Chapter 19 #2
I avert my eyes, hoping he doesn’t see my blush, fixating on the worn-out holes in the upholstery.
I give in to a shiver, wishing this room weren’t so drafty as I guide my towel around my shoulders.
No wonder no one else is here. My dress clings to my skin, crackling with every barely repressed tremble.
My head raises when I hear rustling, and Kane’s shirt soars up and away like his towel, landing with a sticky plop.
Which leaves his chest exposed, muscles straining under the weight of my gaze, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to have defined abdominals while being a surgical resident.
He blinks, and pink rushes to his cheeks. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “I’m cold.”
Wet hair plasters in clumps to his forehead, making him look like a drowned puppy. An adorable one I would take home to love forever. It’s at odds with the rippling definition across his body.
I shut down my wicked thoughts and turn my head away, pretending I don’t see his lips curl.
“Why not take your underwear off while you’re at it?” I suggest.
“I would, but then you’d be inclined to join,” he adds.
I grin at him and preen when he stutters out, “What—what are you doing?”
I swing my hair out of the way, unbutton the top layer of my dress, and begin peeling it off, button by button.
Kane flushes beet red, but to my great pleasure, is no longer avoiding looking.
“You can help me,” I add, letting my smile widen as I copy him. “I’m cold, too.” I shrug it off my shoulders, but then the zipper gets stuck.
“I—” I suddenly realize how ridiculous my flirting is, and scoot further away from him in the booth. “Never mind.”
In one smooth move, he crosses the expanse of the booth, brushing up against me. I ignore how my body heats with his warmth. And how my pulse skips into tachycardia.
“I’ve undressed women before, Persephone.”
I almost choke on my breath.
Persephone? His deep and steady voice is all I can focus on as his deft fingers trace my zipper, smoothing down my skin.
His fingers ghost over my bra strap before making their way to the end, palm lingering on the small of my back.
I freeze.
His hand vanishes. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No,” I admit. “Just… amazed by how warm you stay when I’m freezing.”
He chuckles, fingers finding the towel next to me, cocooning it around my shoulders. His soft exhale lingers in the air as I retreat, escaping to my corner of the booth.
I cover the rest of my decency with the towel while tossing my sodden dress to the side, praying my undergarments aren’t as transparent.
Not that Kane bothers to look. He’s currently fixated on the chandelier above, as if it holds the secrets to the best surgical outcomes.
“So.” His voice is deep, unsure.
“So,” I respond quietly.
I settle into a cross-legged position, wondering whether he’d classify this silence as delicate or romantic. I like a comfortable lull in conversation, like the end credits of a movie winding down, but not like this, when he’s looking everywhere but me.
The waiter returns with a flourish, a heaping crystal bowl of Caesar salad in one arm, and a flight of coffee, matcha, and a sparkling bottle of champagne in the other.
Heart-shaped ice cubes slosh around the matcha as a line of coffees, ranging from onyx black to chestnut brown, sit in a neat wooden row beside them.
He sets them all down, then announces, “To the demon finally finding love!” and uncorks the champagne with a flourish.
I burst out grinning, watching the fizz and bubbles, while Kane grumbles a thanks, Benson under his breath.
Benson reaches into his pocket, drops a final candle, and then we’re showering in dancing amber light as he disappears.
“Thank you,” I tell him as he leaves.
I reach for the champagne, but Kane pulls it away.
“I think you’ve had enough,” he says, looking pointedly at my hair. “Any more, and we might dip into the Great Lakes.”
“Please.” I accept the vivid matcha he hands me instead.
He shoves the Caesar salad over, too.
“Eat,” he commands.
“I do what I want,” I respond, and he just sighs.
I pick at the salad in silence. After a beat of him watching me, but making no move to feed himself, I pick out the blackest coffee of the bunch. “Warm up, grumpy,” I command, sliding it over.
He harrumphs and takes a sip, large hands nearly overlapping over the edges of the glass.
“We’ll stay until you dry off,” he decides. “I don’t want you dripping water all over my car.”
“How thoughtful,” I respond, munching on a piece of chicken. It’s delightfully hot, but it feels strange to eat a full meal with almost nothing on, while Kane steals glances to make sure I’ve eaten, then jerks his head away as fast as he can.
When I’m done with the salad, we both sip our drinks, the quiet punctuated only by our breathing between sips. My inebriated coat of warmth has fully faded, and now I’m chilled to the bone, the towel sitting heavy around me.
Kane shivers, the first sign of his personal discomfort.
“Do you want to cuddle?” I offer, half-seriously. “I don’t like seeing you cold either.”
