“I can walk.”
“You can. I’m not interested in that option.”
“Viktor.”
“You nearly fell today.”
“I was caught.”
“That is not the reassurance you think it is.”
She opens her mouth, sees from my face that I mean it, and closes it again with visible annoyance. Good. I prefer her annoyed to unsteady.
I bend and lift her before she can start over.
She lets out a quiet breath, one arm going around my shoulders on instinct. “You are outrageous.”
“I’ve heard.”
I settle her more securely against me and start toward the stairs.
She’s warm in my arms, familiar in a way she should not already be, and my body notices that far too quickly. The line of her legs under the dress. The weight of her against my chest. The scent of her hair. All of it works against my judgment.
Halfway to the stairs, my mind pulls briefly to Ethan.
I had gone looking for Sienna earlier and found my son instead, standing alone near the terrace with a face full of bad temper and injured pride. He looked as if the day had failed him personally. Maybe it had. Maybe that was enough to make him dangerous. Last night when I had threatened to cancel the wedding, he was pissed off.
For one brief, unpleasant second, I wonder if he could have had something to do with the champagne after all.
Ethan is cruel when it costs him nothing. Careless. Vain. Weak in ways that have disappointed me for years. Poisoning a bridesmaid by accident in public at his own wedding breakfast would require a degree of nerve and competence I don’t think he possesses. And if he had tried something that stupid, I suspect he would look different now. Less offended. More frightened.
In my arms, Sienna shifts a little and looks at me. “What are you thinking?”
“That I was right.”
“About?”
“You needing to be carried.”
She gives me a look that should discourage me and somehow only makes me want to kiss her again.
By the time I reach my door, she’s quiet, one hand resting lightly against my chest, too tired to keep arguing and too wary to relax completely. I open the door, carry her inside, and close us into the room again. Only then do I set her down carefully on the edge of the bed and look at her for a moment longer than I should.
The second I do, she reaches for me.
Not cautiously. Not like someone weighing consequences. Her hands go to my shirt, fists in the fabric, and she pulls me between her knees with a sound that is half frustration, half need.
“So much for resting,” I murmur.
She looks up at me, tired and flushed and too honest to pretend now. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
“That’s not the same as permission.”
Her mouth curves, small and dangerous. “Then stop me.”
I should.
Instead I kiss her. Hard enough that she falls back onto the bed with a breathless sound, taking me with her. My hands are everywhere at once. Her face. Her waist. Her thighs under the light fabric of her dress. Hers are no better, pushing my jacket off my shoulders, dragging at my shirt as if she can’t get enough skin fast enough.