15 Montréal

15

MONTRéAL

PHAEDRA

I’d take kind words or bitter ones from Nat at this point, but by day’s end there’s still nothing. Silence.

The fact that she doesn’t bother replying despite my mention of Mo being sick settles a cold realization in my stomach: I need this friendship more than she does. All these years I’ve thought I was the alpha and she was the sidekick—the arrogance of being a child prodigy!

Humility is a bitch.

I’ve been back at my hotel room for a half hour and have changed into sleep shorts and a tank top. I’m pacing, drinking Glenmorangie and soda while eating a barge-size bar of salted-caramel-filled chocolate and keeping an ear out for Ardelean, who has the suite kitty-corner from mine.

When I hear the elevator, I walk to the door and press my eye to the peephole. Seconds later a blond blur passes, and his door opens and closes.

Reece is staying just down the hall. I don’t think she’s in her room yet, but I can’t risk any chance of her seeing me knocking at Cosmin’s suite, especially half-dressed. I shoot off a text to him.

Open your fucking door.

The read receipt pops up, and I hear his room click open a moment later.

Dropping my phone on the bed, I charge into the hall and beeline to where Cosmin stands in his doorway. He’s opening his mouth to say something when I smack his chest hard with both palms, letting out a furious sound between a growl and a screech, teeth clenched. He stumbles back, hands raised, and I follow him inside, delivering a harder shove.

“What was that bullshit this morning?” I demand, hands fisted at my sides. “‘ Bloodless ’?”

He takes a deep breath and releases it in a nervous chuckle.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” I snarl, shooting my arms out to slam into his chest again. “This isn’t funny!” Another punch-shove.

He snatches my wrists as I’m preparing to double slug him again. “Stop that this instant.”

Baring my teeth, I kick his ankles while wrenching to escape. I’m apoplectic with indignation that he’s holding my arms—despite the hypocrisy, since I’m basically punching him—and muttering inarticulate fragments as my bare feet jab him.

“Don’t you… Motherfucker, I’ll… What are?… Okay, that’s it, you son of a… grrrrr! Let me go… I will end you !”

I get frustrated enough at the restraint that I pull his arms closer in the hopes of delivering a bite.

That seems to be a line in the sand for Cosmin when he spots my intention, because he barks out “Hey!” just before ducking to flop me over his shoulder like the caveman he joked about being when we were in Santorini. Except this caveman isn’t playing a sexy game.

He strides to the bed, and I yank his shirt up in back to get at bare skin. The “red mist” has descended, and I’m not sure how to dial it back. It’s as if everything that’s ever hurt me is going to be punished through Cosmin, and I’m beyond caring whether that’s fair.

I manage one good rake, though my fingernails aren’t long.

“Ai de pula mea!” Cosmin gasps. The hand he has wrapped around my left ankle tightens reflexively, and I explode into rage, flailing like a lunatic, loose hair roiling around me. I only dimly register the very real possibility that I might fall and be injured.

“Control yourself!” he orders, doing his best to get a better hold on me, like a juggler whose bowling pins are escaping him. “Bloody stop, dammit!”

I’m thrashing so much that his hand connects in a smack with my bare thigh as he tries to adjust his grip and prevent me from falling. I yelp and choke out a sob, tumbling to the bed.

His arms are extended to guide my landing, his face drawn as if he’s in pain too. He reaches to touch my knee and I unsuccessfully kick at him with a screech.

“Are you all right? I’m so sorry, drag?—I didn’t intend to strike you.”

I stand on my knees on the bed, twisting to inspect the back of my thigh. Swallowing tears, I rub the spot as I glare at him. “You asshole, is this how you are?” Suddenly I see a place to twist the knife. “Go ahead and hit me, like your uncle hit you and your sister. Are you just like him?”

Cosmin blanches, taking several steps back until his feet run into a dresser. His hands flatten against it, posture like a burglar who’s been caught in a searchlight.

I open my mouth to apologize, but my anger won’t let the words past the lump in my throat. A sigh deflates him, and he walks to the sofa and sits, cupping his face.

I pivot to sit on the edge of the bed. “Don’t you dare,” I growl. “Don’t make me pity you after you hurt my feelings this morning and embarrassed me. This isn’t even Steven.”

His hands slide off and he looks at me, his wavy hair—the same color as the caramel in the chocolate I was just eating—disheveled, eyes bleak. “Who is he?”

