Page 27 of One For my Enemy

“God, have a little self-preservation,” she told him, lifting her chin. “It’s sad, Lev.”

“Is it?” he echoed neutrally, brushing his lips against hers. Not a kiss, though. Not yet. “Seems to be going pretty well for me so far, don’t you think?”

“Just shut up and kiss me,” Sasha growled, and he laughed, lifting one of his hands to secure her hair behind her ear himself, holding it in place with his thumb.

“But what happens after I kiss you?” he prompted, as one of her fingers slipped incautiously around his belt loop, tugging him closer. “I only get what, five more minutes? I’m not going to waste them,” he murmured, removing her hand from his jeans in favor of sliding his fingers carefully between hers, “by starting a kiss I don’t plan to see through.”

“Fine. You can stay, then,” she said, toying with the collar of his shirt, “alittlelonger.”

“How much longer?”

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes,” she said with an air of grave concession, and he laughed, pulling her against him.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but if I kiss you now, Sasha, that’s a short story. That’s… what? A kiss, sure, and then, I don’t know, maybe I go down on you behind that counter,” he mused, feeling her grip on him tighten as he gestured over his shoulder, “or maybe we have sex in a storage room or a supply closet or something and then I go home, and okay, so in the moment it’s great, it’s fun, it’s exciting, and sure, I’m not saying I wouldn’twantto—but that’s not the start of something big, is it? Nothing significant ever starts like that.”

He could feel her tensing with surprise, unnerved.

“I’m not here for a one-night stand, Sasha,” he told her. “The story we’re writing? It has chapters. Installments. I don’t want once.”

With that, he pulled away, checking his watch. “Fifteen minutes on the dot,” he announced, flashing the face of it at her, and she blinked, standing absurdly still as he disentangled himself from her grasp. “Maybe I’ll see you again,” he suggested. “Maybe soon, even, if you find yourself free.”

He could feel her eyes tracking his path as he left. “You really are impossible.”

“I’m actually extremely easy,” he informed her regretfully, heading to the door. “I just want this more than you think I do.”

He was nearly out of the shop by the time she called after him.

“Lev,” she said, sounding resigned, and in response he gave a perfunctory pause, obliging her an expectant glance over his shoulder.

She stood quite still for a moment, a spectacular furrow of uncertainty pressed between her brows as she gauged whatever impossible proposition she might wish to offer him, and briefly (unhelpfully) Lev wanted to run over and press his fingers to it; to soothe it beneath his touch.

Instead he waited, his fingers tapping impatiently against his thighs.

“You play a very risky game,” Sasha remarked eventually.

You have no idea,Lev thought.

“I’ll text you,” he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

“You’d better,” she said, and then, “Enjoy your bath.”

He nodded, compelling himself to go.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he was certain her gaze had followed him out the door.

II. 9

(Crimes.)

LEV:this bath is criminally relaxing

LEV:you should be arrested

SASHA:told you

LEV:going to bed soon?

SASHA:yes

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