Chapter 45 Sonya
SONYA
There he is, dressed in a crisp, black shirt and black slacks, as unbothered as ever.
In fact, Mikael Saros seems absolutely bored.
But I know a thing or two about pretending, and while his mask is almost impeccable, there’s more behind those cool slate gray eyes than he lets on. This Viking man is hiding some seriously leashed energy.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks me.
I nod absently, because if I’m dancing with anyone tonight, I guess I should pick him. It’ll be like I’m touching another version of myself. How fun and weird would that be?
The only problem is my body. There’re no butterflies or hot sparks of anticipation as we head to the bar. I’m not squeezing my thighs together, and my pulse hasn’t spiked once.
Until it does, when a broad shadow falls on me.
Sandalwood, soap, mint.
I’m so pissed. I whirl around, ready to confront him, but before I can, I’m thrown over a shoulder and carried away.
And I’m so stunned—my eyes almost about to bulge out—that I’m not fighting him.
That’s how we’re halfway across the warehouse before I finally shriek, “Are you fucking kidding me, Hughes? Let me go!”
He sets me down.
I’m pinned by striking blue eyes the color of a turbulent ocean.
My fingers curl into fists. God, I want to rip off his clothes, because I hate them.
Just as much as I hate his gorgeous hair and his broad muscled chest and that aggravated jaw-clenched expression that makes my heart skip a beat.
What’s it for? Why is he so upset? I’m the one who has justifiable reasons to be pissed.
“What’s your problem?” I thunder out at the same time he growls, “He’s not your soulmate.”
It takes me a full five seconds to understand what he’s talking about. Who? Saros?
“How dare you? That’s not any of your busi—“
He catches my jabbing finger. “Sonya, don’t dance with him.”
The audacity of this man! Especially considering he was in the middle of all those women! My throat aches and a throb pounds in my forehead. “As if you can tell me what to—”
“I’ll beg.”
“Beg?” My snort is incredulous. “Yeah, right. Stop pretending…” To not be a player, to be interested in me like I’m the only one, to do all these things that make me feel cared for, because look what’s happened.
The pain inside my chest hasn’t abated. It’s getting even worse.
Adrian steps back. Under flashing club lights, without breaking eye contact with me, he goes down to his knees in the middle of an unhygienic and potentially drink littered floor, uttering a single word. “Baby.”
It feels like I’ve been shoved, right in the center of my chest. My heart pounds as I stagger back a step.
“Ask me when the last time I had sex was, Sonya.”
There’s a loud whooshing in my ears. My mouth falls open.
“Ask me who I think about, the only person I think about when I touch myself,” he says, his voice broken and full of heavy despair.
Blood roars harder in my ears as heat moves through me. Does he expect me to believe what I think he’s trying to say? That he thinks about…me…?
“I-I don’t care,” I stammer. A flimsy, weak defense that’s a complete lie, but the only one I have left to protect me.
His chest caves. That answer seems to completely devastate him. No, he doesn’t get to look like that!
I claim that emotion. It’s my sanity that fell apart when I saw him with other women…
“You’ll be fine,” I snap. My voice is loud. I’m the image of anger—as long as you ignore my quivering chin. “Go hook up with someone else.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
I freeze. It’s the way he said it, so miserably. That and his blown pupils burning into me like he’s begging me to understand.
There’s also not a lick of evident shame or self-consciousness that he’s kneeling like this. Almost as if he could stay on his knees forever. For me. Like he’s willing to wait for as long as it takes while I make up my mind. That it’s up to me whether he ever rises again or not.
My head spins. He looks so sincere and wrecked that I waver and question, Does he mean what he’s saying? Is it me he wants? Only me?
I get closer, bend down, and clutch the front of his shirt. “You’re going to listen to me,” I say, feeling so out of control. My fingers are shaking. “You don’t get to sleep with anyone.”
Anyone else, a voice inside me finishes.
His jaw ticks. “And you can’t dance with Saros,” is his blunt answering demand. So possessive. Demanding. Insistent, yet desperate.
We both nod at the same time in frantic agreement.
“He’s not your soulmate,” Adrian repeats, holding my gaze…then briefly dipping his eyes down to my mouth once.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Sure. Whatever.”
I glance down and look at his mouth. Then back up at his eyes.
Even in the dim lights, I see it—the flood of his relief. Every muscle in body seems to release this invisible tension, like he can finally breathe properly now.
I’m not sure who moves first.
