I go completely still as he moves his hand and grips my chin, like he wants to make sure I’m paying attention.
I am.
“Yes, Goldfinch. Because I’m choosing you, too.”
Like a ribbon caught on a wind-bent branch, he lowers, and I lift.
My lips land on his, his tongue sweeps against mine, and then we’re suddenly kissing like we’re starved.
We kiss like two stars colliding, our heat flaring with the threat to burn, while the cold world around us fades in our light. We kiss like we need the taste of one another or we’ll never be able to emerge from the dark.
My entire body bends toward him, every ribbon unwinding, stretching, reaching for him like wings reach for a breeze.
His hand moves to encase my jaw, angling me right where he wants me, and just that—the dominance of him, the strength but utter care—it makes me feel like I could burn forever.
The fire beneath my skin has nothing to do with anger or vendettas. This is pure, hungry, aching want that thrums in the pulse of my veins, refusing to be ignored.
When I nibble on his tongue, he bites down on my bottom lip with an erotic twinge that sweeps a moan from my mouth. He drinks in the sound, calloused hands cradling my face firmly, like he doesn’t want me to slip from his grip.
My ribbons trail out like vines, slinking up his body, wrapping around his arms to pull him closer. A guttural groan thunders from his chest at that, and he deepens the kiss even more, until it’s not just my skin that’s hot, but a needy fire that’s ignited between my legs. He stokes that need even higher when one hand skims down to stroke my ribbons, making a delicious shiver trickle along my back.
Just a kiss. One kiss, and I’m wrecked, because I never want this to stop.
I never realized that a kiss could be like this.
My hands brace against his shoulders again, like I need the reminder that he’ll hold me up, fingers digging into the strong muscles beneath the leather. I resent my gloves. I want to feel him, skin to skin, but I can’t stop to pull them off.
Flakes fall from the sky, dusting us with their chill, but the cold has no hope of touching us. I’m hot all over, passion kindled with an aching temptation of more. I think I’d come right out of my seat if he weren’t bowing over me, his body the lure I’m trying to hook to.
But just when I’m ready to drag him down with me, his lips leave mine.
Our breaths are quickened, the blanket a forgotten pile pooling at my waist. I stare at him as my chest heaves in a rapid pitch, lips tingling with the echo of his hold.
His gaze caresses over my face, and mine does the same, my finger coming up to trace the lines of his rooting power, noting the faint shifting beneath my touch.
He pulls away, or...he tries to. We both look down at my mess of ribbons wrapped around him, like they’ve decided to make him their own personal present.
“Sorry…” I say, suddenly embarrassed, moving to quickly tug them off, though they come away begrudgingly.
Ravinger gives me a crooked smile and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear with such gentleness that my throat constricts. “Hopefully that clears things up.”
He straightens up, and even though the sight of him still has my pulse racing, it’s not in fear. Not anymore. His timing of that transformation was deliberate. Because his form might change, his eyes, his stance, his name, but those lips, his hands, his words, his heat...they’re the same.
Rip and Ravinger are the same, and it took a kiss for that to really sink in.
As he turns away, he’s already changing again, bringing back the spikes, the scales, the unforgiving stride of a warrior, but it’s still him.
He stops at the balcony door and looks back at me, the last of his green eyes ebbing away. “Goodnight, Auren.”
It’s still him.
Which is why I murmur, “Goodnight...Slade.”
His eyes widen for an infinitesimal moment, belying his shock that I’ve called him by his first name. Then his lips curl up, my ribbons curling too, as if we’re sharing something private, intimate. Something poignant between us.
Maybe we are.
When he’s gone, I sit back in my chair, blanket forgotten, unnecessary after the heat we invoked. In the silent snowfall, I whisper his name again, just a few more times, a single-word plea to the cluster of hidden stars above.