“Unnecessary,” he argues, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m fine.”
I set my matcha down, guilt washing over me. I’ve spent so much time worrying about myself that I haven’t checked in on him. I unwrap my towel and hold it out.
He shakes his head, and I re-cover myself.
But then his perfect posture cracks, weight shifting from one side to the other.
Alright, that’s enough.
“Well, it’s for a good cause,” I argue, climbing over to him. “I have to get you to match day. Not watch you die from frostbite.”
I cross the peeling upholstery and sit beside him, giving him the option to move away. Or closer. His eyes narrow, then darken.
“The other drinks are getting cold,” he protests.
“So are you,” I say.
“And since we’re fake dating,” I suggest, “And we’re in public, with Benson listening in, now would be the perfect time for you to sweep me up in your arms, tip my head back, and shower me in kisses.”
He slouches back, facing me, so near I can smell him, all wood smoke and coffee. I can feel the warmth of his side, the heat of his gaze, the hazy glow of his curiosity.
“If it were really in public right now,” he says grimly, “we would do a lot more than cuddling.”
“Such as?”
He smiles, the slightest hint of a challenge. “Climb on.”
His dark lashes blink in warning as he extends an arm, ghosting it over my waist, applying the slightest pressure to tug me forward.
His hands are chilly.
“You’re cold,” I whisper.
“Don’t be difficult,” he says, and I stop resisting, summoning a surge of courage to push off my heels, straddling him as the towel rustles to the side.
Icy air washes over my exposed skin while Kane’s other hand brushes under my chin, tilting me up to look at him, the pads of his fingers like icicles.
“We’re fake dating,” he breathes, my final chance to pull back.
His pupils are blown wide, as dark as the night sky.
Skin brushing, blood surging, I’m overwhelmed by a deep, twisted need to confront him. For permission to stoke this burning, insatiable desire to have him, to throw my mouth over his and see how he tastes.
“And what if we weren’t?” I murmur.
I’m tired of holding back all the time. Of living the rest of my life consumed by insurmountable doubts, choices repressed by cautious terror instead of purposeful risks.
So what if I derail everything?
I’m cold, and there’s a man, right here, who knows how to warm me up.
“If we weren’t,” Kane whispers, “I would do… this.” He tilts his head forward, and my pulse pounds at the feather-light press of his lips against my cheek.
If we weren’t fake dating, this is where I’d imagine my bra strap sliding down. His hand would wrap around my waist, sliding what’s left of my decency off, and then I’d be bare before him.
But this is real, so he just groans, tilting my chin up with his knuckles, showering burning kisses down my throat.
My core flames.
Each kiss jolts through my body; his hot breath, ghosting down my collarbone, sets off tingles across my flesh.
I cuff his neck with my hand, squeezing slightly, terrified of what would happen if I pulled back now.
Continue, I press, tugging him closer.
Prove it to me, I want to beg.
Prove that I’m not insane, and that it is worth it to try.
He moans.
“When’s the last time you really kissed someone?” he asks, drawing back enough for his nose to nuzzle mine.
My last kiss rockets through my mind, all rakish hands and haughty lust while I shied away.
“Never,” I decide. “Golden Boy was awful.”
He rumbles with barely restrained laughter.
The sun sets outside, and with it, the night eclipses the last of our sanity.
“Should we fake fix that?” he whispers, barely audible.
I can’t breathe.
“You have to come up with a believable story to tell others,” he lies smoothly, “in case they ask how I am… in kissing.” He wavers at the end, but we both know what he was going to say.
His breath is hot. My mind is fried.
Our excuses are growing as thin as our patience.
“I’ll tell them you were begging to kiss me,” I offer.
“Purely lust,” he says.
“Never even liked me,” I add, but my tone is all wrong, scared instead of breathy, and his eyes widen.
“I have always liked you, Persephone,” Kane says, and the way he says my full name—like it’s a prayer, like I’m really his goddess—makes my soul ache.
Wrong answer, I think desperately. I’m not just falling in love, I’m crashing like a comet, flung out of orbit and plummeting down to rock bottom.
In conditions like this, I understand how my namesake dove into Tartarus.
Once again, Kane lives on the same wavelength as I do, his thoughts chasing mine by seconds. “You and your namesake are prone to bad bargains.”
“It’s not that bad,” I argue.
“For me,” he insists. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the hospital, and I’m the lucky demon who trapped you.”
“You never even noticed me before.”
“Most men in survival mode don’t.”
“Are you out of survival mode now?”
“I’ll never survive this, Percy.”