With This Secret

I turned around. “Could you help me zip this up?”

He grabbed the end of the zipper, but a tiny part of one of his fingers briefly grazed my skin.

I shuddered at the frisson of electricity that shot into my body.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he pulled the zipper up.

“Yes,” I mumbled.

“Done,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I turned around and grabbed his hand. “Why didn’t you contact me?” I asked urgently. “When all of this happened, why did you shut me out? I thought you’d—thrown me away. That you saw my message and— decided I was not good enough.”

His gaze looked filled with anguish. “We’ll talk about this later.”

But I couldn’t let it go. It had been too painful, the longing, the hurt, the regret. I lifted myself up on my tiptoes and took his lips in a quick kiss.

All I needed was to taste him, a privilege I’d never had and dreamed about incessantly, for years. No matter what happened now, I just had to know if the reality would match the fantasy. If it didn’t, then I would know I had made it all up in my head and I could stop comparing him to all other men just to find them lacking. If it did, then I would die knowing I had tasted my greatest dream. Something not many people get to do in their lifetimes.

Our first kiss and I stole it from him. In a moment that should have been full of panic and fear. But I wasn’t afraid. I had been waiting for his kiss and his touch for years. I felt calm and sure of myself as I lost myself to the moment.

He tasted of coffee, but that soon washed away. My tongue found his and I felt desire so potent that it was like a snake coiling in the pit of my stomach. The sensation took my breath away.

I thought he would push me away, instead, he stilled. I held onto his shoulders to balance myself and angled my head for a longer kiss, the memory of which I wanted engraved on my heart. When I pulled my lips away from his and started to move away, he grabbed me and slammed me hard against his body. In the next instant, he covered my mouth with his and …

Freaking hell—I saw stars.

I’d imagined kissing him more times than was possible to count, but I had never once imagined it like this. His tongue danced with mine, sucking and teasing with a fervency that set my blood on fire.

I forgot about the danger of Bogdan waiting to reclaim me. All I could feel was him. His fresh scent of grapefruit, sea, and musk, the burn of his skin against my face as he kissed me hard and rough. To my shock, he was every bit as desperate as I was. Every bit as impatient and insatiable. As though he too, had been waiting for this moment his whole life.

Suddenly, he tore himself away from me. He now seemed like a stranger, a man I’d never seen before. The affable, fun guy gone. Here was an animal breathing hard, as if trying to control itself. Even his stormy eyes were different. They were blazing with lust.

For a moment, he stood in front of me fighting with himself while I stared at him. I knew then that the story of my life would be forever split cleanly in two. The me that had been before Levan had kissed me, and the me after.

When his gaze fixed on mine, I knew he was in control again.

I lifted my hand and let my knuckles brush down the side of his face.

“We need to leave now,” another one of his men shouted in English.

I didn’t even realize anyone had come into the room.

Levan pulled away and turned around to face him.

“Looks like Bogdan’s men are on their way here,” he said.

I looked between the worry on both men’s faces, but was still too muddled from the kiss to fully digest the danger of the moment.

Levan turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said. He held out his hand.

I hesitated as I stared at the strong limb … I hesitated because despite this torment of need and desire I had nursed for him from the day I met him, there would be consequences to being with him. He lived in a world where no one grew old.

If I took that hand … how far would we go before I had to once again, let it go?

“Bianca,” he called.

I felt like my insides were trembling. Then I grabbed his hand, a hold so tight, my knuckles showed white as we hurried out of the store.

A few minutes later and we were zooming away in his SUV.

“My dad …” I muttered.

The man I had dreamed about was seated by my side and my hand was still tightly held in his and it shouldn’t have been the happiest day of my life … but as we sped away, all I could see in my mind’s eyes was the image of my dad with his bandaged hand and sweet, laughing Aldie.