Somehow, when they drew apart, Rui found herself sitting on the nearest bed with Zizi kneeling in front of her.
He was looking slightly dazed. “Wow, did you... did youfeelthat? I can’t believe we waited so long—”
“Shhh,” she murmured. Sadness flickered in her chest. He was right; they had lost so much time. She shrugged off her jacket and reached for him again, fingertips grazing his kiss-swollen lips, deciding she wanted to ruin them just a little more. As if he knew what she was thinking, Zizi grinned, face a little feral, teeth a little too sharp.
“To hell with fate,” she said, and yanked him close.
Their next kiss was like sparring: anticipating an opponent’s next move, shifting into a better position, surprising them with a feint—testing their resolve. Rui discovered that Zizi was very, very good at sparring.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before he finally pulled back. His cheeks were flushed, and she lost herself in the pale fire of his eyes.
“What?” Rui whispered, suddenly shy.
“I like looking at beautiful things.”
She made a small noise of complaint and tugged at his clothes. “So do I,” she said, her eyes sweeping over his bare skin as he pulled his sweater and tank top off.
Moonlight shone through the windows, illuminating his cheekbones, his chest, the hard lines of his body. Still kneeling before her, Zizi tensed at her touch, his gaze growing hungrier as her fingers followed the tattoo just inches below his left collarbone, above his heart, the tattoo she had been longing to see.
Two butterflies.
Their loveliness contrasted with the many wicked scars on his chest and arms from Aloysius’s blades. Rui felt a sudden spiteful pleasure for killing the monster.
The blue fire she’d driven into Zizi left the barest trace of a burn. Theskin around the area was unblemished, except for a thin ridge of skin, about two inches long, where she had stabbed him with her sword.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered. She felt his breath catching as she leaned in and touched her lips to the scar.
Zizi was looking at her like he was memorizing every detail for one of his charcoal sketches. Rui wondered who he saw, if he recognized the angry, frightened girl who spoke only with her blades.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“It’s only been a few weeks—”
“But itfeltlike years. I was a man in the desert dying of thirst; only your presence could quench my—”
Seized by laughter, Rui buried her face into his neck. She felt him shiver as her breath tickled his skin. “How do you even come up with such lines?”
“I enjoy the occasional romance novel. Something about the way they’re written, so compelling and—”
The next word stayed in his throat as Rui clapped her hand over his mouth. His lips were so soft. She wanted them on her.
“Shut up and kiss me again.”
Zizi laughed. “Bossy.”
He placed a hand on her cheek, and she leaned into his touch, brushing her mouth against the edge of his palm. Suddenly his lips were claiming hers again, more demanding than before. She matched his urgency, sensed his desperation, felt his need to be with her.
Rui’s lungs were heaving. The ache, thewantwas too strong. She yanked her top off.
Zizi hesitated. His pupils were blown wide, his irises just a rim of blue. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, blushing furiously.
Whispering her name with a reverence that made her gasp, he trailed kisses from her bare shoulder across her collarbone, lips lingering on skin.A jolt of pleasure shot through her, and when he skimmed the sensitive part of her throat—
Her veins—something was moving in her veins.
Rui shot up, gasping for breath.
