a lot of ways. But the phrase shifted the air between them. Charged it. I thought I would like showing it to you. He took a step toward her. “And did you? Like showing it to me?”
He loved that she didn’t step back, didn’t hesitate. Didn’t do anything but stare him down and say, calmly, “Yes.”
They stared at each other for a few beats before she surprised him by saying, “I’m vexed with you.”
What? He’d thought they were . . . Well, he didn’t know what. He forced himself to tune into what she was saying and found that he didn’t like the way it felt to have Marie “vexed” with him. “Why?”
“You should have told me about architecture school. You had several opportunities when it would have been natural to do so.”
“I’m sorry,” he said automatically, though god knew why he was apologizing. He didn’t owe her anything. “It’s kind of a sore spot.”
“Still. I thought we were friends, or . . .” She bit her lip.
Or what? She thought they were friends? Or she thought they were something else?
He’d been thinking about that something else, too. About that or. Fuck it. He’d been thinking of the gulf between them—the princess and the cabdriver—as a reason to keep his hands off her, but maybe that was backward. She was right. The princess of Eldovia and the cabdriver from the Bronx were never going to see each other again after this week. There had been sparks flying today, and between her snuggling up against him while dancing and being all coy just now, they weren’t just coming from him.
So what the hell was he waiting for?
Leo had just enough coherent reason left in him to peel off his gloves first. He knew he was going to want to feel Marie. Her skin, her hair. Her.
Her breaths were shallow. Little bursts of steam emitted from her lips. His world shrank so those lips were the world. That rosebud. That heart. He swooped in, but stopped just short of her mouth, so the steam from his breath joined with hers. Waited. Because although he had come, rather rapidly, to his “fuck it” revelation, that didn’t mean she had.
He hoped she had. Please let her have.
There were only a few millimeters between them.
She closed the gap. It felt like a triumph. Belatedly, he remembered his hands. Or maybe his hands remembered her. They came down on her cheeks to ensure that she didn’t go anywhere—no one was going anywhere for a very long time. He was going to feast on her.
It was different this time. This wasn’t some impromptu kiss outside his building where Gabby might stumble on them. This was premeditated, and they were in her secret place in the middle of the goddamn Alps.
When his lips came down on hers, her mouth opened. So smoothly, so completely. As if this was choreography they’d been doing together for a long time. As if this was a dance she knew how to do.
He’d forgotten how amazing kissing could be, even—maybe especially—when it wasn’t just the precursor to more. Kissing for its own sake, like you had all the time in the world, was pretty fucking great.
He could feel Marie relax as his tongue made its initial incursions. Even her head grew heavier in his hands. It was like she was shedding an invisible burden, surrendering it to him. He was happy to take it. Proud that she trusted him with it. That she thought he was, as she had said, safe.
So they stood there in the cold and kissed. Kissed like they were in a goddamned movie.
But it wasn’t all heady emotion urging him onward; it was also pure, animalistic want. It was powerful, coarse, and highly improper. As he swept his tongue deeply through her mouth, he let one hand leave her face and slide down her back until he made contact with her ass. He encouraged her forward then, wanting her to feel what this was doing to him. Not that he expected anything to happen beyond this kiss, but he suddenly felt like the girl who thought she wasn’t graceful or beautiful or whatever should feel decided evidence to the contrary.
As with the dancing, she went where he wanted her. She went further: she huffed a moan that seemed part arousal, part frustration and ground herself against his thigh. They were both wearing jeans, but he could feel the heat emanating from her through both layers of denim. Fuck. Yes.