Page 203 of Mile High Ruin

“No, you don’t.”

The certainty makes anger flash through me. I pull him closer and kiss him. Or maybe he kisses me. I can’t tell who closes the final inch between us because once his mouth is on mine, there is no room for anything except the violent relief of finally touching him again.

He kisses me like he has been holding himself back for months. One hand slides behind my neck, the other tightens at my waist, and I open for him before I can remember why this is a terrible idea.

His tongue moves against mine, and a sound escapes me. He swallows it.

My hands slide from the front of his coat to his shoulders, and the familiar strength beneath my palms makes my chest ache. He pulls me closer by the waist, careful without seeming to realize he’s being careful, and I feel the restraint in that small adjustment more than I would have felt force. For all the violence in him, Vadim still knows exactly how to touch me when he’s trying not to hurt me.

I kiss him harder.

He makes a low sound against my mouth and turns his head, deepening the kiss until my thoughts scatter again. His thumb brushes along my jaw, then settles beneath my chin, holding my face where he wants it while his other hand stays firm at my side.

I had forgotten how completely he occupies space. How impossible it is to think when he’s this close. How quickly my anger gets tangled with want until I can no longer separate one from the other.

His mouth moves from mine to the corner of my lips, then along my cheek, and when he kisses the spot below my ear my knees nearly soften beneath me.

Everything that has been wrong inside me for months goes quiet.

His fingers slide into my hair and tighten just enough to tilt my head, and the kiss turns slower without losing any of its intensity, each movement suddenly deliberate enough that I feel every second of it. I taste coffee, cold air, and something unmistakably him, and the familiarity of it is almost unbearable after months of trying to convince myself I could forget.

I drag my mouth from his only long enough to breathe, but he follows immediately, forehead brushing mine while his thumb traces the edge of my lower lip.

“You still taste the same,” he murmurs.

The words hit somewhere deep.

“So do you.”

His eyes darken, and then he kisses me again.

For a few seconds, I’m not in an alley. Petrov doesn’t exist. Camille is not dead.

There is only Vadim.

His mouth leaves mine and drags along my jaw. I gasp when his teeth graze the place beneath my ear.

“You still do that,” I whisper.

“You still react.”

His hand moves lower. My fingers stroke his nape, and he kisses me again, deeper this time, and the force of it presses me harder against the wall.

Then his hand shifts across my stomach.

Everything stops.

Vadim freezes, his mouth still against mine. For one terrible second, neither of us breathes. His palm remains pressed against the curve beneath my coat. The curve I have spent months hiding. The curve that is impossible to hide from a man whose hand knows my body.

Slowly, he pulls back.

His face changes.

I have seen Vadim furious. I have seen him murderous. I have seen him look at blood as though it meant nothing.

I have never seen him look like this.

His gaze drops to my stomach. Then rises to my face.