I swallowed. He looked at my mouth.
“I think you’re even starting to care about the Circle. To want to be part of them. You want to be wanted. Say it. I want to hear you say it out loud.”
I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. My body wasn’t my own. My voice wasn’t my own. I didn’t want it in the way some of the Circle did. I didn’t care about money, fame, ruling the world. But the rest of it . . . An hour ago, I would have denied it all. Now . . . “I want it,” I whispered. Stellan was still watching me, rapt. “I want all of that.”
It was so wrong to feel those things. To feel absolutely anything over and above wanting to save my mom. I couldn’t believe I’d just said it out loud. But I felt light. Free.
A smile flickered across Stellan’s face. His pupils looked huge in the low light. “What else?”
A thrill shivered through me, hitting low in my stomach. A minuscule shift, and one of his knees slipped between mine. He looked down at it. I did, too.
“Little doll, is there something else you want?” he murmured.
I stared into his eyes. It was only a moment, but the moment dragged back as far as I could remember, like we had never been anywhere but here, suspended precariously between yes and no, between want and don’t.
I felt terrified. I felt powerful. I felt bold.
I nodded.
CHAPTER 28
Stellan stared at me for a beat. Two. Then he stood, abruptly enough that I pitched off my bar stool. He caught me, tossed a handful of euros on the bar, then took my hand and led me outside.
We made it almost to the bottom of the steps.
He turned abruptly, leaving me standing one step higher; he gathered his fingers in my dress and pulled me against him.
There was a second of hesitation, of skin touching skin, a cold nose on a warm cheek, lips almost brushing, so close, and are we really—
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Sparks shot from my lips through the tingling tips of my toes. His hand was firm on the back of my neck, lifting my face to his, and the rest of the world fell away.
I’d half expected, after so much buildup, for kissing him to be disappointing.
I was wrong.
He pulled away a few inches, eyes wide. “Oh,” I breathed, and it said a million other things that would make me blush to say them out loud. His lips curved into a smile, and then I couldn’t see the smile anymore, just feel it, and then there was nothing else.
I realized now that I’d thought about this before, even if I’d tried not to. I’d imagined it would be the almost violence of lips and breath and hands that would burn so hot, it’d flame out as quickly as it had started; that we’d just have to do it once and get it out of our systems.
I hadn’t imagined this: the feeling that, even though he had far more experience than I did, he was just as captivated as I was by how our lips took no time at all to get used to each other, the echo of our muffled breaths, the fact that it was chilly outside, but between our faces, it was nothing but soft and warm. I hadn’t imagined, though maybe I should have, that this would be the physical manifestation of that way he had always looked at me, since the day we met, like he could tell what was going on inside me so well it was almost uncomfortable. I’d never been kissed by someone who knew what I wanted before I did—exactly when to run his hands through my hair, when to cup my face like it was something precious.
It was deliberate, sweet, frantic at the same time, tinged with vodka and lime and not the taste of cigarettes, and I wondered very briefly whether that was for my benefit and then that thought was lost, too, because everything was lost except for the small, pleading noise I made when his mouth broke away from mine.
“Kuklachka,” he murmured. “Little doll.”
Little doll. That’s exactly what I didn’t want, wasn’t it? To be anyone’s plaything in this game.
I forced myself to push him back, hands on his chest. “Do you just want what I can do for you,” I whispered, “or do you actually want me?”
I expected him to say whatever it took to keep kissing me, but a look deeper than I would have imagined passed over his face. He licked his lips, and I couldn’t help but glance at them. His eyes darkened. “Both,” he said, like he’d just realized it himself.
“I thought I wasn’t your type,” I whispered, remembering the conversation he and Jack had on the boat.
A soft laugh. “You’re not.” His hands were on my waist, fingers spread on my rib cage like piano keys. “Who’s spying now?”
I shrugged, tired of apologizing, then pulled his face back down to mine and didn’t let go again.