Chapter 15 Mia
MIA
The seconds stretch into eternity as I stare at Vanguard, waiting for the seizure that doesn’t come.
Waiting for the foam at his lips, the collapse, the terrible stillness that follows.
I’ve seen it so many times, and my body is braced for impact, every muscle coiled tight in anticipation of the horror about to unfold.
But he just stands there, frowning at me with those blue eyes, looking confused and a little hurt and very, very alive.
One minute.
Two.
Could he be immune? Rachel wouldn’t answer my question when I asked if he could tolerate poisons.
Hope stirs as I stare at him.
His chest rises and falls with steady breaths. His pupils are normal. His skin hasn’t changed color. He’s not clutching his throat or staggering or showing any of the signs that’ve been burned into my brain time and time again.
He’s fine.
He’s fucking fine.
“Mia?” His voice is gentle, concerned. “Talk to me, please. What’s going on?”
I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t do anything except stand here with my heart slamming against my ribs and my mind racing through a lifetime of terror and certainty that just shattered like glass.
He didn’t die.
I kissed him, and he didn’t die.
The realization punches me, knocking the air from my lungs.
I’ve spent half my life believing I was a monster.
A weapon. Something broken and dangerous that could never be touched, never be had.
I’ve watched my poison take lives, used it to my advantage for the British government, and I’ve accepted that intimacy would always end in death.
But not with him.
Not with him.
Holy Jesus fuck.
“Darlin’, you’re scaring me.” He takes a step closer, reaching out. “Whatever I did wrong—”
I close the distance between us in two strides, grab fistfuls of his shirt, pull him down to my level, and crush my mouth against his.
He makes a sound of surprise—a grunt that vibrates against my lips—and for a second, he’s frozen, probably trying to figure out if I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
Which I have. I definitely have. But I don’t care, because I’m kissing someone, and they’re not dying, and it feels like every locked door in my body has just been blown off its hinges.
Then, his hands find my waist, and he’s kissing me back, and oh God.
I am done for.
This is nothing like before. Before was desperate and hungry and tinged with the terror of impending death.
This is something else entirely. This is me choosing him, claiming him, taking what I’ve been denied.
My fingers twist in his shirt, pulling him closer, and I pour every ounce of pent-up frustration and longing and need into the kiss.
He tastes like whiskey and want. His stubble scrapes my chin. His tongue slides against mine, and I actually moan into his mouth—a sound I’ve never made before, not like this, not with someone else’s lips on mine.
“Fuck,” he breathes against my mouth. “Mia—”
I don’t let him finish. I kiss him again, harder, my hands releasing his shirt to rake up his chest, over his shoulders, into his hair.
I want to touch everything. I want to feel everything.
I’ve spent so long keeping my hands to myself, maintaining careful distance, and now, it’s like a dam has broken, and I can’t stop the flood.
His hands aren’t idle either. They slide up my bare back, fingers splaying across skin that’s never been touched like this, with so much need and possession, and I shiver so hard, my teeth nearly chatter.
Every nerve ending is lit up, screaming with sensation.
It’s too much and not enough, all at once.
“Jesus Christ,” he groans. “You’re shaking.”
“Don’t stop,” I manage. “Please, don’t stop.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his pupils so large, his eyes are almost black. “I thought you didn’t want this.”
“I was wrong.”
“You pushed me away—“
“I was scared.” The truth spills out before I can stop it. “I was scared I was going to hurt you. And now, I—” My voice cracks. “I need you to touch me. Please.”
Something changes in his expression. The confusion melts away, replaced by understanding and then something darker. Hungrier. That dangerous edge I glimpsed earlier is back, sharper now, no longer leashed.
“You want me to touch you?” His voice has dropped an octave, rough and low and making my thighs clench. His hand slides up my spine to the nape of my neck, fingers curling possessively. “Where? Tell me where.”
“Everywhere,” I whisper.
His smile is slow and wicked and makes my knees go weak.
“That can be arranged.”
His mouth finds mine again, but this kiss is different.
Slower. More deliberate. He’s taking control now, one hand fisted in my hair to angle my head exactly where he wants it, the other brushing over my lower back.
He kisses me like he has all the time in the world, like we’re not standing on a rooftop a thousand feet above Manhattan, like the only thing that matters is the taste of my lips and the sounds I make when his tongue does that.
