His next kiss on my neck makes my knees buckle. He pulls away, waiting for my answer with bated breath. His wet hair tumbles down in tousled strands, the black ink on his chest peeking through the soaking fabric of his white dress shirt. A fat raindrop seems to drip from his clumped lashes in slow motion as his gaze drops to my lips, asking, begging,wanting.
“Midnight,” I choke out, and his lips come crashing down on mine.
Nothing about the kiss feels young or foolish. His touch is rough and reverential all at once, spanning my neck and jaw to hold me in place. My skin turns to gold wherever his fingers sink into my flesh.
I push his blazer open, feeling the muscles of his abdomen tense beneath the crisp white cotton. The hand on my jaw squeezes gently, forcing my mouth to open just wide enough for him to deepen the kiss. Desire trickles down my spine, pooling in my lower stomach like warm honey.
God, I’ve missed this. But it’s not just this—I’ve missedhim.
He spins us so it’smyback against the stone of the castle walls, hand grabbing the back of my thigh and hooking my leg over his hip as he swallows my frantic moan. His mouth is hot and heavy, demanding and possessive on mine as his fingers find the sensitive skin beneath the skirt of my dress, trailing inwards from my hip.
He breaks the kiss with a gentle bite of my lip, broad chest heaving. His pupils dilate, inky black pools of need when he realizes just how much he turns me on. “Can I?”
I nod, desperate for his lips on mine again. “No strings.”
His fingers sink into me, sending my head falling forward into his chest and my eyes to the back of his head.
It’ll never be like this with anyone else.
“Strings, Ophelia. So many fucking strings. Strings in every cell of my body.”
My strangled cry gets carried away on the wind, wishing so badly that he wasn’t right. I am tied to Alex in a way I cannot explain, hoping like a fool that the threads will dissolve in the rain like week-old stitches. “No strings.”
“If that’s what you have to tell yourself,” he concedes, gazing down at me lazily like his fingers don’t have me clawing at the stone behind me. His other hand slips beneath the neckline of my dress, thumb skating over my nipple. Frantic pleas tumble out of my mouth, my hips starting to move in time with his thick forearm.
“Does this feelno strings, to you?”
My leg gives out, but his body holds me upright against the wall. Each labored thud of my heart sends another torturous wave ofhiminto my bloodstream. “Alex.”
“Do you think a man with no strings attached could make you feel this way?”
My heel digs into his lower back, hand shooting out to grab his arm like there’s a chance he might stop. “Please.”
“You don’t need to beg me for anything.”
My chest rises and falls beneath my dress. Stupid, angry, lovesick, ecstatic tears spill from my eyes. “I’m going to—I’m gonna—”
He drops to his knees on the wet cobblestone, moving my thigh from his hip to his shoulder and burying his head beneath the lush satin of my skirt.
My back arches. His hand comes to steady me at the waist. I shout his name at the swirling sky just as a furious bolt of lightning splits it into two.
And I fall apart.
Physically. Metaphorically. In every way.
The world melts into a flat, white sheet until all that exists is him and me and the endless mass of strings that tie us together in a hundred different ways.
He rises to his feet and catches me in his arms, brushing the hair from my face. His lips are a little swollen, vibrant green eyes watching me intently. “Okay?”
I shut my eyes. That was …okaydoesn’t scratch the surface. I nod weakly, limp in his arms as he carries me past the entrance to the hall and onto the forested path to the mansion. I put a hand on his chest, trying to get to the ground. “Put me down.”
“You need to get warm and dry.”
“But my friends … I ditched them.”
“Colette and Vincenzo know I’m here. They helped set this up.”
“Put me down,” I repeat, but there’s zero conviction behind the words. My head leans into the hard wall of his chest, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt.