I blink at him. “Who is who?”

“Steven.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I stand and walk to the mirror. “You’re being cute and clueless about English because you know it’s a weakness of mine when you do it.” I scrutinize the faint pink mark on my thigh.

“I didn’t know you found that attractive,” Cosmin says, tired. “You seem impatient when it happens.” He stands and pulls his shirt off. “And with many other things.”

I’m torn between suspicion and guilt, recognizing the truth in what he’s saying as well as the resignation with which he delivers the words.

I am impatient. I lash out without thinking. I go for the thing I know will hurt most. I throw the last cookie to the birds so Aislinn can’t have it either. I take potshots at Natalia.

Fuck.

“Why are you undressing?” I demand, changing the subject. “Don’t get any fancy ideas, Legs. Not happening.”

“I’m taking a shower. I’d just arrived when you texted.” As he passes me on his way to the bathroom, I see the twin claw marks on his lower back, one deep enough that it’s bleeding.

“Oh, fuck, Cos.” I stand up. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s fine.”

He rounds the corner and I hear the water go on. I sit on the bed. My eyes drift over the objects on his bedside table: a glass bottle of water, cordless headphones, a novel called The Baron in the Trees . There’s a bookmark tucked inside, and I pick it up to snoop.

The bookmark is a child’s colored-pencil drawing of a Formula 1 car—Emerald’s—with sponsor names written as if copied by someone who can’t read. It’s long and thin, so the young artist has filled the space behind the car with “speed lines” and billows of smoke. I flip back a few pages and peruse what Cosmin might’ve read before sleeping last night.

Minutes later, the water turns off and I hear him brush his teeth. He comes out, a towel around his hips.

I hold up the bookmark with a weak smile. “Hopefully the smoke isn’t prophetic.”

He merely nods, going to his suitcase and taking out a pair of blue pajama bottoms, giving them a shake before stepping into them, turned away.

“I didn’t expect you to be here still,” he says, speaking over his shoulder.

His profile against the soft glow of dusk in the big window is striking, and my heart twists, sad for everything we’re doing wrong.

He comes to the bed and props a stack of pillows against the ornate headboard before sitting as far from me as possible. I watch him sidelong. Ugh, his stupid torso is a work of art and I don’t want to love looking at it. His neck is strong, shoulders broad, chest and stomach defined by polygons you could set your watch to. His skin is smooth and naturally golden.

After only a few weeks wherein we’ve managed a dozen covert fucks, my fingers already remember the lines and textures of him like the words to an old song. It’s as if my hands are touching him right now, the thumbs feathering over his exactly right non-weird nipples (why are most guys’ nipples so gross? Cosmin’s are perfection) and gliding up to follow the long darts of collarbone, then resting on the hard, teardrop deltoids of his shoulders. I glance away before he catches me staring.

“So,” I venture. “Who’s supposed to, like, say shit first? How does this work?”

He rubs a hand over his face. “I hope you’ll understand I would prefer not to talk now.” His nostrils flare a little as he levels a cool gaze at me. “As you’re so fond of pointing out, we are not dating. No discussion is necessary.”

My embarrassment is acute, and I scramble to my feet off the other side of the bed. “Fine—suits me. Enjoy your evening.”

“Wait…”

I fold my arms, and after a long silence where he doesn’t continue, I look back.

“Give me a moment.” He lifts his hands and hovers them near his head. “I have many things in my mind. Please stay.”

I woodenly lie down. He has all the pillows, and the way my hands are clasped over my chest as I lie flat and rigid makes me look like I’m preparing to be sacrificed.

He grabs a pillow from behind himself. “Here. Lift.”

I comply, and he inserts the pillow beneath my head. Another tense minute goes by, punctuated by the thin sound of traffic horns below and faint chuckle of a distant helicopter.

“You’re apparently not going to apologize for making me look like a twat this morning,” I say. “Sorry you got your nose out of joint over not getting laid last night, but calling me ‘bloodless’ for not servicing you was selfish and rude. And I was joking about the ‘product’ thing. Christ, Cos—my dad has inoperable cancer. Maybe give me a break if I don’t express everything perfectly all the time?”

He scoots down and turns on his side, mashing a pillow beneath his neck. “My comment wasn’t about the lack of sex. I was hurt. What I truly wished for last night was someone to talk to. My trip to Bucharest was difficult. A bit of compassion from you would not have been unwelcome.”

