“Kuklachka.” I could feel Stellan looking down at me, then so quietly I barely heard him, “I never hate you.”
Something warm that had nothing to do with the drink settled in my chest, and I peered at his sunburst tattoo. Light in the dark.
I reached up and traced it with one finger. It was hot over the ink, like it really was the sun burning into his upper back. Then his scars, cool and smooth like marble veins over the warm skin.
And then I noticed he was looking at me in a really odd way.
“Sorry.” I pulled away. “I—did that hurt?”
He blinked. “No.”
When the next round came, I took a sip and wrinkled my nose. “Doesn’t taste right,” I said. I grabbed his and took a sip, and the bitter alcohol taste wasn’t missing in his. “Hey,” I said. “Get me a real one.”
“No.” He took his drink back and put it out of my reach. That only meant I had to lean all the way across his lap to get at it. The invisible bubble of normal personal space had officially shrunk to nothing.
I sat back up with a triumphant “Ha!” but he snatched the glass away again before I could get a drink.
I pouted. My head was so warm, dreamy light as marshmallow cream. At some point, we’d shifted enough so our feet were touching on the footrest under the bar.
I paused, then moved my foot a little. It was enough to signal to him this was a person he was touching and not a chair leg, and to do the least awkward thing and move away. He didn’t. I sat straight again, and even though I could tell my leg would fall asleep pretty soon in this position, I didn’t move, either.
At the opposite end of the bar, a couple had started kissing. In the past few minutes, they’d nearly crossed the line into not-appropriate-in-public. “Kiss,” I said, drawing out the s sound.
“Hmm?” It was a little dreamy, a little unfocused, and I realized that he wasn’t perfectly sober, either.
“Kiss. I never thought about it before. Isn’t it a strange word? Such a cute word. Like the combination of bliss and . . . kitten. Kissssss.”
We both watched the couple. His hand crept under her shirt. She nearly knocked their wine off the bar. My foot pressed a little harder into Stellan’s. His pressed a little harder back. “Kitten . . . bliss?” he said.
Except now I was watching him. He turned and caught me.
“All I’m saying,” I said, flustered, “is there’s got to be another word for kissing like that.”
Stellan smiled; his teeth grazed his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth. Our feet still didn’t move. “Time for you to sober up,” he said. “I’m ordering you coffee.”
“Like you’re sober.” I shoved him again, hard enough that I nearly knocked him off his stool.
He grabbed both my wrists with one hand. “More sober than you. You’re making a scene.”
I wrenched one hand away and clapped it over his mouth. He turned back to me, eyes dancing. “Shush,” I said.
“Mrmph,” he mumbled, warm breath behind my hand. I pulled away an inch. “Bet you cannot go ten seconds without laughing,” he said from behind my hand, and propped an elbow on the bar facing me.
I dropped my hand and mirrored him. “Go.”
My mouth twitched for a few seconds, trying to giggle. His eyes danced merrily, the inner ring of gold especially bright in the dark. But slowly, the laughter left him.
I was on the very edge of my bar stool. We were facing each other more than we were facing forward now. Our knees, which had already been touching, pressed together purposefully. I felt my lips part.
“Stop it,” he breathed, his voice even lower than usual, accent a little thicker.
“Stop what?”
“You know exactly what,” he said, mockingly. My earlier words in his mouth.
I glanced down at our legs, back up. After a second, I said, “Why?”
Neither of us moved. “Kuklachka,” he said. “You never answered me. What do you want?”
I exhaled. I didn’t know if it was the fight with Jack, or the vodka, or the music and the dark. Or if all that was only allowing me to feel what I’d been trying not to feel for so long. All I knew was that the knot in my chest was starting to come undone in his hands.
“Do you remember the rest of the meaning of toska?” he said. “Sometimes you want something you think you shouldn’t.” There was less than a foot of space between our faces. “You’re not even sure you understand it.” I could see the pulse pounding at his throat. “But not having it feels like you can’t breathe.” For the first time, I noticed my breathing. How shallow it was, how quick.
He leaned even closer. “You want to find the tomb for more than blackmail. You like the idea of all that power. Of having control over your life.”
I couldn’t see anything in the world but his face.
“You even want the power we could have together,” he went on. “Then you wouldn’t be alone. You liked it when we said something and people listened.”