But I still don’t know what she actually said. And Sienna is clearly not ready to tell me.
So I shift to the one thing I can say for certain. “You should be asleep.”
That gets the faintest change in her face. Not amusement, exactly. A little disbelief.
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“For now.”
She shakes her head. “You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
That almost earns me a real smile, but not quite.
I study her for another moment. She’s exhausted. Too much has happened, and she wears tiredness honestly no matter how hard she tries not to. Whatever passed between her and Anna added something new to it.
I step closer before I can think better of it.
She looks up at me, still tired, still unsettled, still carrying too much in that tense little line between her brows. My hand goes to her waist almost on instinct, fingers settling over the soft curve of her dress as if they already know the place.
She goes still. “Viktor,” she says quietly, “someone may see us.”
I lean in, my mouth close to her ear. “I don’t care.” The words come out rougher than I intend.
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t melt. Not yet. She keeps enough sense for both of us.
“But I do,” she says.
Fair.
I kiss the side of her neck anyway. Just once at first, slow and warm, letting my mouth linger there long enough to feel her pulse jump. Then again, a little lower. She makes a soft, frustrated sound and her fingers catch at my sleeve.
“This is exactly my point,” she whispers.
I smile against her skin. “I know.”
She exhales, then pulls back just enough to look at me properly. “If I go with you, will you stop doing this in the hallway?”
I think about lying.
Instead I say, “For now.”
That earns me a tired look. “You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
She looks as if she wants to argue more, but she’s tired enough that practicality wins. Good. I don’t trust myself to keep standing here in an open corridor with her this close and not forget every reason I should behave like a man with patience.
She starts to move past me.
I stop her with a hand at her waist. “No.”
Her eyes narrow. “No?”
“I’m carrying you.”
Absolutely not, her face says.