“My face is none of your business.”
“Your face is in my room.”
“That is the most male logic I’ve ever heard.”
“You like my logic.”
“I like very little about you.”
“That’s a lie.”
Her mouth parted with a sharp comeback ready, but nothing came out because I slid my hand from her chin to the side of her neck. My thumb found her racing pulse, frantic and wild, betraying her with every beat.
I bent closer, my mouth near her ear. “No lights. No names. No getting naked. No questions. No staying after. No softness. No proof you were here after morning.”
She shivered against my hand.
“Those rules don’t keep me out, Aura. They tell me where the bruises are.”
Her breathing changed.
She shoved one hand against my chest, but she didn’t push me away. “You think you’re very profound for a man who chases rubber with a stick.”
“I know I’m right.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know you came here because you needed quiet.” My other hand settled against her knee, firm and warm over bare skin. “I know you kept the lamp on because you didn’t want to disappear tonight. I know you want me close enough to make the room feel smaller, but not gentle enough to make you panic.”
Her lashes fluttered once.
Got you.
“And I know,” I said, dropping my voice, “that if I turn that lamp off right now, you’ll hate me for setting you free even if you need it.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and for one second, she looked stripped down to the truth.
Then she grabbed my shirt and yanked me toward her. “You talk too much.”
I caught myself with one hand against the mattress beside her hip. “Only because you avoid too much.”
“I came up here for quiet.”
“Then shut me up.”
Her mouth hit mine hard.
It wasn’t soft because Aura didn’t know what to do with softness unless she could mock it first. She kissed the way she argued, like surrender had to look like violence so nobody could accuse her of needing anything. Her fingers fisted in my shirt, dragging me closer while her mouth moved against mine, hot, angry, and hungry enough to empty my head.
I let her have the first few seconds, let her bite my bottom lip and press into me like she could turn the entire conversation into heat and win through distraction. I let her use my mouth to outrun every word she had almost said.
Then I stopped letting her.
My hand slid to the back of her neck, and I took control of the kiss, angling her head the way I wanted it. Her whole body went still for one beat, pride catching up to what her body already knew, before she melted with a furious little sound that went straight through me.
I kissed her deeper and slower, meaner than soft but never cruel. It was the kind of kiss that made her admit she had come to me for this too, for hands that didn’t shake, a body that blocked out the door, and a mouth that could take all that panic and give it somewhere else to go.
She climbed into my lap without me asking, and that wrecked me more than the kiss.
