Chapter 5 Look at Me
Damian POV
Her knee was still against mine. She hadn't moved it. Neither had I. Through the fabric I could feel the warmth of her, steady and specific. The bartender had moved to the far end sometime in the last half hour. The cluster of people nearest us had cleared out, and the space they'd left hadn't filled back in.
She said, "Do you have somewhere to be after this?"
"It depends on you," I said.
She held my gaze for a moment. Then she put her glass down and kissed me.
Brief and certain. I noticed the pause before it—a half second, no more—and kept my hands where they were. She'd started it. I kissed her back. When she pulled back her chin was down slightly and she wasn't quite looking at me, but she wasn't looking away either.
I waited.
She picked up her bag from the bar.
At the bar I caught Marco's eye. He nodded once and moved toward the front desk. In the lobby I stopped and turned toward her.
"If you've changed your mind, tell me now."
She looked at me for a moment. Her jaw was set, not against me—against something she'd been carrying before she'd walked into that bar. Then it loosened, slightly.
"I just want to forget tonight," she said. "That's all I'm here for."
I heard the weight in it without knowing what it was attached to. I didn't ask. Marco appeared at my left, pressed a keycard into my hand without a word, and was gone.
In the elevator I didn't touch her. The distance between us was close enough that she'd feel it. The warmth off her shoulder without touching it. She didn't move away. After a moment her hand came up and adjusted the strap of her bag—small, automatic—and then stilled. In the mirror I caught her looking at herself for a half second and then away. I watched the side of her face instead. The line of her jaw. The place where her neck curved into her shoulder.
The corridor was quiet. At the door she stopped. I came forward with the key, reached past her to the lock, and she stayed where she was and let me. Her shoulder an inch from my chest. The faint warmth of her hair. When the door opened she went in first.
The light in the room was sharper. I closed the door and turned and she was already facing me, standing in the middle of the room with her bag still over one shoulder. The pulse at the side of her throat—small, steady, faster than her breathing suggested. Her chin was up.
I walked toward her and stopped close enough that she'd have to move to put space between us.
She set her bag down on the chair beside her. Slowly, without looking away from me.
I reached up and moved a strand of hair from her face. My fingers brushed her cheek and I let my hand drop. She hadn't moved back. Her breathing had changed—not faster, just shallower, held a little more carefully.
"You've been deciding something all night," I said.
"I decided," she said. "About an hour ago."
I brought my hand back to her jaw and she let me. Her eyes stayed on mine. When I kissed her it was different from downstairs—less certain, more careful. Her hand came up to my chest, not pushing, just landing there. After a moment her fingers curled into the fabric.
I reached for the buttons of her shirt, one at a time. She didn't step back, chin slightly lifted, watching me. Her hands came up to my collar and she started on my buttons before I'd finished with hers—steady, unhurried, and when her fingers grazed my sternum it didn't seem accidental. I set my hands at her waist.
When her shirt slipped off her shoulders I stopped. The line of her collarbone. The curve below it. The hollow at her throat where the light caught.
"You're beautiful," I said. Quiet. Not a performance. Just what was true.
She stilled. Her hands dropped from my collar. Her gaze moved left—just for a second—and when it came back something in it had shifted. Not shyness. Something closer to not knowing what to do with a thing that had no edges. She looked at me and said nothing. Then her hands found my collar again and she closed the distance between us.
I let her.
I brought her down onto the bed and she pulled me with her, her hands at my shoulders, her legs shifting to take my weight. She moved under me and I followed without being asked.
When I moved my mouth down her throat to her collarbone she turned her head and gave me more of it. Her fingers found the nape of my neck and held on, not directing, just anchoring.
When I touched her she was already warm, already past pretending. She exhaled sharply and her hips lifted off the bed. I kept my hand where it was and watched her come apart.
Her hand pressed into the sheet beside her, gathered a fistful of it, and then let go. She moved against me, small at first and then less controlled, each exhale a little rougher than the last. When she came her whole body pulled tight and then released all at once.
She reached for me after. Her hand found my hip and pulled—and I was already moving. When I pressed into her her head went back against the pillow and she stopped being quiet about it. I shifted the angle once and her fingers dug into my back and didn't let go.
At some point she turned her face away—small, automatic. I brought my hand to her jaw and turned her back, just enough. She let me. She didn't close her eyes or look past me.
"Don't," I said quietly.
She held my gaze. Her breathing hadn't steadied yet.
I looked at her for a moment. The flush across her chest, the way she was still trying to hold herself together.
"You have no idea," I said, "what you look like right now."
A flicker of something crossed her face. Her hand rose to my chest and pulled me back down.
The room had gone quiet.
The city was still dark outside the windows. That hour before the harbor traffic started. The only light left was the small lamp beside the bed.
I sat back against the headboard with the sheet across my lap. I'd taken a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand but hadn't lit it. I turned it once between my fingers, then set it down.
She was on her side, half turned away from me, the sheet pulled up over her shoulder. Her breathing had settled but not into sleep—too even, too deliberate. Every few seconds her lashes moved against her cheek. She shifted, not toward me exactly, just toward the warmth, until the space between us was less than a hand's width.
Her hair had fallen across her cheek. The tension that had been in her jaw all evening was gone.
I thought about what she'd said in the lobby. I just want to forget tonight. I didn't know what tonight had held before she'd walked into that bar. I knew it had been enough to bring her here alone, enough to make her set terms before she'd told me her name. She'd said she wanted to forget it.
I didn't know if she had. I didn't know why it mattered that she might not have.
My eyes went back to the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder. The wanting hadn't gone quiet the way it usually did.
The cigarette stayed unlit on the nightstand.
