He smiles. It’s small and crooked, meant for no one but me, and the mere fact of that smile sets me on fire all over again.
“For me to take the edge off,” he says. “Quietly, though. Can you handle that?”
I lean my forehead against his collarbone. “We’d have to be fast.”
“I can do that.”
His hand slides off my neck and down inside the lapel of the robe, slow, asking. I don’t say no. As a matter of fact, I don’t say anything. I just scoot a little closer until his palm is flat against the base of my throat, and then he’s walking me backward until my shoulder blades meet the cold tile next to the vending machine.
The robe falls open at the hip. Underneath, there’s only me. Nothing else between us.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “So fucking beautiful, it hurts me.”
“Don’t tease me. I’ll start crying again.”
“I’m not teasing,” he scolds. “I’m admiring.”
“Well, do it faster. Can’t you see I’m dying here?”
His hand slips between my thighs. He’s careful with me, the way he’s been careful with me since the park—no, since the hospital—no, since the alley where we first met. Careful, like I’m something he can’t afford to break. Even though I see how bad he wants to do just that: break me.
Two fingers, exploratory, finding their way. I am embarrassingly ready for him. He hums low in his throat when he discovers that. “Already?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not complaining.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth, then the hinge of my jaw, then the place behind my ear that turns me limp and useless, like an off button that he himself installed. His thumb finds where I need it, his fingers crook just so, and I bite down on the side of his shoulder to keep the noise in.
Quietly,like he wanted.
I’m burning up, half-wondering if there’s smoke and steam spiraling out of my ears, but my pulse is so loud I’m not sure I’d hear a fire alarm if one were to go off.
His hand floats away and my hips chase it without permission. I have one fist in the front of his shirt and the other braced against the cool side of the vending machine. “Matvei…”
“Shh,” he murmurs. “Shh, shh. Almost. Don’t make me gag you in a hotel hallway.”
“Don’t threatenme with a good time.”
He huffs a laugh against my temple. “Behave.”
“Make me.”
“There are many things I want to make you do, Mrs. Snyder. ‘Behave’ is not one of them.”
“Oh?” I say breathily. “What were you thinking?”
That cold, dark, beautiful grin ripples across his lips. “I was thinking I’d much rather make you cum.”
Without warning, he spins me around so fast my slippers nearly come off. The flat of his palm plants itself between my shoulder blades and walks me forward until my cheek meets the cold steel face of the ice machine. I gasp at the shock of it.
The cashmere robe slides off one shoulder, and now, it’s frigid metal kissing my breast, my nipple drawing up tight enough to ache.
Then both his hands are on me. One slips around my hip from the front, two fingers sinking back inside me where they werebefore, picking up exactly where he left off. The other slides between the machine and my belly, his thumb finding that spot from underneath. The contrast splits me in two. Cold steel against my front, the furnace of him at my back, his fingers working me in stereo until my knees go liquid and a high, thin whimper builds in my throat, climbing, climbing, almost?—
The door opens.
A whoosh of warmer hallway air.
