Page 85 of Go Back to December

His stare won’t surrender as he presses, “What do you want?”

“Something real!” I shout. “I want you to tell the truth.”

“You want me to forfeit a truth.”

He leans forward, so close his evergreen scent wraps around us. “I don’t go to the café every morning for breakfast. I go to see you.”

The weight of his words takes a moment to settle over me. And once they do, just like at the train station, there’s hardly a thought, only reaction, as I launch myself into his arms.

Baz catches me a moment before our lips meet in a slow, steady kiss.

We both sigh, relief and release warming the space between us. Our breaths are visible white trails; we inhale bracing morning air, exhale heat against each other. He pulls gently on my top, then my bottom lip, alternating pressure in divine presses and tugs. It’s so slow, I can’t tell if it’s meant to tease, or if he doesn’t want to rush this.

My arms circle his neck; my chilly fingers graze the soft spot where his skin meets his hairline, and he inhales sharply. Taking advantage of his parted lips, I touch my tongue to his. The primal groan from the back of his throat heats my blood, a delicious contrast to the whip of wind that chafes my skin, and ruffles his dark hair back from his brow.

He blinks his Bowie eyes and catches me staring at the beauty of his open, heated expression.

“Say it again,” I whisper.

“I don’t give a fuck about breakfast,” he rasps as he trails searing kisses down my throat. “I just want to start my day with you.”

“Even when I torment you?”

“Especially when you torment me. Do you know what it does to me, knowing I’ve got your attention? The way you flush when something I say riles you, and when your pretty little mouth quirks with what you’re going to clap back, I can't get enough.”

The rawness in his voice makes the low muscles in my core ache. I can’t press my body close enough to him. “Half the time I do it to see you clench these insanely developed muscles.” I brush his chest. “And then I regret it because all I can imagine is what you look like beneath the smirk and the snark and these clothes.”

He groans as his fingers creep beneath the jacket I’m wearing and the hem of my T-shirt, and when his cold hands stroke up the hot skin by my ribs, I gasp.

He freezes.

“Don’t stop,” I growl over the faint hum of the wind. “Don’t you dare stop.”

The words have an unraveling effect on Baz’s self-control. His mouth claps on mine, tasting faintly of salt and cinnamon. As he slides a hand up my torso, its progression is achingly slow. His fingers brush the underside of my breast, torturing me with their refusal to rise higher, to the peaks straining for contact.

I caress the supple lapels of his cashmere coat. After all this time, I’m finally getting my way with it and my greedy hands shake. Slowly, I reach inside to explore the sliver of skin above the waist of his track pants. Baz rumbles his appreciation with another soft, languid kiss. A teasing sip of heat.

Working my hands beneath his shirt and across his chest, I trace an arc across his flat abdominals, to the narrow curve at his hip. The countless times I’ve imagined touching him haven’t prepared me for the contrast of smooth skin covering hard muscles, or how he moves as he responds to my touch.

I dip my shaking fingers beneath his waistline, and he shudders. His kiss finally turns as demanding and impatient as I feel fisting his shirt. When I moan his name, the icicles on the tree above us quake.

Baz pulls back from the kiss, panting, eyes wide. Like he can’t believe this is happening either. We share the same astonished smile in the sunlit stillness of the park, before his phone pings and shakes his coat pocket.

“Ignore it.”

He clasps the back of my neck and tugs my mouth back to his, drugging me with an uncompromising kiss.

Another vibration pulses a staccato beat.

Exasperated, he breaks off, tips his head back, and roars at the sunshine. As he fumbles to switch off his phone, a car passes along the road, cracking salt beneath its tires. We’re no longer alone out here in the lengthening morning sun.

And now that the real world has invaded this pretty fantasy, I’m terrified of what happens next.

I lean back. “You should go in.”

“Not yet.”

“We’ve been here a while, and Luiza may be worried. If you’re serious about working things out with her, go talk to her.”