Page 8 of Emerald Malice

I ignore all his messages and turn my focus back on the quivering woman in the elevator with me. Good timing, too, because apparently, the two-minute call with Shura is all it took to completely unravel her.

She’s back to being a sweaty, clammy mess, scraping at the wall padding like a cat going through withdrawals.

Real or fake? I still haven’t fully made up my mind. This could be real. It could also be an attempt to distract me from the fact that she’s obviously not supposed to be at this wedding at all.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Those green eyes of hers go wide and trembly. Then, without any warning, she collapses in a dead faint.

“Oh, fucking hell.”

I drop to one knee beside her. I tap her face, but she doesn’t so much as stir.

Her chest is heaving, though. Stuttering, almost, like the stitching in the dress where it binds across her chest is handcuffing her lungs.

It’s pure survival instinct that moves me next.

Not lust. Definitely not lust.

No, I tell myself as I gather two fistfuls of the fabric. This is solely to help her breathe.

Then I rip her dress apart like tissue paper.

Her exposed skin is pale and cold to the touch. When I hover a palm over her mouth to feel her breathing, it’s too still.

Only one way to go from here.

But it’s not lust. It’s definitely not lust.

I lower my face to the girl’s. Her lips part as I get close, like she knows what’s coming and she wants it.

Closer.

Closer.

Her scent is sweet and my dick has never been harder.

And then, just like that, I’m ripped back in time.

Because I’ve been here before. In exactly this situation, kneeling beside a cold, shivering woman and preparing to give her my breath.

I know how that ended. I feel the grief of it in the pit of my stomach every single day of my fucking life.

This kiss is to heal; that one was nothing more than a belated goodbye.

My lips seal to the girl’s. I exhale to fill her lungs. Turn and feel her heartbeat. Exhale again. Check her pulse. I do it all one more time, and just when I’m wondering if I ought to be preparing last rites instead—why won’t this fucking elevator move, goddammit?!—she makes a noise.

“Mmmm…”

It’s a moan. There’s no other word for it. It’s a moan. Low and dreamy and undeniable.

And, like magic, it brings her back to life.

The emerald lastochka’s eyes fly open and she shoves herself upright, just barely missing cracking her skull against mine. She scrambles backward to a hunched seat in the corner. “Oh my God.” She slaps a hand over her mouth like she can shove the moan back in there. “W-what the hell…?”

Before I can explain, the elevator shudders into motion. Like it has a mind of its own, it takes us back to where we came from.

Ping. “Fifth floor.”

---