Page 87 of V for Vindictive

I clutched the front of his apron, bringing his lips impossibly close. Desperate to feel more, I opened my mouth to his seeking tongue. I responded the way my head screamed not to and my ho-ho body fist-pumped. I kissed him back like it wasn’t the worst thing I could do.

Chapter 33

Kisses of Two

For minutes our mouths clashed, tongues seeking, entangling, caressing, and time seemed to stop. I gave myself over to Sloan and satisfied an urge I’d long suffered since Phillip came back.

And then it ended.

Sloan was the first to withdraw, his thumbs swiping longingly across my wet, parted lips. His narrow eyes were pupil-blown lustful things that I’d seen a few times but never quite like this. It made adrenaline rush my veins and my pulse thrum violently in my ears.

“Any way you’ll have me, I’m yours. I won’t be greedy. I know your feelings for Phillip are strong, and it’s not my intention to pressure you,” Sloan whispered, his mouth ghosting across mine again before retreating.

A sigh escaped my lips, full of desperate need and resignation. My hands clung to his large ones still holding my face, not ready to let go but determined to say something, anything, that may express an iota of what I was feeling—what I’d struggled with for months.

“I do like you, Sloan,” I said slowly, watching his lips hint at a smile. “Like, a lot, and that’s why it’s confusing. I don’t really know what the right answer here is, but Idoknow this isn’t going to work the way it’s going right now. I need to figure things out. Try to understand my own feelings. I can’t lead anyone on by pledging myself to them. It’s not fair.”

His deep husky voice whispered, “Then don’t.”

“Don’t?” My eyebrows lifted into my hairline.

A secretive grin tainted Sloan’s lips before he stole another kiss and threaded fingers through my hair, the seductive lure of his mouth causing my body to pitch forward. But he stayed frustratingly out of reach. “Phillip and I are big boys, and we’ve lived for a very long time. Even with that being the case, we still struggle to know what it is we want. Relationships are complex and ever-moving, and they look different for each person.”

Leave it to Sloan to effortlessly put my heart at ease with his words, to say all the things I’d been desperate to hear. To validate every goddamn struggle in my heart like I wasn’t crazy. Like I was perfectly normal. I’d never felt so damn seen by any other man in my life, and it made my throat lock up with emotion.

If the Brit noticed, he didn’t show it. Simply carried on talking like I wasn’t in front of him, two seconds from crying. “It’s only natural that you’d be conflicted and unsure about having feelings for two people. I’m not asking you to choose me over him, or to choose at all if that’s your wish. I’m only asking you to make space for me. Let me show you who I am and what I can give you. I want to be a part of your life, however that looks.”

My eyes dropped away from his, battling another onset of debilitating emotion, so I started to ramble, “Grams says she was with five people at one time. Can you believe that? Grams was all like ‘We were all consenting adults, V’like she hadn’t just uttered a whole lot of fucking crazy.” I used my best Grams voice, gravelly and full of subtle chiding, air quoting her words. “She and I never talk about sex.Like, ever. It was totally out of nowhere, and now I can’t stop thinking about who those people wereand where she found them. Or singing thePokémontheme song, if I’m honest.”

The eyebrow raise from Sloan had me scrambling not to sound like a total idiot.

Too late.

“It’s still a little weird to think about her living it up with five separate people, but she was quick to say it was nothing to be ashamed of.”

The amused eyes straying to my mouth and those stroking fingers in my hair were so damn good, and they turned me into a rambling monster. Being in front of him like this should’ve stopped the word vomit in its tracks, but it didn’t. Sadly, I didn’t think anything would at this point.

“That wily old fox said I should explore. Hit it and quit it. She’s a crazy person. I mean, no one hits it and quits it,Grams. That’s for sleaze balls and people with personality problems. Okay, yeah, maybe I have a few of those problems, but it’s because I’m young, not because I’m intentionally an asshole.”

Sloan’s laughing eyes danced around my face. Then I heard his soft, chest-deep chuckle, and I just melted into V goo before pulling myself together.

Ugh.

“Anyway, Jo also said something similar the other day—live messy and don’t apologize. I seem to be getting a lot of random advice these days.”

Oh, God, V. Just. Shut. Up.

Sloan’s smile only grew the longer I babbled. But thankfully, the angelic bastard finally came to my rescue. “I agree with Rose. You’ve had a rough go, love. Your year hasn’t been great.”

That’s the understatement of the century.

“And if memory serves, you’ve barely experienced relationships of this nature before meeting Phillip. I’d be more surprised if you’d figured it all out. Might have to then ask you to teach me your ways because I certainly haven’t, and neither has Phillip. If he cares about you, he’ll let you sort through it.”

And there it was, the one thing I needed to hear:“If he cares about you, he’ll let you sort through it.”Those were the words I refused to say to myself because I wasn’t sure if Phillip would ever be that person. Would he let me sort it out? Would he know how hard it was just to ask for it, to ask for time, like Sloan was clearly ready to give me?I wasn’t confident the Austrian would, and it tore me apart every second I didn’t say it. Because I did love him, but my feelings for Sloan were strong, too. Distracting, all-consuming, the same way it’d been with Phillip when I was with Nigel.

‘If you love someone, set them free’was a pretty well-known quote by someone who’d written a book. Jonathan-something. I’d done that with Phillip when he left on his misguided protection adventure, and now I needed it from him. But I wasn’t sure I’d get it.

And if I didn’t, what did that mean for us?

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