Just to steal one more kiss.
Because I have been with different women across twenty-eight years of life, but I have never kissed one of them. My brain never found a logical explanation for why anyone would want to do that with another person, but when I felt her in that library, smelling of chocolate and lilac, my mind went completely blank.
All I wanted was to find out if her lips were as sweet as that poison she drinks every day. And they were. My fucking God, they were.
I take my place at the podium while my head tries to regroup for the lecture I have to deliver, without a pair of round glasses occupying my entire left cerebral hemisphere.
I feel her the moment she walks into the lecture hall, because she brings that lilac scent with her, and when I turn, I find her eyes already on me. Her cheeks are faintly pink, and without being able to stop my own reaction, the corner of my mouth lifts slightly.
Just for two seconds, enough for her to catch it, but not long enough for the rest of her classmates to notice something is off.
Why am I smiling? I don’t smile!
I start the lecture, and even though my class is always quiet, given that I have zero tolerance for background murmuring and whispers, I catch a small laugh, and without meaning to, my eyes search for her.
A student sitting beside Amalia appears to be copying some formulas from her notes, but what irritates me is the way his eyes stay on her hair a beat too long.
I watch her glance at what he’s written and underline something on his page with her pen.
Her eyes lift from the notes, and she finds me watching them both. To anyone else in the room, I’m simply a professor waiting for everyone to copy from the board. But internally I’mcalculating exactly what distance I’d need to throw him from the window to guarantee he never walks to the seat beside her again.
I watch him touch her hand, trying to get her attention back to something in his notes, and it’s settled. I’ve lost my mind, because not only do I know the height from which he’d need to fall, I’ve calculated the force I’d need to push him so he’d have no chance of catching himself.
I’m fairly certain she notices my irritation, which is why she gives me a small, appeasing smile before turning back to her notes.
The look I’m giving him is probably making the idiot’s skin crawl, because I know that if he steals her attention from me one more time, he’s going to find out what it feels like to be buried alive.
Am I exaggerating? A little. Burying someone alive is messy. I don’t do messy. But I can have Andreas move some money into his account and send him to jail until he’s forty and he hopefully doesn’t remember the color of her hair. Or how her skin feels. Or how beautiful she looks when she decides that you are worthy of a fraction of her smile.
After two more moments of Amalia helping him decode whatever mysteries the board holds, I watch her whisper something to him, and he seems to flush.
I don’t know what she said, but when I see the distance she’s put between them, something in my chest fills with pride and something close to certainty.
Fuck, I want to kiss her again.
The lecture ends fifteen minutes later, and with my eyes on a workbook, I hear myself say, “Amalia, stay behind for a moment.”
She stops, surprised, just before she reaches the door, and with slightly tentative steps, she walks back toward the podium.
We’re alone now, and I know she has a lecture in another building, so I don’t want to make her any later than she already is.
“La Condesa neighborhood. The new Condesa Park residential complex. Tonight at eight.”
Right now, I can’t read her at all, and that unsettles me more than I’d like to admit.
I know how the invitation sounds, and even though I can’t deny the physical pull I feel toward her, the reason I’m asking her to my apartment is simply to have a few minutes with her without the wrong pair of eyes on us.
She gives me nothing back and turns to walk out. Before she crosses the threshold, doubt gets the better of me and I ask, “Are you going to come?”
She turns toward me, and with the same small smile as before, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and gives me her answer.
“You’ll find out in a few hours.”
Ilook up at the residential complex and draw a slow breath.
Come on, Amalia.
Technically, I shouldn’t be here. Practically, the only thought I’ve had is seeing him again, somewhere that doesn’t make what’s happening between us feel forbidden or judged, and the part of me that’s exhausted from always doing what’s right and proper made the decision before I could stop it.
