One of his hands slid into my hair while the other pressed firmly against the small of my back. The kiss deepened instantly, turning hungry and desperate.
His tongue swept against mine, and I gasped into the kiss. We stumbled backward until my back hit the wall, his armscaging me and his strong body pressing against mine. I could feel his heart racing against my own and taste the faint hint of whiskey on his breath.
This was real. This connection between us was finally happening.
I moaned into his mouth. “I’m not going anywhere. I just want to be with you.”
"I've wanted you to stay since the first day," he replied, lips trailing along my jaw. "I just didn't know how to ask."
I wrapped my arms around his neck, chasing his warmth. "You don't have to ask. I'm choosing this. I'm choosing you."
His mouth found mine again, and everything else fell away—the conference, the uncertainty, the fear.
Just us, finally choosing each other.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MIREYA
We endedup on the bed eventually, lying atop the heavy white duvet with our shoes discarded on the carpet. Riven's arm rested beneath my head while my hand settled on his chest. I could feel the rhythmic beating of his heart under my palm—still racing from the intensity of what had just passed between us.
“We should probably have a real talk,” he suggested quietly.
“We probably should,” I agreed, though I didn’t want to move.
“We need to decide what this means for us and what happens next.”
“Mmm,” I hummed, keeping my eyes closed for a moment.
Neither of us made a move to create distance between our bodies. The hotel room was remarkably quiet except for the muffled sounds of late-night traffic passing below us.
“I honestly don't know how to do this,” I admitted into the silence.
“Do what exactly?” he asked, his voice low and vibrating against my ear.
“This. Us. Whatever we're calling this.”
His fingers began to trace absent patterns on my shoulder in a way that felt incredibly soothing. “We don't have to put a specific label on anything yet.”
“Don’t we?” I asked, finally opening my eyes to meet his. “We work in the same department, and I still live in your house. Emma is going to have a lot of difficult questions for us.”
“Emma already has plenty of questions for me.” He huffed out a soft laugh. “She has been asking me things for several weeks now.”
I lifted my head slightly to look at his face. “What kind of questions?”
“She asks why we're both pretending that we don't like each other.” He smiled. “She's not a very subtle teenager.”
"She's fifteen," I reminded him with a chuckle. "Subtle isn't in her vocabulary."
“That’s true,” he conceded.
I placed my head back down on his chest, listening as his heartbeat began to steady into a slower rhythm. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her that I'm emotionally unavailable and generally terrible at handling feelings.”
“Well, that’s a pretty accurate description.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” he replied dryly.
