Page 95 of Just a Heartbeat Away

She tested him, attempting to lower her leg, but he held her still, kept her wrapped around him.

“We don’t have to,” she said in a low voice, making sure to keep her eyes on him. “Slow down, I mean. We don’t have to. I won’t break.”

He sighed, equal parts pained and joyful. Leaning down, he planted one openmouthed kiss on her neck. “You’re right, we don’t have to. But we’re going to.”

“Why?”she asked again, dizzy with heat for him, like she’d been dozing in a hot car. This time the word was much more desperate than the first time she’d asked it.

Slowly, he lowered her leg from around his waist and straightened her dress. He bent toward her, about to kiss her again, but instead he raked his hand over his face. The sound of stubble against his rough hand was loud in the quiet hallway. He pulled back and paced away.

Seb pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. “What do you see when you look at that?”

Via felt shocked and soft, as she had the first time she’d looked at the Polaroid. She glanced up at him and saw that he was legitimately waiting for her to answer the question. She cleared her throat and was pretty surprised when her voice didn’t shake. “I see you, looking so handsome I can barely breathe. And you’re holding me. And I see me.” Unbidden, her eyes tightened with tears. She blinked them immediately back. “I look so happy that it makes me sad.”

“Makes you sad?”

She didn’t look up at him, instead kept her gaze on the Polaroid. “Because I haven’t seen myself look this happy in a really long time. And more than happy. I look like I belong. Look at that! I look like I got invited to this party and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” She held the photo far away and then close again. “I haven’t looked this happy since I was a child.”

Since before my parents died.

The words were unspoken as she handed the precious Polaroid back to him. He studied her face for a second and then looked back at the picture. “That’s really what you see?”

“Yes.” She cocked her head to one side, wondering what he was trying to get at.

He shucked the Polaroid against the fingers of the opposite hand. “Via, I’m forty-two years old.”

“Okay.” What was he getting at?

“That doesn’t give you any sort of reaction?” His eyes were shadowed and inscrutable across the hallway.

She wanted to cross over to him. But she had the feeling that a lot hung in the balance of her answer. She did the only thing she could. She told the truth. “It gives me a little thrill, I suppose. The same way any new information about you does. But I’d figured that’s about how old you were.” She took a tentative step forward. “I love learning new things about you, Seb. I’m hungry for it all. I wanna know everything.”

He made a sound, almost like she’d punched him. Seb crouched down, onto the balls of his feet and gripped his silver-brown hair with both hands for a moment. She took another step toward him. When he rose up again, his eyes were blazing. He was bright with so many emotions she couldn’t have begun to separate one from the other.

“All right,” he said, almost to himself. “All right.”

He stepped toward her and met her in the middle of the hallway. He reached for her face, took her in his hands, swallowed her up in that warm grip.

“All right,” he said one more time and let his hands fall to her shoulders. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna stick to the original plan. We’re gonna go downstairs and drink a little and dance a little and celebrate Sadie and Rae.”

She squinted up at him, her blood humming and her heart turning cartwheels in her chest. “Okay...but I gotta say, I’m kind of partial to the coat closet plan.”

He laughed and groaned and dragged her to his chest all at once. “Yeah. Me, too. But we’re going slow, remember?”

Via sighed and traced her hands up the lapel of his coat. When she got to his neck, she tucked her fingertips into the collar of his shirt, making him squirm. “At the risk of sounding repetitive here, why the hell are we going slow?”

He quirked a little indulgent smile at her. “Let me think of a way to explain it.” His eyes got distant as he thought, and his hands traced over her back. Via briefly let herself dream of a world where Sebastian Dorner absently touched her with freedom. It made her shiver. He brought those green-gray lasers back to her face. “You like dark chocolate?”

“Of course.”

He smiled at her almost affronted tone.

“Well, you know, a Hershey’s Kiss you can just unwrap and eat any old time, right? Circumstances don’t matter, it’s always—” he shrugged “—pretty good. But dark chocolate? A really nice slice of dark chocolate?” He brushed the waves of hair back from her neck and landed another one of those endless, searching kisses on her throat. “Well, that’s not the way you eat the dark chocolate you’ve been saving.”

He took a second and exhaled against her. “You ever tried to eat dark chocolate when it’s cold? It’s still delicious, better than any other chocolate by far. But if you let it warm up, in your mouth, it melts. And there are fifty—a hundred—times the flavors there. You can taste things you never knew existed.”

She was pretty sure she’d never breathe again, but whatever, it had been a good life. “So that’s what we’re gonna do?” she asked, sounding like she’d just run a mile.

“Yeah.” He kissed her neck again. “I’m gonna warm you up, Via. Until I can lick you off my fingers.”

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