A sharp inhale catches in my throat, and I try to swallow down the pulse of pressure, the way he feels, angled right up against the centre of me.
But he sees it all over, tracking the way my eyelashes flutter, my teeth dig into my lip, how I shift against him without realizing it before my brain whirs to life—wide-awake and telling me it’s bad and wrong to feel like this, to want him, in public.
Told you, you’re rotten.My brain shakes its head, the slow cadence of disappointment.
“Sloan.” He cocks his head back, appraising with measured words. “Does that feel good?”
“No,” I try to say, breath caught on my ribs or maybe those old pieces of me we both broke, but the only thing I can really think about is what he feels like between my legs, and how horrible that makes me.
“Sloan,” he repeats.
“What?” I whisper, blinking a bit too much, staring over his shoulder at the wall sconce mounted next to a shelf dedicated to books about the French Riviera.
He angles his head, lips hovering above mine. “It’s okay if it does. It doesn’t make you bad.”
My eyes pinch closed with a jerky shake of my head, and I wish all the thoughts would fall out, but they sink their claws in and hold on for dear life. “But we’re in public. Anyone could find us ... it’s not ... appropriate.”
His thumb finds my chin, tipping my face up before he gently brushes it across each of my eyelids, inviting them back open. Bohdan’s voice drops, this hoarse call against a raging sea, and he throws me these buoys I don’t think I deserve to catch. “You’re compassionate. You’re funnier than you have any right to be when you’re being the most stubborn woman on the planet. And you’re allowed to feel good things.”
“What?” I murmur.
“Three facts, Sloan. You’re not bad.” He shakes his head, slow, a bit sad and a bit soft for the way his cheekbones look like they could flay me open. “Far from it.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he says with a firm press of his thumb to my chin, before he looks over his shoulder and tips his head towards the closet door. “Come here.”
“Anyone could find us.” I still, but it feels a bit quieter in my mind because how could I be bad when someone like him thinks I’m wonderful? He’s right there, all hard edges, pressure builds in my core, and when my palms find his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle, I roll my hips forward.
The left side of his mouth tugs into a sideways grin. He guides me, purposeful and insistent, all the way into the empty closet. He looks down at me, words full of promise when he turns the lock and says, “They won’t. I’ve got you, Zlatícko.”
He does have me, even after all these years.
Even in an empty supply closet. My back against the door while he props me up against the ridges of muscle in his thigh.
His mouth brushes mine, soft and careful, before he drags his tongue along the pout of my bottom lip, all the way across my jaw, where it swirls against my earlobe.
“Use me,” he whispers, gravelly, teeth scraping against my skin, hands finding my hips, fingers bruising when he catches a low moan with a swallow.
He has me the way he always did. Heart in his chest, best friend to the one that lives in mine, hands on me, rough and gentle and then rough again when he grinds me against the muscles of his thigh.
“Come,” he instructs; words like his teeth where they scrape against my jaw.
I roll forward, against the hardness of his leg, golden skin soaked with me through my own clothes, and I bury my face in his neck, nails digging down into his shoulders, trying to quiet all the noise caught in my throat when I combust from the inside out.
“Kurva. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Bohdan shifts against me, straining against the linen of his shorts, hands digging into my hips, just this side of pain, and the muscles in his jaw tense, carving a line down his neck when he groans.
“Did you—” I breathe, lifting my head from the crook of his shoulder.
“Come in my pants?” He lifts a brow wryly, swiping a thumb across his mouth. “Not yet, but we need to get back to the stupid suite before I ruin my fucking shorts.”
“I’m sorry?” I blink, before sniffing a laugh.
“I’m not.” He jerks his chin, grinning at me, before his fingers tap softly against my hips. “Trust me.”
I do trust him, even after all this time and after all this hurt. And there are these words I’m dying to say, they’re all over me, written on all this new skin he crafted with those rough hands, and I think they’re what my heart says when it beats, still erratic and too fast in my chest.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
