Page 43 of The Sin

“You won’t be happy with the answer.”

“Try me.”

His mouth flattened. The sigh he dragged through his teeth suggested I seriously wouldn’t like the answer. “You weren’t real.”

I didn’t know what to do with that. So I said nothing, I just looked at him.

Whatever he saw in my eyes quickly made him say, “What I mean is, you were a citizen of Capra, sheltered from the real world and innocently living your perfect little life in your little make-believe world, and I didn’t want to get dragged into that. You think the walls are a prison. I think the walls are a cotton-padded buffer to reality.”

Wow. My throat scratched. “Do you still feel that way?”

He reached for my hand, the one not frozen in a grip around my fork, and lifted it onto the table in his. “Of course not.”

I chewed on the corner of my lip, searching his eyes, and I believed him. “What changed?”

“You became real.” His fingers twined through mine in a firm grasp, as if he were afraid I’d leak away from him. “You showed me that Capra—that what that life had done toyou, was just as messed up as the world beyond the walls, it’s just a different kind of messed up.”

“You needed me to be imperfect.”

“It took me a while to get there,” he said softly, his thumb tracing light circles on my skin, “but I just needed you to be you.”

He leaned in, his gaze sinking into me, and I felt hopelessly trapped. I wasn’tstartingto fall for Roman all over again. I was falling in love with him, and I was falling hard. I could resist the pull of him. I’d done it before. I could probably come up with a thousand reasons to push him away and protect my heart.

Maybe it was the wine.

Maybe it was this damn Velvet Lounge.

And maybe it was just Roman.

My gaze dipped to his mouth, and the longing that stirred in me was so vast, I didn’t know how to cross it without slipping into the quicksand.

I slipped, lifting my eyes to his with un-shuttered want, and he took the invitation. His lips brushed over mine, a kiss as gentle as a butterfly’s wings, stroking my senses and skittering warmth through me. He curled a hand around the nape of my neck and the kiss turned possessive, his lips warm and firm, demanding more, and then his tongue parted my lips and slid in, stroking and exploring and joining us in way that I’d never joined with any other person.

Everything around me fell away.

There was just the taste and feel of him, and the flame sparking between us, and the absolute knowing that if I’d died before this moment, I would never have truly lived.

His mouth shaped mine, his kisses hard and demanding, soft and feathered, stealing my breath and the marrow in my bones.

He fisted a hand in my hair, his grip silken iron, his jaw brushing over my cheek as he slowly dragged his mouth off mine.

I groaned. I wasn’t ready for this to end.

His breath was warm—and a little ragged—against my skin, and then he pulled back. “If we don’t stop now, there’s going to be some undressing in public.”

My blood heated, but it wasn’t embarrassment. I didn’t even glance around to see if we’d drawn attention. I was slowly catching fire at the thought of taking this back to the apartment and seeing where it ended.

“I may be open to that.” I heard that and my cheeks flamed, this time from embarrassment. I winced. “I mean, not in public.”

He chuckled, a low, husky chuckle. His eyes glinted silver, but there was no hardness or coldness in the look he settled into me. “If I didn’t have to get back to Capra tonight, I’d take you up on that.”

I sighed. Heavily. “Or you don’t go back, and we skip Julian’s dinner party.”

“And what happens if he comes to the cabin instead and you’re not there?”

Disappointment flooded me, and not just because he was leaving me all hot and bothered. For a few blissful minutes, the outside world had ceased to exist. But it hadn’t really gone anywhere.

15

---