Roman hears it. His fingers slide into my hair, and the kiss changes.
It stops being something foolish I started because I’m drunk and angry and desperate to feel like I still have power over my own body.
It becomes something else. Something deeper. Hungrier.
His mouth takes mine with a control that makes me weak everywhere. I lean into him, my seatbelt tight across my hips, my hands fisting in the expensive fabric of his jacket. He’s so much bigger than me like this, crouched in front of my seat, shoulders blocking out the rest of the cabin, his body a wall of warmth and restraint.
Then I feel him. Hard against me.
The unmistakable press of his cock through his trousers, firm and thick where my knee brushes him.
My breath catches.
Roman goes still for half a heartbeat. Then his mouth leaves mine. But not far, only enough that we’re breathing the same air.
His eyes are darker now. “Katerina,” he says, and my name sounds like a warning.
I should be embarrassed. I should apologize. Instead, I stare at his mouth and want it back.
My lips feel swollen. My chest rises and falls too quickly. Every inch of my skin seems awake beneath my clothes, hot and restless and painfully aware of him.
He stands slowly. The distance feels obscene.
I sit there, panting softly, my fingers still curled around nothing now that his jacket is out of reach.
Then the world rushes back in.
A man across the aisle is looking at us over the rim of his glass. An older woman has paused with her magazine open in her lap. Someone two rows ahead quickly looks away when I meet their eyes.
Oh God.Heat floods my face. I turn toward the window as if the darkness outside can rescue me.
Obviously, it cannot.
My reflection stares back at me in the glass. Flushed cheeks. Bright eyes. Mouth thoroughly kissed.
I look like a woman who has just made a spectacle of herself in first class before the plane has even taken off.
Behind me, near the galley, I hear a hushed voice.
“Should we stop them?”
Another voice answers, softer, amused.
“Oh, don’t worry. They’re newlyweds. I remember how that felt.”
My blush gets worse. It crawls down my neck, beneath my coat, all the way to the tips of my ears.
Newlyweds. Mrs. Sokolov. Roman’s wife.
The lie wraps around me in a way it has no right to. Warm. Ridiculous. Dangerous.
I glance at him.
He’s standing in the aisle now, calm again. His coat is open, one hand resting on the back of my seat, his face composed enough to make me wonder if I imagined the whole thing.
Except his mouth gives him away. Just barely. A faint redness there.
From me.
