Rain streaks the windows harder now, blurring Halo’s lights into watercolor neon. Somewhere downstairs, pipes clank inside the building walls. The apartment wraps around us in warmth and quiet after the noise of downtown, and I realize suddenly how intimate this already feels. More intimate, somehow, than the kiss outside.
Kauss standing barefoot emotionally inside my life.
That is the dangerous thing.
Not just wanting him.
Wanting him to stay.
I lean back against the counter and watch him. “You’re still thinking about scary business man.”
His expression tightens immediately.
Damn.
I sigh softly. “Kauss.”
“I did not wish to bring that here.”
“You brought yourself here. The rest comes with the package.”
“I dislike that you noticed.”
“I notice everything about you.”
The words slip out before I can soften them.
Silence settles between us, warm and heavy and alive.
Kauss looks at me with that same expression he had on the dance floor earlier, like he still cannot quite believe I am real and standing this close willingly.
My pulse flutters hard against my throat.
He takes one slow step toward me.
“You should not say things like that casually,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Because I do not experience them casually.”
The kettle clicks off behind me.
Neither of us moves to touch it.
I swallow slowly. “Good.”
Something changes in his face then.
Not control breaking. Kauss’s control does not break easily. But the careful distance he maintains around his emotions begins giving way under the weight of honesty and proximity and exhaustion from pretending he does not feel things too deeply.
He reaches up slowly and brushes his knuckles along my jaw.
The tenderness of it wrecks me instantly.
“You are very beautiful tonight,” he says.
My breath catches. “You already told me that.”
