“Forget something?” She turns with the glass in her hand and nearly walks into my chest.
I’m close. Too close. Close enough to count the freckles across the bridge of her nose. Close enough to see the exact moment her breath changes.
“Yeah.” My eyes drop to her mouth before I can stop them. “Something like that.”
She doesn’t step back. That’s the thing. She could sidestep me, put the island between us, do any of the smart things she’s supposed to do. Instead she stays right where she is, glass suspended halfway to her mouth, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
I take the glass from her hand and set it on the counter without breaking eye contact. The microwave beeps. Neither of us moves toward it.
“Johnny.” It’s barely a whisper. A warning that doesn’t sound like one.
I don’t touch her. Not yet. I just stand there, one hand braced on the counter behind her, close enough that her breath hits the hollow of my throat in warm little bursts. Close enough to smell that vanilla lotion she keeps on the bathroom counter, the one I’ve become borderline addicted to without meaning to. Her fingers hover near my chest, not quite landing.
The space between us is maybe two inches, and every single one of them is killing me.
She tilts her chin up. I watch her gaze drop to my mouth and drag back up, slow. Like she’s daring herself.
That’s all it takes.
I lower my head to the crook of her neck, and the sound she makes when my lips find her pulse point, this quiet, shaky inhale, turns the last of my restraint to ash. Her pulse hammers under my mouth. Frantic and wild and proof that whatever this is, I’m not the only one drowning in it.
Her hand comes up to my pecs, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt like she’s holding on and holding back at the same time.
“We shouldn’t do this.” Her voice has no spine behind it. None. And the way her weight settles into me, hips tilting forward, breath going ragged against my ear, makes the words sound like they belong to someone who left the room days ago.
“Probably not.” I drag my mouth along her collarbone, tasting salt and heat. Her fingers tighten in my shirt. “And yet.”
She makes a sound, quiet and involuntary, somewhere between a sigh and a surrender, and her back arches off the counter just enough to press the full length of her body against mine.
The friction alone nearly takes my knees out. I wrap my hand around her hip and pull her into me, and whatever wall she built after that kitchen kiss four days ago just crumbled to dust between us.
Her phone screams from the coffee table.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Natalia jerks away from me, crossing the room in two steps and snatching the phone with shaking hands. I’m left gripping the counter, teeth clenched, blood pounding. Second time her phone has killed a moment between us. I’m starting to take it personally.
Cold air fills the space where she was. The microwave starts beeping again, insistent, forgotten.
“Hello?” Her voice is all wrong. The warmth is gone, replaced by something brittle and polite. “I didn’t. No, I know you are. I?—”
She’s been cut off. I can hear a male voice on the other end, clipped and aggressive, but I can’t make out the words. What I can make out is the way Natalia’s posture changes. Shoulders curling inward. Head dropping. I’ve seen her do this before, that first morning on the beach after a phone call. The same shrinking. The same disappearing act, like she’s trying to fold herself into someone who doesn’t have opinions or needs or a voice worth raising.
“Tomorrow? I thought—” Cut off again. Her free hand presses flat against her stomach, fingers splayed. “Yes, Nikolai. Of course. I’ll be ready.”
The line goes dead. She stands there holding the phone against her thigh, staring at nothing. Then she drops onto the couch and presses her palms against her eyes.
“Everything okay?”
“My brother.” She says it the way you’d sayroot canal.“He was supposed to come next week. To check on me. Now it’s tomorrow.”
I lean against the kitchen counter, watching her. The girl who was throwing popcorn at my face five minutes ago is gone. In her place is someone smaller, someone defeated, and I don’t like the trade.
“What’s his deal? You two close?”
She lifts her head and looks at me, and her expression is tired in a way that has nothing to do with the hour.
“No.”
