Her breath hitched, tears unexpectedly springing to her eyes. “Maybe.” Her voice was reedy, a fraction away from cracking.
“If it’s been two years, how do you know you’d still be like that?”
She laughed, a hollow sound in the back of her throat. “I think getting wasted and attacking you outside a restaurant bathroom is a pretty bad omen. How isthatyour takeaway from all this?”
“What should my takeaway be?” He seemed distracted as he said it, his gaze following the path of his hand up and down her arm, which, admittedly, was drawing a lot of her focus, too. Every time, he stopped short of the spot where her cardigan ended, the stretch of skin where her neck met her shoulder. She ached for the brush of his fingers there.
“ ‘Get me the fuck out of here’?” she suggested, and he gusted a quick laugh.
“I already am getting the fuck out of here.”
The two of them were quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, with a sense of revelation, he continued, “But maybe that’s the answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…I’m leaving town in less than two months. And I don’t want to spend it pretending you don’t exist. I don’t think I can.”
Merritt swallowed hard. “I don’t think I can, either.”
“So why should we?” He brought his gaze back to hers again. “I want to spend it with you, Merritt. Whatever that looks like. You’re so sure it’ll end badly…but I’d rather regret trying it than regretnottrying it. And if it blows up, well, I’ll be gone soon enough. We can’t rock the boat if we know it’s coming. I mean, I’ll be getting out of the boat before it rocks. Or while it’s rocking.” Niko’s brow creased, and he glanced away for a second, gathering his thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is, knowing there’s a definite ending might make it easier. It can just be what it is. We don’t need to put any pressure on the future.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Her voice was timid, barely audible.
He met her gaze with an intensity that made her feel like allher skin had been peeled off. “No relationship is forever. How long does something have to last for it to be meaningful?”
Merritt was rendered speechless.
She fought to think clearly, even as potent, unchecked desire clouded every higher brain function.
Maybe he was right. Maybe they should just give in, stop fighting this thing between them and let it run its course instead: a relationship that was all honeymoon phase, with no need to worry about how to sustain it. It could burn as bright and hot as it needed to, and once it flared out, they’d go their separate ways.
And maybe if she weren’t sitting this close to him, if he weren’t touching her quite so tenderly, if he weren’t looking at her with the darkest and most soulful eyes she’d seen in her life, she would’ve had the wherewithal to say no.
“Niko,” she said softly, once she regained the ability to speak. “Sometimes I think you might be the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
With that, she took off her glasses and placed them on the coffee table before bringing her hand to cup his jaw, theDays Since You Last Kissed Nikocounter inevitably flipping back to zero.
18
As soon as Merritt’s mouthmet his, the first word that flashed across Niko’s mind wascontrol.
It was the last thing he’d expected to happen when he offered to go over there—but at the same time, it felt so natural that he wasn’t surprised at all. All that mattered now, though, was keeping his cool, even as he felt like he might burn up from the inside out.
He forced himself to move twice as slowly and gently as he wanted to. It would be a rookie move to jump from zero to a hundred, all over her like it was their first time unchaperoned in someone’s basement—especially since control had been the last thing on his mind when he’d kissed her at Off the Rails. At least then he had the excuse of thinking that might be his only chance.
Now that he knew he had the luxury of time, he slowly dragged his hand up her arm, finally splaying his fingers acrossthe bare stretch of skin at the base of her neck, under the collar of her sweater. She gasped into his mouth, then sucked his bottom lip between her teeth.
Holy fuck.
Control.Control.
She didn’t seem interested in that, though. It almost felt like she was baiting him—the more he held back, the more she seemed determined to make him break. Her fingernails digging into his skin, her tongue sliding between his lips or dragging up his neck, her little whimpers and moans as she pressed against him. All of that ferocity she performed with, all of it directed straight at him.
He was only fucking human.
With a grunt, he hooked his arm under her knees, slinging her across his lap. She let out a laugh of surprise, clinging to his neck and burying her face into it until she was fully re-situated.
He kissed her again, matching her hunger this time, finally allowing his hands to wander, sliding them under her shirt and over the soft, smooth expanse of her belly, letting out a helpless, borderline inhuman sound when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.Jesus fucking Christ.He was so overwhelmed by that news that he backed right off, bringing one hand to rest at her waist, the other one cradling the base of her scalp, finding a tight grip in her hair.
