Chapter
Nineteen
Iwatch the words land.
Don't step back this time.
Something shifts in his expression. The careful control he's been wearing like armor cracks down the middle, and what's underneath steals the breath I don't need.
Want. Raw and desperate and barely contained. The same want I've been fighting for days, reflected back at me in those storm-gray eyes.
He moves.
Not slow this time. Not careful. He closes the distance between us in one stride, and then his hands are on my face, cupping my jaw, tilting my head back. His palms are cool against my cheeks, his fingers threading into my hair, and the touch I've been dreaming about is nothing compared to the reality.
"Tell me to stop." His voice is wrecked. Scraped raw. "Tell me and I will."
"I don't want you to stop."
Something breaks behind his eyes.
His mouth crashes into mine.
The kiss is nothing like I imagined. I thought it would be tentative. Careful. Two people testing boundaries, negotiating terms.
This is none of those things.
This is hunger. This is days of distance collapsing into a single point of contact. This is every almost and every not yet, and every time he walked away when he wanted to stay, all of it pouring out of him and into me.
His lips are cool and firm, moving against mine with an urgency that makes my knees weak. One hand slides from my face to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair, angling my head for better access. The other drops to my waist, pulling me closer until there's no space left between us.
I grab the front of his shirt to anchor myself. The fabric bunches in my fists, and I feel the solid wall of his chest beneath it, the lean muscle I've watched during training sessions, the body I've tried not to think about late at night in my room.
He makes a sound against my mouth. Low and rough and desperate. It vibrates through me, settles somewhere deep in my core, and I want to hear it again. Want to know every sound he's capable of making.
I kiss him harder.
His restraint shatters completely.
He walks me backward until my spine hits the wall, and the impact barely registers because his mouth is on my jaw now, my neck, the sensitive spot below my ear. His lips trace a path of fire across my skin. His hands grip my hips like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go.
"Celeste." My name in his mouth, reverent and ruined. He breathes it against my throat like a prayer. "I've wanted this.Wanted you. Since that first night in the alley. Since you looked at me like I was just a man."
I pull his mouth back to mine because I can't stand another second without it.
The second kiss is deeper. Slower. He takes his time now, learning the shape of me, the taste. His tongue slides against my lower lip and I open for him, and the sound he makes when I do is something I want to remember forever.
My hands find their way to his hair. It's softer than I expected, thick and dark, and when I drag my fingers through it, he groans into my mouth. His hips press me harder against the wall. I feel every inch of him, solid and cool and wanting.
This is what I was afraid of.
This is what I was waiting for.
His mouth moves to my jaw again, my neck, the curve of my shoulder. Each kiss leaves a trail of sensation that lingers long after his lips have moved on. My head falls back against the wall, and I don't try to stop the sounds escaping me.
"Do you have any idea," he murmurs against my collarbone, "what these past nights have been like? Knowing you were here. Wanting you. Unable to reach for you."
"I know." I tug his head up, force him to meet my eyes. "I know exactly what it was like."
