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Something darted through her. Twisting and turning as it moved. Starting fires everywhere it paused.
‘I don’t want this to go any particular way,’ she tried, though her tongue felt too thick and too heavy in her mouth.
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nbsp; ‘Liar,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t want to want it to. But that isn’t the same thing.’
She hated that he was right. That he knew her so well.
And at the same time it was the thing she loved the most.
‘Not here, then,’ he offered instead.
It was all she could to offer a curt nod.
‘Come on,’ he muttered, lifting his hand to the small of her back to guide her discreetly away from the group.
She didn’t even try to resist him. She just marvelled at the way her skin seared under the heat of his palm. Blasting through her. Her body soaring in a memory she’d pretended had long since died.
‘Kane...’ she began, finally turning when she knew they were deep enough into the crowd that her group—her brother—couldn’t see them. Lost on the crowded dance floor and hidden in plain sight amongst a sea of moving bodies.
But his mouth crashed down on hers, snuffing out whatever words she’d been about to say next—not that she had any idea what they might have been. Devastating and divine. And in that instant Mattie knew she’d been toppled.
Perhaps a part of her had hoped that her memories of Kane were unrealistic, the proverbial rose-tinted glasses. Had she almost imagined that the reality wouldn’t live up to the perfect image she’d built in her mind, thereby finally releasing her from the prison of her past?
If she had, it was a fatal mistake on her part. Because Kane’s kisses weren’t merely hot and wild. They were scorching. Torrid. Feral. As addictive as they had always been, and she felt him everywhere.
Every square millimetre of her body was alight whilst she was practically dancing in the blaze, as though her body was coming back to life when she hadn’t even realised it had been dormant all these years. A conflagration. And every wicked sweep of Kane’s tongue was like a hefty slosh of gasoline on the flames.
His hands cupped her jaw as he angled his head for a better fit and Mattie found herself pressing up against him, desperate to get closer. The drag of his mouth over hers. The warm waft of his breath on her skin. It was all so wonderfully, painfully familiar.
Like coming in from the cold and finding herself somewhere warm. Somewhere right.
Her fingers ached as if they, too, needed to discover if that solid chest felt even better than she remembered. And a pulse blasted right through her, straight down to her core, at the memory of how it would feel when Kane touched her right there.
Because this madness wasn’t going to stop here. Just with one kiss. This was the man she’d once loved with every fibre of her being. Every inch of her naïve teenage heart. He would be her death the way he’d always been—even if she no longer harboured ridiculous notions that he would be with her forever.
Which was why she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung on, as though he was a liferaft in this sea of heaving bodies. No one was paying remotely like any attention to them and yet, to Mattie, the entire world felt as though it had zeroed in on her. On Kane.
She had no idea how long they stayed like that. His mouth tasting hers. His tongue teasing hers. She only knew she never wanted to it to stop. But it finally did, when he wrenched his lips from hers as though it was as much a torture for him to do so as it was for her.
Somehow that simple fact helped her.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ he growled, taking her hand in his larger one and leading her off the dance floor and to the doors, leaving her with no option than to obey.
Not that she wanted to do any such thing. She’d taken that leap now and let him kiss her. She wasn’t about to look back.
‘Where are we going?’ she managed, a little breathlessly so it was a wonder he heard her over the music.
Either way, he barely turned.
‘A hotel. There’s one around the corner.’
A thrill went through her. She told herself it was just echoes of the past. The unexpectedness of the moment being just like that first time they’d ever slept together as teenagers. The bed and breakfast they’d gone to a couple of towns over. Far enough that no one would ever recognise them but not so far that they felt as though they were doing something so very wrong.
And far more special than the back seat of a car like she knew most of the girls in her class had managed. Far more magical.
But tonight wasn’t about being special, Mattie reminded herself firmly as she hurried down the stairs with Kane. And these butterflies dancing dizzily in her belly weren’t magical. Tonight was about finally laying those old ghosts to rest. Finally cutting those invisible ties. After that, she would be free. Able, at last, to move on with the rest of life.
