This was a bad idea.
“Um … Ophelia,” whispers Colette, from behind me. The edge to her voice makes me snap my eyes up.
Green. Bright green, like fresh rain on the English countryside.
It’s a shade of green I’d know anywhere.
Alex looks at me from the doorway, dark hair wet from the rain. Seven tickets dangle from the hand at his side. His lips are parted, breathless. The shirt that clings to his frame is damp.
He’sdevastating.
“Alex,” I whisper. It comes out like a question, like a request, like a desperate prayer. I don’t even know what I’m asking him for.Leave me alone. Don’t you dare walk away. Give me space. Let me love you forever. Don’t touch me. Touch me everywhere.
I don’t think he’s noticed that Colette is here. He’s holding my gaze in such a way that I’m not sure he’s even noticed that I’m naked, either.
The silence unravels between us like a thread pulled too tight until, finally, he snaps it. His voice is hoarse, thick with emotion. “I’m really,reallyin love with you, Ophelia Winters.”
I love him so much it feels like a sickness.
Colette slips out the door behind him. The hinges creak closed, and then we’re alone.
“I was going to call you.”
“You were going to end things.”
“I just … you have enough things, Alex, and I’m just one more thing. A long-distance relationship is just one more thing.”
“You’reeverything.”
He’s got it the wrong way round.Heis everything. He’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the fireplace in a cold house. Hedeserves better thanbland and boringand never-ending jet lag for a girl he’ll only see a couple of times a year.
I go to move, but he shakes his head. “I’ve paid for this session.”
“You have to be kidding.”
“London is expensive. I want my drawing practice.”
“Alex, you could buy this whole building if you wanted to.”
“Good thing I don’t want to, then,” he says, dropping his duffel. My heartbeat is a dull, syrupy thud in my chest as he strides over to the table of cocktails, picks one up, and walks over to me.
The few precious inches between us don’t stop the heat from his skin from warming my own, his presence a balm over my tender flesh. The rim of the glass is ice cool when he presses it to my bottom lip.
I say nothing. Idonothing, stunned speechless by his arrival, his appearance, the hunger in his eye unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. “Now, now, Ophelia,” he drawls, hooking his thumb between my lips to part them. “Closed mouths don’t get fed.”
Holyshit. I shut my eyes, trying to block him out. I need to keep my head together around him, and whatever it is he’s doing here has scattered it into a hundred pieces between here and Tower Bridge.
A drop of sweet, sharp liquid lands on my tongue, passion fruit and vodka and undiluted lust. His familiar scent wraps around me like a cocoon, warm and welcoming. He leans in, so close I think he might be about to kiss me, but his lips bypass my own, stopping at the shell of my ear. The only solace I have from the embarrassment of being more turned on than I have ever been in my life is the fact that I can see that he is, too. “I paid one hundred and fortypounds for the privilege of drawing the most beautiful woman in the world, and Ihatewasting money.”
With that, he’s gone, cold air rushing in to fill the void he left. I stare at his muscular back, watching him pick out colored pastels from the boxes beside the cocktails.
“You live in New York now,” is all I can choke out, once I finally find my voice. He straddles a stool in front of the first easel, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt, andJesus Christ, I have to look away. I could get lost in those thighs.
“I’d live anywhere with you,” he says, over the soft sound of pastel on paper.
“But you can’t.”
“No, not yet. But once I’ve left Green.”
