Page 82 of Savannah Royals
I toss back the drink. Matthew’s eyes flicker, then hold on me. He takes his own tiny sip, then a slow breath. “Katarina, I—”
An explosion rockets into the air, and my gaze snaps away from his face. Gold erupts in a fiery blast overhead as the crowd screeches,“Happy New Year!”
Breathless, I turn back to Matthew. The burnished glow of the fast-fading opening salvo illuminates his face. Wordlessly, his right hand wends behind my neck and into my hair. He presses his lips to mine as the next firework launches. The explosion is both in me and around me, overhead and underfoot.
“Happy New Year, Kat,” he murmurs against my lips.
My heart explodes into the sky.
Matthewdepositsmeatthe door to my room in Cherokee Cottage shortly after the fireworks display concludes.
“Is this goodnight then?” I whisper, checking up and down the hallway for an audience. I sense the ghost of Ethan’s presence, just one crass joke or lewd insinuation away.
“It is.” Matthew squeezes my hand. “Gentlemanly best behavior, remember? Those were the terms of the deal.”
I crack my door. Raise a suggestive brow. “Perhaps I’d like to renegotiate.”
“Don’t tempt me, Katarina,” he rumbles, moving a few inches closer.
“I can be pretty persuasive.” I’m whispering again, even though the hallway is most certainly empty.
“And I’m a pushover,” he replies. “We’ve been here before.”
I latch my fingers into his lapels and yank. “I seem to rememberwinning.”
Matthew stumbles into me. One hand moves, magnetized and possessed, to my hip. But the other stubbornly grips my doorframe, stopping our backward momentum.
He grits his teeth, exhaling barely an inch from my lips. “Not this time, Kat.”
I pout and peer up through long lashes, giving him my very best nonverbal plea.
He laughs before kissing me, and somehow, it’s deliciously sweet and terribly, terribly sinful all at once. Full of things promised but not given. When he pulls back, I’m left wanting.
“Matthew DaMolin, I do declare,” I breathe, eyes searching. “I think you were the most unexpected twist of 1919.”
He chuckles again. “That’s high praise, coming from you. And you know what? I like knowing I’m both your last kiss of 1919 and the first of 1920. I like when you belong only to me, Kat.”
I jolt, surprised to realize it’s the first time I’ve thought of Paul all night. It’s strangely damning, that realization. I run from it.
“Is being my firstkissof 1920 all you want, Matthew?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m not going to stay long enough to find out. Goodnight, Kat.”
I’m disappointed when he moves away, but I step back over the threshold to my room nonetheless. “Goodnight, Matt.”
When the door clicks shut between us, I sigh and slump forward against it, then close my eyes, thinking and breathing.
Paul, invited in by Matthew, slinks to the forefront of my mind. Looming. Prowling. The specter of countless New Year’s kisses flits across my lips. I squeeze my eyes against the guilt.
Guilt, but not regret.
I breathe in and out, reliving the night in my mind. The feel of Matthew’s tuxedoed arm beneath my fingers, the bright white of the bow tie against his neck. The luxurious taste of champagne gliding down my throat. The live wire of laughter buzzing from Constance Pulitzer’s lips to my ear. The persistent glitter in the periphery of my vision, the glitter of priceless gemstones flashing about the room.
And me, walking through the wealthiest sea of people on the planet, somehowbelongingthere. Belonging in this place, where poets and vagabonds go to die. Where I used to think only the soulless live, people worth stealing from because they, in their ivory towers, deserve it. And maybe some—most—of them do.
But Matthew is here. And when I’m with him…
When I’m with him, everything I thought I knew and believed about the world has an annoying tendency to go sideways.
