Chapter 33

BURNING DESIRES

33

Kissing Killian is still at the forefront of my mind when we step into my apartment ten minutes later. But I also have a more pressing matter I want to take care of first.

Killian must pick up on my nervousness because he asks, "What's on your mind, Spoon?"

"It's about the book."

His expression immediately clouds.

"I think we should get rid of it," I say.

At that, both his eyebrows rise in his forehead. "As in?"

"Burn it."

"Arson, Sugar, really?"

"Hear me out." I pick up the book from where I left it on the bed this morning. "I feel like we've been held hostages by this thing for the entire time we've known each other. I also think the book likes the drama, and I don't want it to stir it on purpose. I also don't want to live in dread it might suck you back in. Or to read about its interpretation of our feelings. I don't need it to know if you're telling me the truth, and I certainly don't need it to tell me how I feel about you." I'm pacing now, the book clutched in my hands.

Killian's watching me, and the corner of his lip quirks up in that way that I can't resist. "You want to do it now?"

I go to him. "Yes, before anything between us happens."

"Are you still afraid my feelings are controlled by that thing?" Before I can say no, he continues. "Because I fucking want you, Spoon, book or no book."

"I—" My pulse picks up at the declaration, but then I frown. "Did you just swear?" This is the first time ever I hear him drop an f-bomb.

"Yeah, why?"

"You never swore in the book."

"Is that bad?"

"No." I sigh. "The opposite of bad. And I want you—" He presses a finger to my mouth before I can finish.

"You don't have to tell me how you feel at the tail-end of a fight." He frees my mouth and rakes a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't want to rush you into anything you're not ready for. It's just that thing that gets me on edge."

I lift the book between us. "So we should definitely burn it?"

"Give me the gasoline."

"It's paper. We don't need fuel. It'll just burn. Just maybe not inside?"

"Yeah, we're probably still on the fire department shit list. Let's go on the fire escape."

Killian empties my metal paper bin, and we climb out on the metal grate platform of the fire escape.

The chill of the morning air bites at my skin as I watch Killian hold up the book like a sacrificial offering to the romance gods.

We exchange a nod and I strike a match, setting fire to the lower-end corner of the middle pages. The paper catches fire immediately, the orange glow casting dancing shadows over his intense face.

Killian's mouth twists, as if he were in pain, and he drops the book into the bin, bending over with a muffled cry.

Then he's screaming, "My skin, I'm burning." He claws at his face.

Panic seizes me as I watch him contort. The book is burning and he's burning too. I was a fool to think I could have one without the other. "Killian." I launch myself at the bin, ready to risk third-degree burns to save the book before they're both gone, when strong arms wrap around me from behind.

I can feel the shaking of his chest against my back as he murmurs, voice barely above a breath, "When will you learn not to fall for my tricks, Spoon?" The bastard is laughing.

I turn in his arms and start to punch his chest. "Your jokes suck." Punch. "I thought you were burning alive." Punch. "That you were going to leave me alone with a charred romance novel and a broken heart!" Punch.

Killian's laughter is contagious, though, and despite my best attempts at outrage, I start giggling, the punches turning into half-hearted hits. "You absolute jerk!"

He grins, those gray eyes shining, as he grabs my wrist before my next half-assed assault. "I'm sorry. But you should've seen the expression on your face."

Killian pulls me closer, the warmth of his body seeping through the fabric of my sweater, he spins me round again and holds me to his chest as we watch the last of the book turn into cinders.

"See? I'm still here," he says when the last flicker of flame dies out, leaving behind nothing but a curl of smoke and the faint smell of charred paper.

I shiver despite the warmth of his body. "Let's go back inside."

There's a moment of slight embarrassment as we face each other across my apartment. Now that the book is truly gone and the adrenaline has faded, we're left with the unknown before us.

I hug my arms to my chest, suddenly awkward. "So, did you want to talk more about yesterday?"

The smile he gives me in response is predatory. "The time for talking is done, Sugar, this is more one of those doing moments."

"Oh?"

"Unless you've changed your mind about me kissing you."

This time I stand my ground as he approaches.

"No, I haven't," I say in a hoarse voice. His eyes darken with a hint of longing and a spark of hope that warm me to my core. I thread one hand through the hair at the side of his head. "You should kiss me now."

Killian doesn't need any more encouragement.

His hands cup my face and draw me into a kiss that scatters any lingering doubts to the wind. The fears that he might change his mind or, worse, vanish like a shadow in the morning sun, evaporate like mist.

I embrace the present, revel in the intensity of a kiss that is finally real and no longer a dream. Killian is real, too. There's no more book to take him back or tell him what to feel. We're together because we want it. We want each other despite our flaws and insecurities. We're the same people we were when we first met and at the same time we're completely different. As is this kiss.

At first, it started just how I remember kissing him from my dreams: all-consuming and overwhelming.

His lips move over mine with reverence and a frenzied passion that speak louder than words ever could. The world around us dissolves until there's nothing but the sensation of being thoroughly, irrevocably kissed by Killian—the man who has carefully dismantled every wall I've ever built.

But then he pulls back just enough to look me in the eyes, his gray gaze ever so intense.

"Are you sure?" he asks, voice husky with emotion, as if he's afraid to fully hope, afraid this might be a momentary lapse in my judgment rather than the turning point he's been waiting for.

I nod, breathless, my heart pounding a fierce proclamation in my chest. "Never been more certain about anything in my entire life."

A grin—slow, infectious, hopeful—breaks across his face, the kind that reaches the eyes and lights up all the dark corners of the world.

His thumb brushes over my cheek, and his lips meet mine in a kiss that feels different, like the crossing of a threshold, the beginning of something real and tangible. It's a kiss that says, "Here, now, us," and it seals a silent promise that I hope is enough for the universe to let him stay with me forever.