A ripple of shame goes through me.

“But at my door,” he continues, “you felt compelled to point out—once again —that I’m essentially a business asset whose cock you like when you’re bored.”

He’s absolutely right, so of course I go on the offensive, because I am—as my mother once said—borderline feral and don’t know how to play nicely with others.

“We’re not friends , Cosmin.”

His jaw clenches hard enough that I see the muscle twitch. He rolls onto his back, jamming his hands behind his head. “Yes. Thank you for clarifying.”

“And when I’m ‘ bored ’? That’s not accurate.”

He scoffs. “My mistake—the term you used was ‘a distraction.’ Iart?-m?, te rog.”

My eyes narrow. “I’m gonna assume that was something insulting.”

He lifts his head and pins me with a look of disbelief. “You’re a very suspicious woman. You’re closed . Like a fist.” He lifts a hand and squeezes to illustrate his point. “It means ‘forgive me, please.’ Though it was meant with sarcasm.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“You once thought the same thing about ‘drag?,’ asking me ‘Does this mean bitch?’ You are maddening! You expect the worst of everyone, and fool that I am, I align to your expectations because you make me fucking crazy. Why am I so—?”

He shuts his mouth in a firm line and retreats into silence.

I roll onto my stomach and prop on my elbows. “Why are you so…?” I prompt.

His critical gaze touches on me before cutting away. “I refuse to give you compliments while the sting of your insult lingers.”

“What about your insult?” I retort, sitting up straighter. Suddenly the rest of what he said catches up with me. “Wait, what? Compliments? ”

“Never mind.”

I rest my chin on my folded arms, watching his chest rise and fall. Aaauuuggghhh, this is so goddamned stupid. It’s easier if we just fuck.

I do want to ask him what happened in Bucharest. But if we start doing that “talking about feelings” shit, it’s like a relationship, and that’s not our agreement.

Hoping to switch gears and entice him into a nice, straightforward “let’s not get all angsty” fuck, I say, “You know what we should do right now?”

I allow the question to hang, arranging my expression into something provocative.

He rubs his eyes, missing my artless attempt at seduction. “Yes. We should apologize.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I shake my head. “Okay, fine. I’m not good at this though. And I suspect you’re no better. We’re not relationship people.”

He rolls onto his side again to make eye contact. “This is an assumption of yours.”

“Oh, really?” I say with a smirk. “You’re suddenly the ‘marry’ in the ‘fuck, marry, kill’ game?”

“I would love to marry one day. Are you surprised?”

Actually I am, and for a moment I fall silent, trying to read his expression. Deciding there’s absolutely no way I’m going there, I scoot closer and lower my voice. “Let’s get the apologies out of the way and do what we do best.”

I reach over him and grab the bottled water, unscrewing it and drinking some so my breath doesn’t smell like scotch. When I set the bottle down, I curl over his hip to peek at his back. The deeper scratch is still bleeding slightly.

I return to my spot on the bed, cross-legged, and look him in the eyes. His mood is hard to decrypt—there’s suspicion, hurt, a sober watchfulness. But also lust. Those gray-blue eyes are dilated black as new tyre rubber in the rain.

“I’m sorry I clawed you,” I begin. “And also that I said the thing about your uncle.”

My focus angles down at one of my hands, and I press my thumbnail into my knee, jabbing little crescents into my skin and watching them fill in.

Cosmin puts his hand over mine to stop me, and I meet his eyes. I take a deep breath.

“And I’m sorry I suck at being friends and didn’t talk with you last night.” I shake my head. “This’ll sound like bullshit, but I’m not well socialized , Cos. I have very little skill with compromise or human mechanics. I’m awesome with machines and data but shit with people.”

His hand is still on top of mine, and he moves his thumb rhythmically, caressing my knuckles. After a lull stretches out for a minute so seemingly eternal you’d think it’d fallen into a black hole, he lifts my hand and kisses the fleshy base of my thumb.

“Thank you for that. Not only the apology, but sharing some of yourself. It is a rare thing.” His hand glides up my bare arm. “I cannot apologize enough for accidentally striking you. Please forgive me.”

“Iart?-m?, te rog,” I whisper.

He encircles the point of my elbow with a fingertip, then his caress glides up to my shoulder and down into the V of my strappy tank top.

“Also I apologize for using the term which spurred your anger,” he adds. “‘Bloodless’ was an unfair word.”

