"And what do you want?"
You. Your hands. Your mouth. Your everything.
"Everything about you."
"Aurora." He says my name like he's tasting it, and heat floods through me. "You shouldn’t play with fire, Aurora."
"Why not?"
"Because you’ll get burnt. Because I'm not a good man. Because—" He stops himself, shakes his head. "Because you're too young for this."
"I'm twenty-six."
"I'm forty-three."
"So?"
"So you should be talking to someone your own age. Someone who hasn't spent the last seven years in a cage. Someone who—"
I kiss him.
Just lean up and press my mouth to his, cut off whatever warning he's about to give me. He freezes for a second—one heartbeat, two—and I think he's going to push me away.
Then he's kissing me back.
Oh my god! This is insane. I am insane.
Wait, maybe I really am insane!
I just initiated a kiss with a man at a freaking art gallery with possible eyes on us, and he is kissing me right back.
His hand comes up to my neck, holds me there, and his mouth opens against mine. The kiss is devastating. Not soft, not tentative, but raw and hungry like he's been starving and I'm the first meal he's seen in years.
I moan into his mouth, and he swallows the sound.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine.
"Fuck," he mutters.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"That's a terrible idea."
"I specialize in terrible ideas." I pull back enough to see his face. His pupils are blown wide, and there's color high on his cheeks.
“And I, bad decisions.”
His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist, and I swear I feel it everywhere. My breasts, my stomach, between my legs where I'm already getting wet again. How does he do this? How does barely touching me make me feel like I'm coming apart?
"What kind of bad decisions?" I ask.
"The kind you'll still remember when you're away from me."
"I don't even know you."
"You know enough." He leans in, his mouth so close to my ear I can feel his breath. "You know you want me. You know I want you. Isn’t that enough?"
Oh God, it is.