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My fingers curled around his neck as his head dipped down.

Chapter 18

Tau

It was all planned. The Armenian tailor. The cruise ship. She would be safe across the Atlantic and I would not leave her side. I would work to keep her spirit from ever dimming.

She turned and moved before me, forcing me to look at her.

I remembered her warm, soft lips against my cheek in the car. That small kiss had stayed with me for the rest of the drive.

Yes, I wanted more. But I let her move in. I let her rise onto her toes, let her soft breasts press against me, let her fingers coil around my neck and lock me in. I kept my hands at my sides. Every muscle in me held still.

Those eyes that haunted me were on me, watching, waiting. Not afraid. Not even close. She was asking, and she was waiting for me to answer.

I leaned down. My hands moved before I willed them to.

They found her waist, and I held her carefully, mindful of her back. Her breath hitched against my mouth.

I kissed her.

Soft, at first. A question. Her lips were warm and unsteady, and she tasted of mint and something sweeter beneath it. She made a small sound, and the last of my restraint went. I pulled her closer and she came willingly, her fingers tightening at my nape, her body fitting against mine as if it had been measured for it.

For once, I did not count anything.

I kissed her deeper. She answered, and I felt her smile against my mouth, felt the dimple beneath my thumb where my hand had risen to her cheek. A sound came out of my chest that I did not recognise. Heat tore down my spine. I ached, and I did not hide it, and she pressed closer, as though she wanted me to know she knew.

I had kissed women before. Every one of them had been a transaction. This was not.

When we finally broke apart, neither of us moved far. Her forehead rested against my chin, her breath coming fast, her fingers still locked behind my neck.

“Tau,” she whispered.

“Zuri.”

It was the first time I had said her name aloud. It sounded like something I had been saving.

Tonight I wanted her unfettered. Tomorrow she would wear my ropes.

Tonight there would be nothing between us but what she chose.

She kissed me like she had been waiting for days. Perhaps she had. Her mouth opened under mine, and her hands slid from my neck to the lapels of my long coat and pushed. I let it fall from my shoulders. She caught it, felt the weight of it, and stopped.

“Tau. Is the grenade—”

“Yes.”

“Of course it is.”

I took the coat from her and laid it over the chair with great care. When I turned back, she was already there, her fingers at the hem of my roll neck. I lifted my arms and let her drag it over my head.

Her breath caught.

Her palms spread across my chest, warm and unhurried, and found the old scars one by one. The pale lines across my ribs. The raised bump of the bullet wound at my shoulder. She traced it with her thumb. I went very still. She did not ask. She pressed her lips to it instead.

The sound that left me was not one I had made before.

Her dress buttoned down the front, plain cotton, a roadside find in Mississippi, and I had never wanted to be so careful with a row of buttons. I undid them one at a time, my knuckles brushing her skin with each. Her stomach tightened beneath my hand. At the last button the dress fell open and slid from her shoulders, and she stood before me in black lace and a pair of lime green flip-flops.