"Because you came to Prague on your own. You chose me on your own. And you're standing in my living room right now telling me you don't know how to be honest, which is the most honest thing anyone's ever said to me." I take a step closer. "You're already changing your mind, Tanya. You just haven't caught up yet."
Her breath catches. I hear it. A small, sharp inhale that she doesn't manage to hide, and the sound of it goes through me like electricity.
I'm close enough now that I can see the faint dusting of freckles along her collarbone that her makeup didn't quite cover. Close enough that I can smell her perfume, the same one from Prague, something warm and subtle that I've never been able to identify but would recognize anywhere.
"Tell me to stop and I'll stop," I say. "Tell me to sleep on the couch and I'll sleep on the couch. Tell me this is too fast and I'll wait another two years if that's what you need. But don't tell me you don't feel this, because I was there and I know what it sounds like when you stop pretending."
Her eyes search mine. Gray and bright and impossibly close. I can see every fracture in the ice, every crack I've opened tonight, and beneath all of it, something warm and alive that she's been trying to kill for two years and can't.
"I hate that you see me," she whispers.
I lift my hand. My fingers brush the line of her jaw, feather-light, and she doesn't flinch. She doesn't move at all. She justcloses her eyes and exhales, and the breath that comes out of her sounds like something she's been holding for two years.
"Tanya," I say her name the way I said it in Prague. Low. Against her skin. Like it's the only word I know.
Her hand comes up and closes around my wrist. Holding me there.
"Don't be gentle with me because you think I'll break," she says. Her voice is rough. Raw. The ice is gone and what's underneath it is heat. "I won't break."
"I know you won't."
"And don't you dare look at me tomorrow like you've won something."
"This isn't a game to me, Tanya."
"No," she says, and opens her eyes. "It isn't."
She kisses me.
Not the way she kissed me in Prague. That kiss was calculated. Controlled. The opening move in a strategy she thought she was running. This kiss is nothing like that. Her mouth is warm and demanding and slightly desperate, and when her fingers tighten on my wrist and she pulls me closer, I stop being patient.
I've been patient for two years. I've been steady and measured and controlled, and all of that was necessary, and none of it is what she needs from me right now.
What she needs is to know that the want is mutual. That I'm not just patient. I'm starving.
I slide my hand from her jaw to the back of her neck and pull her into me, and when she makes a sound against my mouth, low and broken and real, the last two years collapse into nothing.
I pull back just far enough to see her face. Her eyes are dark. Her lips are parted. Her composure is in ruins and she's lookingat me like she can't decide whether to be furious or grateful that I did this to her.
But all I can think is; she's here. She's mine. And this time, she's not leaving before morning.
Tanya
He kisses me like he needs it more than his next breath.
That's the thing that undoes me. The way his control fractures the second I give him permission, and what comes through the cracks isn't careful or measured or restrained. It's hunger. The kind that's been sitting in the dark for two years, growing teeth.
His hand is on the back of my neck, holding me against him, and his mouth moves over mine with a certainty that makes my knees feel like they've been replaced with something liquid. I grip the front of his shirt because I need to hold onto something, the smooth fabric bunching in my fists, and I can feel the heat of him through it. The solid, real weight of his body pressed against mine.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, and the expression on his face makes something hot and reckless bloom behind my ribs. I wonder if he can see it, because he takes my hand and leads me up the stairs.
The bedroom is like the rest of the house. Simple. Warm. A wide bed with white linen and a low wooden headboard. Soft light glows from a lamp on the nightstand. He turns to face me, and we stand there in the quiet for a moment. His hand still holding mine. His thumb tracing a slow line across my knuckles, and even that, even that tiny point of contact, sends something electric up my arm.
"Turn around," he says.
I do. I don't know why. I don't take orders from anyone. But his voice is low and steady, and my body responds to it before my mind can build an argument.
His fingers find the ends of the ribbons at the back of my dress. He unfastens the bow and begins pulling the ribbon free, row by row. His knuckles brush my skin with each pass, and I realize he's going slowly on purpose.
