“You should,” Arya said.
“Loan it to me.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t give out my favorite hardbacks as loans. That’s a rule.”
“Rules are meant to be broken.”
“Interesting take, from a litigator.”
We stopped in front of Jefferson Market Library. The clock on the tower crawled to five minutes before midnight. I couldn’t believe we’d spent so many hours together just walking and talking. It was like the last twenty years hadn’t even happened.
Only they had.
They were there, in the inches between us, cold and lonely and filled with missed opportunities and unadulterated injustice.
“Why are you really here, Arya?” I turned toward her, my tone rough and coarse, like the scales of a sea creature. “And please, spare me the fine-dining bullshit.”
She wet her lips, dropping her gaze to the ground.
“I came to tell you I’m not coming to court again. Today was my last day. I’m done punishing myself for the things he did. I can’t stomach hearing what these women have been through.”
“You think he did it?” I needed to hear her say that. To disown the man she’d once chosen over me. Our bodies were flush against one another. You could barely fit a needle between us now.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
I reached with my thumb and index finger to tilt her chin up. Her eyelashes fluttered. They were shining like diamonds, full of tears. Swamp eyes, I’d called them when we were kids. But that wasn’t true. They were mossy. The kind of velvety green you could stare at for hours. She held my gaze boldly.
Silver-spooned princess.
The clock hit midnight behind her shoulder, chiming once.
“The witching hour.” She closed her eyes, letting two tears roll down her cheeks. “In books, strange things happen during that time.”
I cupped the sides of her neck, drawing her close, breathing her in. “In reality too.”
And just like that, two decades later, I made the same mistake Nicholai Ivanov had and crushed my lips against Arya Roth’s, knowing the world might explode and that my demise would be worth it.
My hands were in her hair, yanking lightly, like I’d dreamed of doing all those years. My blood flooded with desire. I wanted to ravish this woman and leave nothing for the man who came after me. She opened her mouth for me eagerly, our tongues playing together, a small whimper coming from somewhere deep inside her throat. I sank my teeth into her lower lip, tugging her closer, licking her lip before diving in for a deep, feral kiss. I curled my fingers around Arya’s waist, pressing her body to mine. There was not enough of her, and suddenly, I felt a little panicky. That there was only one Arya in the world. One chance at having her. I withdrew my mouth from hers, pushing her curls from her face. Her eyes were hungry. Full of things. Bad things. Good things. Arya things.
“Come home with me.”
Fuck. It sounded like a command more than a request. She stiffened in my arms, descending back to earth, the fog of dopamine dissipating from her body.
She put a hand on my chest. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Christian.”
“Is it the bet? Because screw the bet.” I almost crushed my teeth into powder, outraged by my own desperation. I’d slept with dozens of women over the years and had always been in charge. Of the narrative, the rhetoric, the fine print, the situation.
“It’s not about the bet. You’re right. We can’t be together, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to dive into this with you when I’m feeling so . . .”
“Vulnerable?” I offered.
“Confused,” she said firmly. “I’m going through a lot. So if you’re looking for more than friendship, don’t contact me. I don’t do forbidden.”
We were forbidden when I couldn’t afford the clothes on my back and you asked me to pin you against your library shelves. You liked it, then, when you wanted to destroy me.
“You’ll change your mind,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
“What makes you say that?”
“We’re good together. We have chemistry. We make sense. Doomed things are always sweeter, don’t you know? This thing”—I pointed between us—“it’s not going anywhere until we act on it. You want a friend? I’ll give you a friend. But you’ll want more. I guarantee it.”
“Oof.” She dropped her head to my shoulder, chuckling softly. “I’m too old for this.”
“For what?” I pressed my hand to the small of her back, inhaling her greedily, smelling her pending departure.
“This. It was easier to hate you when I didn’t know you at all.”
“You always knew me,” I murmured into her hair.
“You know? I think you’re right. My soul . . . it feels calm when it’s next to yours.”
I smiled grimly.
If only she knew.
The next day, I arrived at the courthouse with a mixture of irritation and relief. Arya wasn’t there, which meant that for once, I could do my job without a constant semi and the hovering question of what was going through her head, but also that I didn’t have the luxury of bathing in her presence. Of knowing she was only a few steps away.