“That’s not exactly a recommendation for keeping me around.”
One corner of her mouth lifts. Just barely, and it doesn’t last. “No. But it means I know what I’m looking at. And you’re not what I grew up with. Not even close.”
She’s still touching my wrist. Her thumb has settled into the groove below my palm, resting against the vein where my pulse is announcing everything my face is trying not to. She has to feel it. The way it jumps when her thumb shifts. The heat climbing up my forearm from the point of contact.
“You should be running from me,” I say on a rasp.
“Probably.” She doesn’t move. “I should be doing a lot of things.”
Neither of us speaks after that. Her thumb traces a slow circle against the inside of my wrist and my lungs forget how to work. I don’t remember either of us leaning in, but she’s near enough that when her gaze drops to my mouth and stays there, the last functioning corner of my brain sends up a flare that goes completely ignored.
Her hand moves from my wrist to my jaw, slow and deliberate, palm warm against the stubble. My whole body goes still under her touch.
She closes the distance and kisses me.
Hungry and certain. She pulls my mouth to hers with her hand on my jaw and her fingers curling behind my ear, and the contact drops through me like a lit match into kerosene.
Her lips are warm and she tastes like cherry lip balm, and her other hand grabs the front of my shirt and pulls until there’s no space left between the stools. I make a sound I didn’t authorize, something low and rough against her mouth, and she swallows it.
I kiss her back because not kissing her back would require a kind of self-control I don’t think I’ve ever had and don’t want now. My hand finds her hip and draws her forward. The stool wobbles under me. Neither of us fixes it. The damp towel slides off the counter and hits the floor with a soft slap, and neither of us gives a damn about that either.
She pulls back first. Just far enough to breathe. Her forehead rests against mine, her fingers still gripping the back of my neck like she’s not ready to let go of whatever this is.
“I’ve been wanting to do that,” she says, “since we got interrupted yesterday.”
My pulse is hammering. My knuckles are throbbing. I just told this woman I’ve probably killed people, and she kissed me anyway. I don’t know what to do with that.
I should tell her everything. The memories of her family. The photographs. The wordenemystill rattling through my skull.
But her hand is warm on my neck, and her breath is close enough to taste, and the truth is a live wire I’m not brave enough to grab.
“Nat.” Her name comes out wrecked.
“Don’t.” She shakes her head, barely. “Don’t ruin it.”
So I don’t. I pull her back to me instead.
14
NATALIA
I kissed him first.And I’m not stopping.
Johnny’s mouth is warm and hungry against mine, and the sound he makes when he drags me closer sends a pulse of heat straight between my thighs.
It makes me greedy in a way I don’t recognize. Makes me want to hold him there and find out what other sounds he’s hiding.
His bandaged hand slides up my ribs, careful not to grip too hard, and I melt into the tenderness of it. He pauses. Checks my face. Makes sure I’m still here and still wanting this.
I am. God, I am.
Nikolai’s voice slithers through my head uninvited.You’re only good for what’s between your legs. A tool. A transaction.
I swallowed Nikolai’s visit the way I’ve swallowed everything my whole life. Smiled. Waited for it to pass.
But Johnny’s hands on me, Johnny’s mouth on me, Johnny looking at me like I’m someone worth being careful with? That broke the spell.
Knowing that every second of this is something my father would forbid, something Nikolai would call a betrayal of the family’s investment in my virginity? That makes it sweeter. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.