My eyes drift closed, enjoying his touch shimmering across my skin.

“Draga mea.”

My eyes open, and he cradles my face with a speculative expression.

He presses those gorgeous, pillowy lips together, moistening them. “I would like to propose an alteration to our arrangement.”

“Um…”

“You say we’re not ‘relationship people.’ But we have just navigated apologies after an argument. We are improving our relationship skills.”

I open my mouth to protest, and he lays two fingers over my lips.

“What if we practice with each other? Behave as if this were more than sex?” He scoots closer, eyes shining. “In the privacy of our time together, we can pretend to be in love. Fall asleep together after sex, instead of running away. Fight and make up. Compromise.” He brushes my lips with a soft kiss. “Make love sometimes, rather than fuck.”

My pulse dances at the term “make love,” which I’ve always thought was the hokiest shit ever, but hearing it in his lilting accent makes it sound very different .

I’m not hating it. And that terrifies me.

I scowl. “Pretending to be in a relationship is the same amount of energy as being in one. I don’t wanna work that hard.”

“It’s practice.” He kisses me again. “Tomorrow, we practice on track. Tonight, in bed.”

His hand is cupping my breast, teasing the nipple with his thumb through the cotton. With the next kiss, his tongue coaxes my mouth open and sweeps inside, stroking. I feel the strap of my tank top slide down, and I move my arm to give him room to bare my breast. A little zap of expectant pleasure surges between my legs.

“What would, um—?”

My words are absorbed by his intoxicating kisses. Dear God, this idiot is a great kisser—he has something like the tactile version of perfect pitch. Our lips slide and tease, delivering small bites and licks, and dammit, I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say.

The words come back to me and I grab them.

“What would… the next step be… if I agree?” I ask between kisses.

He sucks my lower lip, then pulls away, smiling, and stands to remove his pajama bottoms. I try not to stare at his jutting cock, but it’s rather majestic, to be honest, and I know what he can do with it. I rise onto my knees and eagerly remove my clothes too.

“The next step,” he tells me, lying back down and gathering me into his arms, “is I make love to you.” Sketching a path of kisses down my neck, he strokes my back, over the curve of my ass, along my thigh, grasping behind my knee to bring my leg up to rest on his hip.

“Sounds like you’re doing all the work,” I say just above a whisper.

His hand slips between us and he places it over me, two fingers resting at my entrance and his thumb stroking my clit in languid circles. I gasp and tip my hips in encouragement.

“It will be an effort for you, I think,” he says, gently mocking. “I know how you are. Always fierce. You want hard, fast. A sexual blitzkrieg.” His fingers sink into my wet heat, and I moan. “Impatient girl. If I take you on the scenic route, can you relax and enjoy the view?”

Those strong, elegant fingers slide in deeper, curling to massage the little patch of pure bliss that harmonizes with what he’s doing to my clit. His mouth goes to my nipple and he lightly sucks, rolling and stroking with the tip of his tongue.

The scenic route is sounding pretty awesome on one hand (no pun intended), considering I want him to do this approximately forever. But unease shivers through me, because the scenic route is also a long time to be in a car with someone. What if you run out of things to say? What if conversation gets personal ?

A memory of Santorini—being annoyed when he wouldn’t tell me his fear and I accused him of being evasive—swims up, and I wonder: What changed?

He kisses my lips again. “So beautiful… so beautiful,” he’s murmuring against me, and I’m simultaneously swooning and calling bullshit, because this guy has reputedly banged half the runway at Paris Fashion Week, and I’m, y’know, I guess cute , but short and grouchy, with a big ass and the foul mouth of a longshoreman.

He starts a trail down my body, and everywhere his mouth touches is like something in one of those fairy tales where flowers sprout from the hoofprints of unicorns. My skin is alive, tingling.

“Tu esti sufletul meu pereche,” he whispers, and I have no clue what he’s on about, but frankly he could be ordering pizza in Romanian and it’d still make me weak in the knees—the knees he parts and settles between.

He presses an almost reverent kiss to my clit before he spreads me gently with his thumbs and applies his tongue and lips to the task of bringing me almost to climax three times. Again and again, he lets my arousal partially retreat like a cat toying with a mouse until I whimper and mock beat his shoulders.

