Page 94 of Just a Heartbeat Away

But then he apparently took in the expression on her face, because he didn’t say another word as she rapidly closed the distance between them.

He looked torn. She couldn’t tell if she was about to make a humongous fool out of herself. But maybe that made it all that much better. Because who cared about being a fool? Fear of being foolish had kept her in a mediocre relationship with a man-child for two years. Fear of being foolish had kept her lonely for far longer than that. She didn’t care if he rejected her or rebuffed her. She didn’t care that when she was just five steps away his hands came up between them. She didn’t care that she couldn’t tell if he was going to grab her close or push her away.

There was just one pulsing word in Via’s head as she closed the distance between them, laced her fingers in his short hair and yanked his head down:this.

This was what she wanted.

The quick inhale that said he was holding his breath, too. The almost vulgar heat of his calloused hands as he—thank Christ—firmly slid them over her bare back. The demolition of space between them as she clamped herself to him. This. This. This.

She might have marched down the hallway to grab him, but he was the one who started the kiss. He dropped his head and pressed his mouth to hers. His lips were a firm, experienced slide, and there was no describing a flavor like that. Man and chocolate cake and dark hallway where the autumn gardens leaned in on every side. Everything was bathed in deep blue light, and Via knew they’d somehow found their way to the bottom of the ocean.

One of Seb’s hands lightninged up her back and tangled in her hair; he tipped her head back, and she realized again just how large he was. He surrounded her on almost every side. The new angle had her mouth slipping open, and Seb made a noise, tore his face to one side to breathe and came back to her. He dropped a gruff kiss to her bottom lip, pulled back and did it again. When he slouched, lifted her and landed his lips on hers, his tongue swept into her mouth.

Basically, Via attempted to climb the mountain of his body. She wanted the mountaintop. She wanted the crisp, terrifying summit. She thanked God that her dress had a slit up the side because it allowed her to hitch one of her flexible legs over his hip.

She was dizzy and could only think about tracing her tongue along his, which was why she was startled when her back was firmly pressed into a brick wall.

Her eyes fluttered open and she realized that he was caging her in, pressing her back and...This. Yes, one of his hands had reached back and touched at the strap of her high heel that was currently pressed into his ass. His hand traced up her calf and to her thigh then doubled back to the soft skin at the back of her knee.

Via gasped into his mouth as his fingers pressed into the hollow of her knee. He made a sound in response, and his hand slid higher up her thigh.

Then, suddenly, Seb was unhanding her and taking four quick steps away from her. Via sagged back against the wall.

“Fuck,” he muttered, pacing past her once, twice.

And then he was back. One hand in her hair and the other reaching down to toss her leg over his hip again. She was breathing his air, swallowing his low, frustrated noises.

She stroked her tongue against his and straight-up moaned when his hand pushed a few inches farther and stroked over the smooth, naked curve of her ass. His hand kept going until he hit her hip and apparently found what he was looking for. The delicate line of her G-string. He was saying something directly into her mouth, but either it wasn’t English or Via’s brain had better things to do. His fingers spread across her hip, tangling in her underwear.

Her fingers ached and she realized it was because she was white-knuckling the fabric of his coat.

This.

His mouth was hot and endless and everything she’d never known existed. It struck her like a slap in the face; she’d been surviving on Easy Mac when all along there’d been filet mignon. She sucked at his bottom lip, bruised it with her tongue. She could feel the rough scrape of his stubble just at the border of his lips, and it enflamed her. It was like he was scraping her clean with his roughness.

She clamped teeth down, and he made the noise a lion makes in the night when he spots prey. That hand of his was farther up her dress, and he pinned her to the wall with his hips.

Via felt the shocking hardness of him press into her stomach, and she wiggled against it.

“Gah, fuck, goddammit,” he growled against her lips. His hand slid out of her dress and clasped her over top of the heated silk. He pressed his forehead into hers. “We gotta slow down, baby.”

“I—” She stopped trying to speak and just forcibly dragged him back into the kiss. Even with the heels, she was still up on the tiptoes of the one foot she had on the ground, trembling and reaching for that motherfucking mountaintop. He cradled the back of her head, nipped her lips and dropped his mouth to her ear.

“We gotta slow down,” he repeated, his voice like chocolate gravel, a glass of red wine drip-drip-dropped from one lover’s mouth to another.

“Why?” was the only word that made its way to the surface of Via’s electrified, squirming ocean.

“Because you’re about to get yourself fucked in a coat closet, and that isnothow I pictured this going.”

No one had ever said something like that to her before. She tightened and clung to him, her body stiff while her insides melted into the hottest honey. She was very aware of the fact that she’d soaked through her underwear.

“You’ve pictured this?” she asked with basically the very last bit of air in her lungs.

He laughed, kissing her lips, one eye, the skin just under her ear. “Jesus, yes. God. Haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and their eyes clashed for the first time since she’d marched up to him. His eyes were storm gray in the dark hallway. There must have been a window open somewhere because she could smell the fresh earth of the gardens, the sharp, dying tang of autumn leaves. And Sebastian. She could smell Sebastian.

“We have to slow down,” he asserted, for the third time. But Via couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t unhanded her. His hands were on the outside of her dress now, sure, but he still had one hand on her ass as he pressed her into a brick wall.

---