That startles a laugh out of me internally, because wow, Harper, very bold of you to take on late-stage capitalism on a yacht while emotionally shirtless.
But I mean it.
Victor stares at me, and I can see it happening in real time: the glacial prince of a CEO who never loses control, battling with the man underneath who feels everything so hard he’s built an empire around not showing it.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, voice roughening. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess. I’m sorry?—”
I kiss him.
I don’t think. I don’t plan.
My body fully bypasses my brain, and instinctively, my arms go around his neck. For a second I worry that Victor won’t respond, until the tall, imposing wall of man hauls me against him with enough force to steal my breath.
This isn’t like the kiss in the boutique. Or the ones I’ve been having in my head like a hormonal lunatic. Or anything else I’ve ever experienced.
Because Victor isn’t like any other man.
Strong, steady, and sensitive in ways I never knew could exist in one infuriatingly well-dressed package, he kisses like a man who has spent his whole life holding everything in and has finally run out of places to put it.
His hand slides straight into my hair, angling my head back as he takes over the kiss with a kind of ruthless focus that makes my knees soften. His mouth is demanding and possessive, tasting of scotch and sea salt and every sharp, jagged thing he’s tried to survive alone, and I open for him instantly.
When my tongue brushes his, he makes a low, wrecked sound that nearly melts me on the spot, because apparently I have the structural integrity of warm butter.
He backs me against the railing, the cool metal pressing into my spine while the rest of me goes molten. The ocean wind whips around us, cold and sharp and loud with California coastal waves, but I’m burning everywhere he touches me.
His mouth leaves mine and trails over my jaw, then lower, to the hollow of my throat, and I gasp as my nails scrape down his back through his shirt.
“Harper.” My name comes out of him ragged and ruined. “Christ, Harper?—”
I drag his mouth back to mine before he can finish whatever dangerous thing he was going to say.
Because this isn’t about words anymore.
No. This is about everything we can’t say, everything I’m terrified to name, everything he’s too hurt to believe.
This is about the horrifying, exhilarating fact that I am falling in love with Viktor Ivan Ashford Kade.
And when his hand slides from my hip to my thigh, hitching my leg around his waist, I know it with stunning certainty.
I want him.
I want all of it.
The hard length of him presses against my stomach through expensive fabric, and I make a sound that belongs in a much less public setting, as his mouth curves against mine.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice all gravelly velvet and command. “You keep making sounds like that and I’m going to forget every remaining decent instinct I’ve got.”
Heat flashes through me so hard I have to exhale.
His fingertips slide higher beneath my dress, skimming over bare skin, and I am seconds away from forgetting how to speak English when?—
“Sir?” James’s voice drifts politely from somewhere near the wheelhouse. “I’ve contacted the captain. The yacht guest cabins are prepared, sir, if you’d like to stay the night.”
Barely able to separate, we both look up.
Victor’s forehead stays pressed to mine, his hands still warm against my body, and he grins down at me with a smile so bright and boyish and devastating that it nearly knocks the breath out of me all over again.
“What do you think?” he asks, voice gritty and salt-soaked. “Stay?”
