So I did.
I looked at him and the fear dissolved into something entirely different. Something warm that had nothing to do with height and everything to do with the way he was watching me.
At the top the ferris wheel paused.
Vegas sprawled below us—all lights and chaos and impossible beauty. The strip glowed like someone had spilled stars across the desert. The mountains sat dark against the horizon.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said.
“You’re beautiful.”
I turned to find him already looking at me. Not at the view. Just at me. His eyes were dark and intense and filled with something that stole the air from my lungs.
My heart stumbled. “Michael?—”
“I want to kiss you.” He said it quietly. Simply. Like he’d been holding the words in his mouth for hours. Like he was confessing something he’d been holding back for too long. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night.”
I couldn’t breathe properly. We were suspended at the top of the world, the gondola swaying gently, and he was looking at me like nothing else existed.
“Then why haven’t you?” I whispered, my body sharp with anticipation.
Something changed in his expression. His eyes went from careful to hungry in the space of a heartbeat.
He leaned in slowly. His mouth was an inch from mine.
The second our lips touched, something ignited. His mouth was soft and warm and demanding all at once, and I melted into him without thinking. He made this sound low in his throat that I felt everywhere. The kiss deepened and I opened for him without hesitation, tasting him, learning him, getting drunk on the way he kissed like he’d been starving for it.
His teeth caught my bottom lip and I gasped. He took advantage, his tongue sweeping in. Nothing existed except his mouth and his hands and the way he was kissing me like I was oxygen and he’d been drowning.
We were supposed to be taking this slow.
This wasn’t slow.
This was falling. Free-falling with no parachute and no plan and no thought except more.
His hand fisted in my hair and he tugged gently, tilting my head back so he could kiss me deeper. I whimpered and felt him smile against my mouth.
Claudette.” He said my name between kisses, voice wrecked and reverent. “You’re going to kill me.”
The gondola jerked suddenly, starting its descent, and we broke apart.
His hair was a mess where I’d run my fingers through it. My lips felt swollen. We stared at each other in the dim light of the gondola, breathless and undone. And as the ferry wheels carried us down, I forgot about the woman from earlier and memory gaps and all the questions I’d been collecting.
For now, this was enough.
The elevator ride up to the penthouse was quiet in a comfortable way.
Michael held my hand—and the stuffed elephant—like both were equally important. Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence with words.
He unlocked the door. I stepped inside—and froze.
The lights were already on.
An older man stood in the living room like he’d been waiting for hours. Sharp eyes in a weathered face, bone structure that matched Michael’s exactly.
“Grandfather,” Michael said behind me, his voice laced with surprise.
The old man stood. Tall even with age, commanding in a way that made me want to stand up straighter even though I was already standing.
