“Now what?” I whisper, excitement crackling through me.
He presses a kiss to my temple, breathing me in. “Now I fill the tub with water, pour you a glass of wine, and do whatever you want me to.”
A mighty flush warms my cheeks. “Oh.”
His smile is soft and affectionate as he sways me in his arms. “The bath will take a little to fill. And the wine’s downstairs. But we can start that last part now, though.”
“Telling you . . . what I want? What about what you want? What you need?”
Christopher stares down at me, his eyes searching mine. He dips his head and presses a kiss to my temple, my cheekbone, my cupid’s bow. “I have everything I want—you in my arms, and what I need . . . well, I just need to make you feel good. Tell me how you want it, what you want, anything.”
“Kiss me.” I don’t recognize how breathy my voice is. How unsteady I am. “Now. Please.”
His eyes spark. Then his mouth meets mine, sweet, velvet-hot strokes of his tongue, so delicate, cherishing, they make my eyes scrunch shut against a prick of tears.
Gently, he glides his hands down my waist, to my backside, and rubs it affectionately. My mouth falls open, a desperate, needy sound croaking out.
He smiles against my lips. “I love your horny sounds.”
“Shut up,” I whisper.
He laughs as I drag him with me and fall back onto the bed. When he bends down and kisses me, I sigh into it, pure euphoria.
So little has ever been easy between us. Yet here’s this comfort, the way he already knows I like to be held and kissed, deep and slow, his tongue stroking mine, coaxing desire like a flame inside me, brighter, brighter—
Gently, he pulls away. I make a highly juvenile noise of discontent.
Smiling, Christopher kisses me once more, soft and sweet. “Now, how about we draw that bath?”
? THIRTY-TWO ?
Christopher
My hand shakes as I pour two glasses of red wine, only a splash for me because I’m anxious not to tempt fate with more than the one glass that I had at dinner. Too much alcohol triggers that aching at the base of my neck, the familiar scraping pain in my eye sockets. The memory of having to leave after paintball still fresh, I don’t want a migraine ruining another night with Kate.
I silently beg my brain, which has shown zero signs of ever caring what my plans are or how badly I don’t want them to be ruined, to have mercy on me tonight.
And then I set down the bottle of wine, telling my hands to be steady. But still, they shake. Because I’ve never done this—never been with someone who means too much to me, whom I want so badly to make feel good and safe.
It’s Kate, I remind myself, stopping in the foyer in front of a picture of our families side by side in the dog days of summer, sweaty and smiling, sparklers in our hands. There she is, small and smiling, knobby-kneed and freckled, squinting at the camera. I stare at her and smile myself.
It’s Kate. Kate who snorts when she laughs and gags when she smells barbecue. Kate who loves helpless creatures as deeply as she hates injustice. Kate who teases and touches me like no one else ever has, who gets under my skin and fires me up, who kisses me like it’s the last time she’ll get to and trembles when I touch her like she never wants it to end.
As I take the stairs to the second floor and my bedroom, I repeat it like a mantra: It’s Kate. It’s Kate. It’s Kate.
Wineglasses in hand, I stop and lean at the threshold of my room to soak up the view. Kate sits on the edge of my bed, staring into the dancing flames of the gas fireplace I turned on. She looks pensive, breathtaking, bathed in firelight that paints her skin gold, turns her russet hair burnished bronze.
She looks perfect. She looks at home.
Glancing my way, she smiles, and my heart sighs at its rightness.
“Liar,” she says.
I push off the doorway, frowning. “What are you talking about?’
“Some things have changed around here.” She pats the mattress. “You got rid of the race-car bed.”
I smile, relieved, and hand Kate her glass of wine. “I tried to upsize, but they don’t make them any bigger.”
She takes the wine without any questions about how small my pour is, then stands and tips her glass my way. I tip mine to hers. Our glasses kiss and clang quietly, still humming when we bring them to our lips and drink.
Kate sighs happily. “That’s a good wine. It’s also an expensive wine, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
She peers into the wine’s depths, swirling it in her glass. “Maybe I do like money a little, if it buys this.”
A laugh jumps out of me, and I curl an arm around her, bringing her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Money can’t buy happiness. But it can buy you really good food and wine, and that’s damn close.”
“Cheers to that,” she says, sipping her wine again, then setting her head against my shoulder. Peering toward the bathroom, she goes very still. “Wait. I was supposed to watch the tub as it filled, wasn’t I?”
“Shit.” I nearly drop my wineglass as I set it down, then run into the bathroom.
“Sorry!” she yells from behind me.
“It’s all right,” I call over my shoulder, reaching for the handles to turn off the spigot. “It barely overflowed. Not too much water on the floor. Just be careful—”
“I started daydreaming,” she says, rushing into the bathroom, clearly not having heard me, “and completely lost track of—ack!”
Slipping on the water that’s spilled onto the tiles, Kate slides across the floor, then slams into me. I wrap an arm around her and try to steady us, pinwheeling my free arm until I catch a towel that’s hanging nearby, but it just rips the towel rack out of the wall.
I clutch Kate inside my arms as we fall, me onto my back, Kate on top of me. We land with a loud, wet splat.
The room is stunningly quiet.
After a prolonged stretch of silence, Kate whispers, “I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I wheeze.
She picks up her head from where I’d tucked it against my shoulder to protect her, eyes wide as she looks at me. “Why do you sound like that?”
“Air,” I croak as I point to my chest, then lift a finger. “Just need a minute.”
She bites her lip. Her face is getting progressively redder.
“Swear to God, Katerina,” I wheeze. “If you laugh right now—”
A cackle bursts out of her so loud it echoes off the tiles. “I’m sorry!” she shrieks, tears starting in the corners of her eyes. “I can’t help it when this happens.” She doubles over so hard on another cackling laugh, air wheezes out of her.
My shoulders start to shake as I fight a laugh, not knowing how my lungs can handle it when I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. Despite my worries, a hoarse, deep laugh leaves me as my head flops back onto the wet floor.
“Christopher!” She’s still laughing as she buries her face in my chest. “I’m so sorry. I’m the worst.”
“Hush.” I drag her back down into my arms, pulling her across my body and clasping her jaw in my hand, stealing a deep, hot kiss. Gently, I tug her lip between my teeth and earn a delicious, tiny head-to-toe shudder. “You are the best.”
Her laughter dies away. She looks at me, unblinking, and brings a hand to my face, sweeping back the hair that’s fallen onto my forehead. “I think you are, too.”
Leaning in, she brushes her lips over mine, sweet and fleeting. “Let me clean this up,” she says. “Then I’ll call you in, okay?”
“I can help—”
“Christopher.” She kisses my jaw, my throat, her hand sliding down my chest. My hips lift, waiting for her to finally touch me where I ache so badly for her, but she stops just short of where I want. “Please let me clean up my mess.”
Grumbling a little about it, I sit up with her carefully, then let her push me out of the bathroom, before she shuts the door in my face.