiling with my upturned fists balled in the air. “FUCK!”
I spun back to Ravik to demand, “Why are you like this?!”
Right before I rushed at him, like a bull…
…and slammed into him.
With a kiss.
For a split second, Ravik just stood there, frozen, with his arms stiff at his sides.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard Boone whisper, “Holy fuck.”
And I wondered if Ravik was about to push me away—you know, because of the “I’m crazy, just give up on me” speech I’d issued to Boone less than an hour earlier. Maybe he’d taken Maya Angelou’s advice and decided to believe me.
But then Ravik’s hands came up to cup my face, and suddenly, suddenly, he was kissing me back.
Not slow torture sipping at me, like Zion did below.
Not consuming me whole, like Boone did above.
He hunched his shoulders to get a better angle and pushed his lips into mine, licking into my mouth to take back control of the kiss with a perfectly measured amount of speed and pressure.
Warm, certain, and tender, like the end of a romantic movie.
Just right. Just right. Just right.
“Thank you,” I murmured into his mouth when it finished, and we both came up for air.
His hands were still cupping my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones, but something uncertain flickered behind his dark-brown eyes.
“You don’t have to thank me like this.” His jaw set. “Vinso came to me with the inquiry about the statue. I only told him a price and gave him your new number.”
“No, that’s not what I was thanking you for—I mean, thank you for that, too.” I threw him a quick grateful smile. “He commissioned five bears, and that’s going to be a life-changer, but…”
My chest went all gooey when I gazed into his eyes. They weren’t hard and unyielding, like they’d been the last time I was here, but soft and curious as he waited for me to finish.
“Thank you for the kiss. That was amazing.”
He startled a little, then showed me something I’d never seen before. His smile.
It spread across his handsome face—slow and devastating, like sunrise over the lake I thought might be too cold to swim in—right before he said the perfect thing:
“Then we should do it again.”
