Chapter Nine #3
The first touch of her mouth against mine lands like a detonation, bright and overwhelming, a rush of heat and recognition that feels less like discovery and more like something long denied finally breaking loose.
It’s messy, breaths catching, the rhythm unsure for half a heartbeat before instinct takes over.
Fireworks is too small a word for it.
It feels like gravity is changing direction.
Like the world tilting and expecting us to keep standing.
She makes a soft, startled sound against my mouth, and I draw her closer without thinking, the kiss deepening into something that feels expected. Every nerve in my body lights up at once, a flood of sensation that makes it impossible to pretend this is anything less than seismic.
There is no careful testing.
There is only impact.
Only heat.
Only the dizzying certainty that this changes everything.
Time fractures.
There’s only the explosive certainty of being exactly where I’m supposed to be.
She pulls back first, abruptly, like the reality of what we’ve just done has caught up to her all at once. Her eyes move over my face quickly, urgently, searching for something she hasn’t defined.
I let her look.
I take two full seconds to feel the weight of this settle into place.
Long enough to understand that nothing is the same now.
Long enough to know I’m choosing it anyway.
Then I cup her jaw in both hands, and I kiss her again.
Not short or hurried.
This time it isn’t a collision.
It is intent.
Slow in the way of something that has been a long time coming, complete in the way that means I’m not performing the gesture, but fully inside it. Like every almost, and every pulled-back moment of the last two years, has been leading here.
She makes a soft sound when I draw her closer, her hands finding my club cut as if she needs something solid to anchor herself to. The kiss deepens on instinct alone, our breathing falling out of rhythm, then finding a new one that belongs only to this moment.
There’s heat in it now.
Not reckless or frantic.
Just undeniable.
My hand slides to the small of her back, steadying her while she presses closer, and the world narrows to the sensation of her, the warmth of her mouth, the faint tremor in her breath, the way her body fits against mine like it’s always known how.
I push her up against the kitchen counter, and she whimpers into my mouth, my cock starting to strain against my jeans.
She lifts her leg, wrapping it around me, and it almost has me coming fucking undone.
Instinctively, I grind against her, my cock so hard now I can barely think straight as we frantically kiss in the kitchen, almost as if our lives depend on it.
Her hands slide beneath my shirt, her nails raking against my skin. I let out a small groan, and somehow, the sound of my own moan brings reality crashing back down over me.
Her father is here.
My patch is days away.
I’m holding onto secrets from Millie and Sin.
And just like that, my head begins to take over the moment. The urgency ebbs into something slower, more deliberate, each movement easing until the kiss becomes less about proving anything and more about staying.
About feeling.
About memorizing.
Eventually, the need for air wins.
We part by degrees, foreheads nearly touching, both of us breathing harder than the moment looks like it should justify. Her hands curl in my club cut. Mine are still holding her like I forgot how not to.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
The silence is thick with everything we’ve set into motion.
Her breath ghosts against my mouth, and mine stutters in response.
And it feels…
Fucking terrifying.
Unmistakably, like the beginning of something we won’t be able to walk back from.
I press my forehead against hers, and neither of us speaks. The kitchen is incredibly silent. Her hands have found the front of my shirt.
“I… I can’t do this right now,” I whisper, still completely breathless.
She pulls back slightly, not away, just enough to see my face, her brows furrowed. “W-what does that mean?”
“It means you deserve the whole thing.” I keep my hands on her jaw, my thumbs against her cheekbones.
“Not half of me while I’m still a prospect.
Not while your father’s arrangement with the club is the thing keeping the lights on for everyone.
There’s too much tangled up in this right now, and you deserve better than me trying to navigate it halfway.
” Her eyes close like she knew this was coming.
“Give me a week,” I say. “One week, and I’m fully patched, and I can stand in front of Sin and tell him what I want without it being a liability to anyone…
” I let out a heavy breath, running my fingers through my hair. “One week, Millie.”
She breathes out slowly and nods. “One week,” she says, and it sounds like she’s agreeing to something difficult but necessary, which is exactly what it is.
I take a tentative step back. The loss of proximity is immediate and physical. “One week, Mills. Then I’m done waiting.”
She looks at me for a moment with those eyes that see me clearer than most people bother to, then she nods, turns, and walks down the hall to her room.
Letting out a long, excessive exhale, I wipe my hands over my face in frustration, then move to the sofa.
I pull the spare blanket over myself and stare at the ceiling of Jonas McClane’s living room.
Twelve feet down the hall, behind a closed door, she’s doing the same, I know it the same way I know my own heartbeat.
Neither of us is going to be able to sleep tonight.