I’m launching at him at the same time he’s rising to grip the back of my neck.
We collide.
Adrian’s hands are callused and trembling. They ensnare my waist and I’m lifted off the ground. He’s walking me backward, backward, backward…
Until my body rests against a hard surface. As soon as my feet touch the ground again, I rise on my tiptoes and his face lowers to mine. Distance evaporates and we’re kissing. Actually no, it can’t be called that. We’re devouring each other.
My vision blanks.
Mouth against mouth, neither of us needs air.
Like this is more important than breathing and what we’ve spent more than a lifetime waiting to do.
Without pulling my lips away, I wrap my arms around his neck.
Adrian’s hand moves up until it holds the base of my neck.
His other arm has my waist crushed against him tight.
I can’t believe how soft his lips are in comparison to the hardness of his body.
It’s a starved invasion as his tongue pushes to meet mine.
I open my mouth and let him in, and the intimacy of that new sensation—another barrier breached between us—has my nipples firming up and my toes curling.
I’m on fire. My back arches as I lose myself.
We keep kissing until our lungs complain and force us to pull apart. Now we’re panting heavily. Sharing the same air, passing it back and forth, as fingers start to move. I’m brushing the pad of my thumb across his generous mouth. He’s sweeping his over my cheekbones, then skimming down my neck.
Gently, very gently, both of us with our eyes open, we watch as our mouths descend again, closer and closer until they bridge the gap.
My lips part, some attempt at sucking in air because my head hasn’t stopped spinning.
Adrian sucks on the lower one and groans, such a guttural sound that it lights voltages of pleasure inside me.
I can’t think. I don’t want to. All that matters is feeling.
Right now—and for longer, much longer, because I could keep kissing Adrian for more than tonight, even for… ever?
“No,” I moan against his mouth, because that last thought pokes through enough to make me double back. Did I really think that? Forever?
Adrian brings his hand around to hold onto my jaw. “N-o?” He feeds the word back into my mouth before it finally registers. When it does, he pulls back. “No? Why…?”
How do I tell him that I’m in another world? That we shouldn’t be kissing because it’s too…too addicting. Luscious. The ground beneath my feet no longer feels solid. I’m having the strangest of ideas go through my mind.
The expression on my face must communicate some turmoil.
“Sorry. I’m—sorry—” He palms the back of my head, protecting it from the wall. “We don’t have to kiss, if you don’t want to.” Adrian turns his head so his temple touches the corner of mine. With that, his mouth has been put away, but it hasn’t been neutralized.
“Did you like me on my knees?” he whispers into my ear.
My face heats at his tone. It’s filthy, eager, and pained all at once.
“Should I do that again? You can keep me on my knees all night long, Sonya.”
My nails dig into his shoulders. I’ve never been so turned on in my life before. Need is clawing up inside me.
“Say yes. Give me this chance. To prove to you how good I can be, darling.”
How can he speak when all coherent thoughts are knocked out of my head? All I can muster is a throaty, “More.”
“More what? Baby, you have to tell me what exactly I can do.” A lock of blonde hair falls over his forehead as he pants between words. His brow furrows. “Because you said no, so I need to know what you don’t want.”
“I want,” I whisper, reaching for…
“Yo, Cap! Is that you?” yells a voice behind us. “I heard you’ve been looking for me!”
I might be pressed against a wall, but we’re still in the heart of the party. And someone with dark hair and a bleary drunken expression has spotted Adrian.
The guy is approaching, but when he gets closer, realization dawns on his expression fast. “Oh, shit. Never mind! I’ll find you later!”
He’s about to spin around and leave us alone, but it’s too late. I’m already ducking out from underneath Adrian’s arms. “You’re Jung, right? You guys have a lot to talk about.”
Adrian flinches back slightly. “Wait, Sonya.”
I’m not waiting. I’m taking advantage of the interruption and running away as fast as I can through the crowd.
Because I shouldn’t have kissed him. Because now I know. Touching Adrian is what ballet feels like when I’m dancing as close to a perfect performance as I’ve ever gotten. Adrenaline and elation, feeling free, and how everything else fades into the background. It’s everything.
That also means…
It has the power to shred me.
Shred me…a woman who thought she stopped giving out that power a long time ago. Now I’m faced with the fact that I’m not as strong, as well-shielded, as unaffected or vigilant as I believed myself to be.
A kiss isn’t supposed to turn your world upside down, but this one has.