My mouth opens to reply, the stock phrases line up automatically, drilled in by years of survival.I don’t want this. I’m not like that. This is wrong. This is dangerous. His thumb skims my bottom lip, and my thoughts scatter. “Say it,” he murmurs. “And mean it.”
I drag in a breath that feels like it’s scraping against my lungs. “I —” I start. Ari’s eyes are fixed on mine. “I don’t —” His lips ghost over mine and fire flares low in my stomach.
“Don’t lie,” he says, gently. “You don’t know how.”
There’s no decision or strategy, just a surge like a dam giving way. One second, I’m pinned to the fence with his hand on my jaw, and my half-formed excuses rattle around my head. Next, my fingers have fisted in the front of his jacket, I’m pulling him into me, and our mouths crash together.
He makes a half-shocked, half... something else sound, and it’s swallowed instantly by the press of lips and teeth. My eyes slam shut, and everything narrows to heat, contact and the rough scrape of stubble. For a few seconds, his body goes tight and still as if I’ve managed to surprise the unflappable Sergeant Zakirov.
Then his free hand slams into the fence beside my head, his palm splaying against the cold metal, caging me in and kissing me back, hard enough to steal what little breath the cold left me.
Everything else falls away — the snow, the fence, the base, the rules. There’s just the crush of his mouth on mine, the sharp drag of his teeth on my lower lip, the taste of smoke, coffee and something that’s just him.
He presses in, his knee nudging between my legs, and his body solid and hot against mine. A sound escapes me, and he swallows it, turning his head to deepen the kiss. His tonguebrushes my lower lip, and my whole body lights up when I let him in.
He kisses like he fights, it’s brutal, precise, and mind-altering. Our mouths slide, clash, and find a rhythm that feels terrifyingly inevitable. The heat floods my veins, chasing away the cold, and my hands — which are still fisted in his jacket — loosen enough to slip inside, and up over his chest. He makes another approving sound into my mouth.
Some rational part of my brain is screaming at me,“You’re on a base, you’re outside, you’re visible, you’re insane...”but it’s drowned out by the roar of electrified need. I angle my head, chasing him when he tries to slow the kiss, greedy now that I’ve finally given in. His fingers slide up to my nape and tighten in my hair. It’s a small, possessive tug that sends a lightning bolt straight through me.
I didn’t know I liked that, now I know I do.
He pulls back a little — enough that his lips drag over mine — and rests his forehead against mine.
I suck in air like I’ve been underwater. “Fuck,” I whisper. It comes out ragged. “I... fuck.”
“You finally did something interesting,” he says softly. God, I need to kiss him again. My hands flex against his chest, my fingers curling into the fabric. He feels hard and solid under my palm; it feels better than I ever imagined it would. This is real, it’s actually happening and isn’t some fever dream conjured by stress, cold and loneliness.
“Arseny,” I say, his name is pulled out of me and something sharp and pleased flashes across his face at the sound.
“Do that again,” he whispers, tightening his fingers in my hair more.
“Do what again?”
“Kiss me, and touch me like you mean it,” he breathes. I drag him back in, and my lips find his with less desperation and more intent this time. It’s slower, deeper, and I kiss him like I’m not sure when I’ll get to do it again, as if I might be shot for it at dawn.
His mouth opens under mine, greedy and welcoming. The hand on the fence stays braced, keeping the world at bay while he uses the other to keep me trapped exactly where he wants me.
I don’t want to be anywhere else because for the first time in days, the noise in my head goes quiet. There’s just him, his mouth, and my heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to rewrite my entire life.
And the terrifying, exhilarating realisation that I’ve just crossed a line I can never uncross.
Sixteen
Arseny
The first thing that hits me isn’t his mouth; it’s the decision. You can feel when someone makes one, that split-second shift in their body when they stop just enduring you, and choose something. His hand fisting in my jacket is rough, almost angry, but the moment he pulls me in, there’s this... click, like a safety coming off. And then his mouth is on mine.
For a moment, my brain just— blue screens.
I’d been braced for a lot of things with Caiden Varrik — A punch in the face, a lecture, or him snapping and reporting me. I’ve been poking him like a stuck switch, waiting to see what he does when he finally breaks. Apparently, what he does is kiss me like he’s trying to solve a problem with his mouth.
He’s not smooth at first. It’s messy, hard, and off-centre. His nose bumps mine, like his body overrode his training and went straight to instinct without checking the manual. But there’s heat in it, mixed with frustration, and something that tastes a whole lot like desperation.
I make a noise I absolutely did not authorise, starting somewhere low in my chest and coming out like a half-swallowed laugh, and then I kiss him back. I’ve been winding him tighter and tighter since he got here, seeing how far I can push before the neat little British thing snaps. Now he has his hands tangled in my jacket, his body crowding mine, and every molecule of him is screaming, ‘you did this to me.’
God, I’m proud of myself.
His mouth is hot, clumsy, earnest, and I could pick it apart, critique the technique, or tilt my head and fix it.