I’m drowning. Drowning in him, drowning in sensation, in the feel of his hands on my skin, in the solid heat of his body pressed against mine. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt—why are there so many bloody buttons?—and he laughs against my mouth.
“Eager,” he murmurs.
“Shut up and help me.”
I need to feel you.
He shrugs off his tuxedo jacket, letting it fall to the concrete, then makes quick work of his bow tie while I attack the rest of his buttons. The shirt falls open, and I actually gasp at the sight of him—all those muscles I’ve secretly been fantasizing about laid bare in the city lights.
“Like what you see?” There’s a cocky edge to his voice that should annoy me, but it doesn’t. There’s no one on the planet built like this man, like a fucking god.
Still, I can’t let it go to his head.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“That’s not a no.”
I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath my hand. His skin is hot, almost feverish, and when I drag my nails lightly down his abs, he hisses through his teeth.
“Careful,” he warns. “I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”
“Don’t be.” I hold his gaze, my heart hammering. “I don’t want gentle. Not from you.”
Something snaps behind his eyes.
His hands find the tie at the back of my neck—the only thing holding up the front of my dress—and with one sharp tug, the silk falls away. The cold air hits my bare breasts, and I gasp, but before I can feel self-conscious, his mouth is on me.
“Fucking perfect,” he growls against my skin. “You’re fucking perfect.”
His lips close around one nipple, and I cry out, my hands flying to his shoulders to steady myself.
The sensation is electric—hot mouth, rough stubble, the edge of teeth—and I’m suddenly aware I’m making sounds I’ve never made before, whimpers and moans and half-formed words that might be his name or might be profanity or might be nothing at all.
His other hand cups my neglected breast, thumb circling the peak until I’m arching into his touch, desperate for more.
No one’s ever touched me like this. No one’s ever been allowed to touch me like this.
And now that someone is, now that he is, I understand what I’ve been missing. What I’ve been denied.
It’s devastating.
It’s glorious.
“So responsive,” he murmurs against my skin, switching his attention to the other breast, laving my stiff nipple with the hard, wet plane of his tongue. “So fucking sensitive. I could make you come just from this, couldn’t I?”
I don’t know. I’ve never… I don’t…
His hand slides down my stomach, over the bunched silk at my waist, and then lower. Lower. His fingers trace the hem of my dress, teasing along my inner thigh, and I forget how to breathe again.
“Spread your legs for me,” he orders.
I obey without thinking, my thighs parting, and his hand slides between them. I watch his face as his fingers find bare skin instead of fabric, watch his eyes widen and then darken with harsh satisfaction.
“Fuck me.” His voice is hoarse. “You’ve been walking around all night with nothing on under this dress?”
“I—the lines would show…” I say breathlessly, every nerve like a livewire ready to spark.
“Dirty girl.” His fingers trace higher, higher, and then he’s touching me there, and I actually sob. “Fuck, you’re so wet. Is this all for me?”
I can’t answer, can’t form words. His fingers are sliding through my slick heat, exploring, testing, while every brush against my clit sends sparks shooting through my body, those livewires leading to dynamite.
I’ve touched myself before, of course. It’s my usual Saturday night, but it’s never felt like this.
It’s never felt like my entire nervous system is on fire.
“Answer me.” He circles my entrance with one finger, not quite pushing inside. “Is this pretty little pussy wet for me?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes. God, yes—”
He slides one finger inside me, and I clench around him immediately, my whole body shuddering. He groans like I’ve wounded him.
“So tight. So fucking tight.” He adds a second finger, and I whimper, feeling the stretch, the fullness. “That’s it, darlin’. Take it. Take what I give you.”
He starts to move, his fingers pumping in and out while his thumb finds my clit and circles with devastating precision. I’m clinging to his shoulders, my nails digging into his shirt, and I can feel something building inside me—a pressure, a tension, a wave that’s about to crash and drown me.
“Nate…” I pant. “I’m going to—I can’t—”
“Come for me like a good girl,” he rasps. “Come right in my hand.”
The wave breaks.
I shatter with a cry that echoes off the buildings, my inner walls clamping down on his fingers as pleasure tears through me in relentless waves.
It goes on and on, longer than any orgasm I’ve ever given myself, and he works me through every second of it, his fingers never stopping, his thumb never slowing, until I’m trembling and gasping and completely wrecked.