Page 34 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“Dishonest,” she added, grinding her teeth. Not meeting his gaze. His parents were dead. He had just bid them goodbye. He had been her best friend. And in the weeks since his return, in the volleys of text messages, tentative at first and then steadier, the cat pictures, and the tea shop talk, he was something to her again.
Maybe he had never stopped being something to her.
She hadn’t exactly been honest either. But the past tense cut her, and she needed to reassure not just Azrael, but herself.
“I wasn’t honest either. I should have told you that I loved you then too.” Then. She loved him then.
“What if,” he began, voice rasping. “What if we tried again?” Hope bloomed, a small burst of wanting in her chest, but she shook her head.
“I—I need time,” she whispered. “Time to figure out how I feel, and if that’s a good idea. And we’ve got plenty. We are both older and wiser.”
“Of course.” His words were clipped. Strained. She felt his hollow response rattle in the equally empty hull of her chest.
“We see what happens. Take it slow. I mean, obviously”—she gestured to the distance between them—“obviously welike each other. We are friends. Just two friends who happen to be attractive, and to have acted on attraction once, a long time ago. I’m sorry I lied about my feelings. You’re sorry about the gravedirt. So maybe we leave the past in the past.”
“Vickie,” he began. His voice was low.
Surely it wasn’t wrong to comfort a friend in need. To top off the confessions with a kiss.
Vickie traced a finger down his shoulder. Feeling what it was to touch him now, years later, how he was both different, and in some ways, precisely the same.
Grabbing a fistful of her T-shirt with one hand, Azrael cupped the back of Victoria’s neck with the other. It was a desperate pairing of grief and comfort, and maybe part apology, and then it was more. Heart racing, she wound her fingers through his curls, his hands tracing wicked little circles on her back, lower and lower. Their faces were close, paused as they prepared to reacquaint themselves with long-lost sorrows and joys. Lips hovering inches away. Not meeting.
Slipping clever fingers under her shirt, he ran them across the dips in her back, a groan escaping his lips as he murmured, “I remember these. I remember every inch of you, Victoria.” His voice was rough, each syllable hitching on a breath, and however lacking she feared his feelings might be, pressed against him like this, it was clear to her that his arousal was not.
What stretched between them now was no longer polite conversation or hedging apologies or friendly joking. The air was thick with the past and the creeping, temptingalmostof the future. Perhaps there was something to be said for repeating her mistakes.
In the name of comforting a friend in need. Nothing else.
She ran her tongue across her lips, pulling him closer so their bodies lined up, everything hard of his pressed against everything soft of hers. They had crossed an invisible threshold, and she let go of the threat of more heartbreak and rose to her tiptoes to murmur into his ear.
“I missed you, Az. I missed the way you taste.” She trailed afinger along his jaw, relishing the way he twitched at her hip as she did it, and how his greedy fingers dug into her sides.
“I feel so useless lately,” he muttered into her hair, pressing kisses on her earlobe. “Will you let me be useful for a moment, Victoria? Please? Will you let me make up for all the lies and the ugliness?”
The begging hit different with her full name, the sounds of it dragging against her ears, enticing. Each one a plea that their bodies should slide against each other in a way that she knew would feel so good. Her thighs clenched in anticipation.
“Yes.”
In a quick move, his fingers dipped below her sweatpants now, sliding forward so that his thumb brushed the skin just under her waistband. He tapped gently, fingertip sneaking lower on her hip bone. “Just so we are clear, I’m asking to kiss you. And to touch you. Everywhere. Is that all right?”
She was too far gone to pretend to be anything other than slick with desire and impatient with the closeness of him and the yearning of not having his fingers on her.
But he had just said goodbye to his parents. The man was grieving.
It would be taking advantage. And good goddess, she wanted to take advantage.
Stepping back, she shook her head, swallowing. Kicking herself for this already, but she couldn’t hurt him.
“Actually, I have an early morning tomorrow. Rain check?”
Azrael frowned, his brows wrinkling together for a moment, looking at her for explanation. Like he was waiting for an out here.
Well, out successfully given.
She was a fool, and she couldn’t let him see how desperately she needed him to touch her again, so, ignoring the restless screams of her body—that it was not done, and how very dare she—she grabbed an oversized cardigan from where it was draped over the television and wrapped it around her.
Brownish eyes, flecked with gray and green, clouded. Hismouth tugged downward, but he nodded. “Sure. It’s late. I get it. I’ll text you.”
