This kiss was slower, which was worse in all the best ways. He moved his hand from my ribs to my chest, palm flat, and I could feel my own heartbeat pushing against it, which felt unfairly exposed. His thumb pressed into the muscle there like he was mapping it, learning it, and I exhaled against his mouth in a way that wasn't quite a sound but wasn't quite not one either.
I got my hands into his hair.
“Soren.” My name again, rough at the edges.
“Still here.”
He gripped my hip with both hands and walked me back harder against the wall, no real force but a lot of intent, and I felt it through every point of contact when his body pressed flush against mine.
My head dropped back against the mirror and I felt his mouth move to my jaw, my throat, the side of my neck, and the drag of his lips there was slow and deliberate in a way that made my hands grip his hair tighter.
He pressed his hips in closer in a way that I was fairly certain he hadn't fully thought through because he went very still after doing it, like he'd surprised himself.
“Okay?” I asked, keeping my voice steady by an act of will.
He pulled back enough to look at me, and whatever he found in my face seemed to settle something in him. “Yeah.” He sounded a little stunned. “Very okay.”
“Good.” I pulled him back in.
His hands moved from my hips to my thighs, warm through the denim, and I felt his thumbs press into the muscle there in a grip that was more possessive than he probably realized.
I got my hands on his chest. Felt the hard flat of it, the shift of muscle when he breathed, and worked my palms down to his stomach without breaking the kiss. He tensed under my hands, not pulling back, just reacting, and the small involuntary soundhe made when I pressed my fingers into the firm plane of his abdomen through his shirt went straight through me.
I slid one hand around his side to his lower back and pulled him in by the small of it, closing whatever gap remained between us, and the low groan he made against my mouth was quiet and wrecked and completely undone, like I'd gotten somewhere he hadn't prepared a defense for.
“Soren.” My name in his mouth had gone low and a little helpless.
“Yeah,” I said, not a question.
He kissed me again, deep and slow and thorough, and his hands moved up from my thighs to my waist and around to my lower back, mirroring what I'd done, and the warmth of both his palms pressed against my spine through the thin fabric of my shirt made me shiver. He felt it and held tighter, which made it worse, which made it better.
I bit his lower lip, not hard, and felt the breath leave him in a rush against my mouth. His hands dragged down to my ass without any particular hesitation, gripped, and pulled me closer, and I made a sound that I would have been embarrassed about under any other circumstances. As it was, I was a little too busy registering the pressure of his hands and the heat of him against me to care much.
I got both hands into his hair again and held on while he kissed me like he was trying to make up for every week of pretending he hadn't wanted to. His hips moved against mine with a rhythm that was probably more honest than he intended, and I rolled mine back to meet it and felt the low, bitten-off sound he made in my throat because he was close enough that there was nowhere for it to go except into me.
I felt him start to pull back before he did it, the slight change in tension, and I loosened my grip on his hair enough to let him breathe.
He rested his forehead against mine. His chest was moving faster than usual. I could feel his heartbeat where his body pressed against my chest — elevated, rapid, real.
“I don't know what I'm doing,” he said quietly, and it didn't sound like doubt. It sounded like honesty.
“Neither do I,” I said. “But I don't think that matters much right now.”
He pulled back just far enough to look at me, and I watched him work through something, turning it over, and then make the decision. His hand came up to the side of my face, thumb brushing my jaw, and the tenderness of the gesture after everything else hit me somewhere I wasn't prepared.
He kissed me again, slower this time, and I let my eyes close and my hands rest against his chest and stopped thinking about anything past this moment, this small moving room, the warmth of him, the way his thumb moved against my jaw like I was something worth being careful with.
The elevator dinged for our floor, and we broke apart just as the doors opened. The hallway was empty and quiet in a way that felt too loud after the chaos of the fair, and we stood there staring at each other like neither of us knew what to do with the next ten seconds.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
unmade
ROOK
“My room,” Soren said, and it wasn't a question.
I followed him down the hallway without saying anything because there was nothing to say that wouldn't make this more complicated than it needed to be right now. He had his keycard out before we reached the door, which told me he'd been thinking about this since before the elevator, which told me a lot of things I was going to need time to process later. When I was capable of processing anything at all.
