Page 47 of Tarnished Reign

The breeze stills, waves gentle, clocks stop. My whole being seizes, air freezing in my lungs, heart stuttering before…

Boom.

Air rushes in, my heart canters into a new faster rhythm, and the ocean swells.

Like the explosion that altered my life, this moment does the same.

The kiss has me aching for more, but wary of it too.

This kiss shows me that every other woman I’ve tasted before was somehow wrong. This kiss is so right, it should terrify me.

This kiss is my new home.

I angle her head and take more.

12

ADRIANA

I've been kissed before.

Hungry kisses. Drunken kisses. Sloppy kisses, and careful ones. I've experienced kisses that have turned me on. Kisses that have turned me off. I've been kissed by a boy who claimed he was falling in love with me.

I've never been kissed like this.

I tumble and fall, heading straight down the steep rabbit hole that is this energy between me and Dimitri. One hand grips his hair, and the other opens reflexively, letting the papers fall to the floor. Like confetti at a wedding, they fan out around us.

I'm on Dimitri’s lap, my legs straddling him, his arms around me. He's sitting with his legs together on the stool, and I'm all too aware that in this position we could make love.

His fingers in my hair tighten, and with a gentle exertion of pressure, he angles my head. It gives him better access to my mouth, and he deepens the kiss. His stubble scratches my skin, and the tiny prick of rough pain is a beautiful juxtaposition to the softness of our mouths meeting.

We melt together, our mouths twisting and turning in that intricate dance as old as time.

His tongue licks at the seam of my mouth, and I part for him, compliant and eager. His tongue slides inside, and I taste him. I barely know this man but feel as if I know him better than anyone else on earth in this moment. Each lick of his tongue against mine is a new learning experience.

A small sound escapes me, unbidden. It tears a whimper from my throat, and I press myself closer to him. I need more, but I don't know what of.

He makes his own sound in answer. A deep masculine groan that vibrates through me. I'm aching and needy. My skin is alive, as if I've just stepped out of an ice bath. I tingle all over, from the tip of my scalp to the bottom of my toes. I've never felt so vital. And through it all I continue kissing him.

My breasts are pressed against his chest, and I’m aware that I don't have a bra on. When I came to the gym, I didn't think anyone would be here. Certainly not him or Jinx. I had nothing to workout in, so I took one of his T-shirts and tied it underneath my bust. It bagged around my breasts, hiding their shape. It revealed some of my stomach but not a lot. And I had a pair of his shorts pulled high on my waist.

Now, though, as I melt into this man, I regret not having a bra while at the same time rejoicing in it. My nipples are hard and peaked against the wall of muscle.

He slows the kiss and bites gently at my lip, sending delicious tremors right through my body, before he gives me one last gentle press of his lips before pulling away.

He looks at me, his chest rising and falling fast. I stare right back. I'm falling into his eyes the same way I fell into his kiss.

If he asked me to right now, I'd lie back on that desk, pull these shorts off, and spread myself wide open for him. I don't even know what it is that I’d be getting, but I want to take it all.

I've been turned on before, I'm not an innocent, naive woman who hasn't done anything. Nothing's ever felt like this, though. So raw and urgent and yet so right.

“Christ,” he says as he licks his lips.

He looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. But there's something guarded in his gaze. I don't know what it is, and I don't understand it. He just blew me wide open and exposed every vulnerable, essential part of me. So why is he putting up shutters?

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he lies.

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