“Don’t be evil!” I wail as he kisses my inner thigh. I’m twitching hard inside, and it feels like a river of silver glitter is rushing through me. “Let me come, dammit…”

He sits up and takes my hands, pulling me upright onto my knees and turning me to hold the headboard.

My legs are humming with pre-orgasmic tension, and I’m dying for him to get his cock in me. I close my eyes, waiting for him to grab my hips. Instead, he nudges my knees wider and slides under the archway I’m creating, his head inches from my pussy.

“Lower, sweet one,” he instructs. “Let me taste that lovely cunt.”

My inhale snags in my throat, both lust and embarrassment surging through me in a wave. I look down at his passion-splayed pupils, the shine of his lips, already wet from licking me to the edge of control.

His hands grasp my thighs in encouragement, and my muscles tense. There’s nothing I want more than to settle over his mouth and have him finish what he’s started, but I’m too shy.

“Cosmin,” I falter.

“Mmm?” He lifts his head to deliver one tempting stroke of his tongue, then reclines with a sultry smile.

“I don’t, um, I don’t know about this. We should just do it the regular way. Right? I don’t want to suffocate you or something.”

He chuckles. “You won’t. I promise.”

“But it, uh, it seems impolite? Like, sitting on a person .”

His left eyebrow goes up. “But this person very much wants you to. I’m aching to see those sweet tits bounce as you ride my face.” He kisses my inner thigh. “Do you not wish to, or have you simply not done this before?”

Clearing my throat, I swallow hard. “I haven’t. I kind of thought this was mostly made up—one of those sex things people say they do, but no one actually does.”

He squeezes my ass with both hands, then eases two fingers inside me and slides his thumb against my clit, waking up the hunger in me that was retreating from sheer nerves.

“You can be adorably innocent.” He brushes my clit hood up to gingerly glide over the nerve, and I gasp. “I look forward to showing you all those things you think are ‘made up.’ I assure you, draga mea…” He lifts his head again to sweep me with a long, hot lick. “People actually do them all.”

“Oh God.” I’m so turned on I’m afraid I might drip right on him, and when I clench my pussy it sends a wave of tingling everywhere.

“Now come here so I can taste you.”

The edge of command in his voice strips away my reticence, and I widen my knees to get closer. My hands are white-knuckled on the headboard right until his mouth claims me in a way so unlike anything I’ve felt before that I’m stunned silent.

He’s everywhere down there . Holy hell. His tongue is inside me, then plowing through my labia, then stroking my clit with flat, insistent licks, then doing something swirly and intense as if he’s overcome, madly devouring every inch of me.

For the first minute I think, This is awesome but it’s not going to get me off—there’s too much happening , then the pre-climax steamroller starts barreling down from some side street where it had been parked.

It’s not like the usual buildup; it’s coming from a deeper place. The focal point is my clit, but there’s a bright energy concentrated in my entire pelvis, like a hidden room behind my navel where a party is raging.

I don’t even realize I am, in fact, riding his face. Not until he groans in ecstasy and I register the undulation of my hips and the fact that I’m deliriously mumbling encouragement, my thighs trembling, one hand now planted behind me, digging into his chest while the other grasps the headboard, which knocks on the wall as I writhe against his mouth.

“That feels so good, I don’t… Yes, I want… Oh God please… That’s fucking amazing, never stop… ohgodohgodohgod Cosmin, I’m…”

My pleas wrench off as a staggering orgasm rolls through me. There’s nowhere my body can hide from the euphoria, right down to my flexing toes as I let out a shriek that I can only hear at half volume owing to the rushing white noise in my ears.

His hands caress my ass, my hips, soothing me as I settle back down to earth, shuddering. My legs are so weak I feel like I might collapse, and my eyes are squeezed tight.

He shifts from beneath me and I smack my other hand onto the headboard, breathing hard. His arms cradle me, laying me on my back, then kneeling beside me, he runs his hands reverently up my torso and stops at my face, smoothing my cheekbones with his thumbs.

“You’re stunning, my sweet girl.”

He kisses my lips, and I reach for him, pulling him on top of me. We merge so naturally, his cock filling my soaked pussy, drenched inside and out. The lavish wetness between our bodies creates a lush sliding as he rocks into me. Almost immediately I’m climbing the peak a second time, fingers seizing Cosmin’s muscular ass, pulling him deeper, my legs splayed shamelessly as I pant and moan.

“Go hard, go hard,” I beg. “I’m nearly there again…”

His hands sweep behind my head, and he kisses me deeply. “No,” he whispers.

