He takes another step, and now I have to crane my neck to look into his beautiful green eyes, can feel the heat from his breath on my lips. God. I part my mouth to breathe deeper.
I place my hand on his chest to stop him from moving another inch. “I haven’t kissed anyone in a long time…”
“I’ll still find them.”
I lift a brow. “What?”
“Hunt them down.”
I giggle again, and his eyes roam my face.
He exhales hard. “When you laugh, it moves everywhere, Blesk.” His hand lifts slowly, his thumb settling on the corner of my eye, and my belly flips with excitement. “Here.” His touch moves down to the crease beside my lips. “Here.” Then he drags his thumb across my lower lip, and I think I moan. No, I do—I actually moan. “Here,” he rasps, clearly as affected as I am by being this close.
I shouldn’t kiss him.
I look at his lips.
He had a girlfriend only yesterday.
His lips look soft.
Really shouldn’t do this.
I edge closer.
Okay, kiss me.
Please kiss me.
He leans down, and I lift to my tiptoes, lips tilted, needy for pressure from his, but then someone enters. His eyes leave mine and hit the person by the door with a force that must knock them backwards.
“Sorry, ah?—"
Konnor holds his hand up to the person behind me. “It’s fine.” He takes a single step away from me. “Duchess.” He holds his hand out for me to take, and I thread my fingers through his, press my palm to his, and feel a bolt of lightning that unsettles and excites me at the same time.
“Duchess? I could get used to that.”
He guides me into another area where we take mugshots, laughing and smiling. It prints out two, a serious one and our funny one, and we use ink to put our fingerprints on the bottom. I give him mine, and he gives me his, and I now have a picture of Konnor Slater from our first date. I look at it. God, he is gorgeous. Not in a subjective way, no. This man could turn a straight man.
“Have you ever been arrested?” I look up from his mugshot as we enter a room with a cell, staged like a prison bedroom. My feet slow. I wish they would stop. I wish I could stop. The single bed. The single bed, and the walls, and the bars, and the images come so fast I can’t hold on to any of them, just the feeling, just the cold and the dark and a little boy’s voice and a little girl’s hands and a key.
My pulse is deafening.
I spin. Konnor has gone white.
“Let’s go.” His voice is strangled.
He reaches his hand through the open door to the cage. I take it. The moment our skin touches, the blood leaves my body.No.I look down at his hand.No.I know this hand. I turn it over in mine.No, no, no, I don’t want this.I press my fingertips to his, and my vision tunnels. I drop his hand.
My eyes snap to his face, and someone else is standing there. Someone who has seen a cell like this before. He can’t be.Green eyes.He can’t be.Dimples.That’s impossible.How did I forget those dimples?My body vibrates.
I run.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
blesk
I turn my phone back on and?—