My eyes snap open, annoyed.

“ There you are,” he teases before giving my lower lip a bite.

What he’s doing is perfect—he’s hitting everything just right, and the long, lazy strokes are like the best kind of massage. It’s an orgasm-inducing version of the relaxed bliss of having someone brush your hair.

My body’s practically lighting up from the inside, exuding a golden glow matching the color of Cosmin’s eyelashes where the lamplight gilds them. It’s as if we’ve been tuned to the same frequency, and—because apparently I’m such a nerd that even sex isn’t invulnerable to my mathematical musings—I’m seeing sine waves coast up and down, gliding the way his hips are.

His kissing is so focused and artful, I’m legit impressed at his multitasking. We’ve never kissed this much while his cock is in me, and I’m feeling at once treasured and very, very exposed . I turn my head away and put my forehead against his shoulder. The hot, wet friction of us is killing me.

“Ochii t?i sunt frumo?i,” he murmurs, using his thumb to gently turn my head to face him again. “Look at me with those beautiful eyes, sweet girl.”

I peek at him and all but drown in his vivid, stormy-sky gaze.

“Is that the ‘lovemaking’ part—talking?” I ask, so vulnerable in his embrace that I can’t not mock a bit.

I have to punch holes in what I’m feeling just to release the pressure so I don’t say one of the mushy things swirling through my brain. Meanwhile, imminent climax is gathering throughout my body, a net sweeping up every atom.

“What would you say right now,” he asks, “were you in love with me?”

“I’m not,” I instantly reply.

“Yes, we are only practicing.” He pushes in deep, so goddamned deep, grinding against me. “Someday you’ll be in love. Someday a man who deserves you will whisper his secrets into your mouth and you’ll light up like you’ve swallowed starlight.”

He kisses me slow and sultry, and my legs wrap around him, greedy for every inch. How did he know I was feeling lit up from inside? There’s nowhere to hide, and if I weren’t a minute from coming I’d push him the hell off me and go back to my room without a second glance and finish things myself.

Or would I? Um.

“I might say—” The words stall in my throat. I turn my head again, closing my eyes, shutting him out and chasing the orgasm creeping up to claim me.

“I know what I’d say, if I were holding the woman I love in my arms.”

Cosmin pushes deep again, and I moan. He kisses my shoulder, my neck. His fingers move in my hair, and the sliding on my scalp is an added splash of pleasure, compounding the sweet ache pushing me to the edge.

“I would tell her that her face is the first image which comes to me in the morning—her plump lips, bewitching freckles, forest-green eyes…” His hands tighten in my hair, and I suspect he’s close too. “The way her smile detonates in my heart like a Roman candle, the way I want to kiss away her little scowls and pouts.”

A ripple of something both blissful and pained dances across his expression, and he lays his full weight on me—my God it’s fucking heaven—and slides his hands down my arms to dovetail our fingers, moving our joined hands above my head. The delectable thrusting of his cock is driving me half crazy, and my locked ankles flex at his lower back.

“I’d tell her she lives in my soul, and I in hers.” His voice is ragged, and with a broken sound he grits his teeth, trying to hold back for me. His movement pauses before he clearly loses the battle with self-control and surges into me hard and high, crying out.

Something about his surrender is so touching that my chest prickles with unexpected emotion, and as I feel his hot release, the golden net around me closes and lifts me high.

My legs drop and splay wide as I churn my hips to meet his last shuddering thrusts, surfing a wave of a climax that leaves me breathless. But not quite breathless, because— what the holy hell? Is that me speaking? —I hear myself saying, “I love you… oh fuck, I do…” and how is it both so right and so wrong? Have I lost my mind?

I jerk a hand from his and clap it over my mouth, and he pulls it away and kisses me hard. Once I get a breath, I backpedal like mad.

“I didn’t mean… Seriously, that’s… Oh, Jesus Christ, Cos. I only meant that’s what I’d say if I was in love—”

“I know, drag?. Nu-?i fie ru?ine de tine. There’s no need for shame.”

“I really didn’t—”

“Please.” His hand covers my lips gently. “Don’t say you didn’t mean it.” He moves off me and gathers me against his chest. “Let me enjoy this lie,” he whispers into my hair.

As our heartbeats align and settle, I listen to the steady music of his breathing, and wonder if it’s a lie after all.