13. Aria #3
I burst out laughing. "Oh my God. That's—" I gasped for air. "When I was eight, I did almost the same thing. Except it was hermit crabs, and I hid them in my closet, and my mother didn't find out until they'd been there for two weeks and the smell—"
"The smell?"
"You don't want to know." I was laughing so hard now my eyes were watering. "My father had to throw out my entire wardrobe. My mother didn't speak to me for three days."
"Senator Pinch and the hermit crab massacre." He was laughing too, really laughing, the sound warm and unexpected. "We should compare notes."
"Evie and I are clearly kindred spirits."
"That explains so much about why she adores you."
I reached out without thinking, my hand landing on his chest to steady myself through another wave of laughter. His heart beat fast beneath my palm. Faster than it should.
I looked up.
He was watching me. That dangerous look again, the one that made my blood run hot, but there was something else there, too. Something softer. Uncertain.
Neither of us moved.
My hand was still on his chest. I could feel his warmth through the linen, the staccato beat of his heart, the way his breathing had gone shallow.
"Aria." My name on his lips, barely a whisper.
I should have pulled away. Should have made a joke, broken the tension, remembered all the reasons this was a terrible idea.
Instead, I kissed him.
I leaned in and pressed my mouth to his, and for a split second, nothing happened. He was frozen, surprised, and I had a flash of panic. Had I misread this? Had I ruined everything?
Then his hand came up to cup the back of my head, and he kissed me back.
It was different from before. The kiss in New York had been angry, desperate, all teeth and fury.
This was slower. Deeper. His fingers slowly tangled in my hair, and he tilted my face to the angle he wanted and kissed me like he had all the time in the world.
Like he wanted to memorize the shape of my mouth.
I melted into him. My hands slid up his chest, over his shoulders, into the hair at the nape of his neck. He made a low sound against my lips and pulled me closer, and then we were falling backward onto the bed, a cloud of dust rising around us, neither of us caring.
We lay side by side at first, facing each other, trading kisses that grew deeper and more urgent with every passing second. His hand found my waist, my hip, the bare skin of my thigh where my sundress had ridden up. I gasped against his mouth.
I wanted more. I wanted everything.
I pushed against his shoulder and he went willingly, rolling onto his back, and then I was on top of him. Straddling his hips. Looking down at his face, his gray eyes dark with want, his lips swollen from my kisses, his chest heaving beneath me.
I leaned down and kissed him again. His hands gripped my hips, pulling me closer, and I…
The door opened.
We sprang apart so fast I nearly fell off the bed. Sebastian scrambled upright, running a hand through his disheveled hair. I was on my feet, smoothing my dress, my face burning so hot I thought I might actually catch on fire.
Leilani stood in the doorway.
She took in the scene. The mussed bed. The dust covered both of us. Sebastian's untucked shirt. My wild hair. The guilty expressions we were both failing to hide.
One eyebrow rose.
"When I asked if I could get you both a room," she said, "I wasn't being literal."
Nobody laughed.
I opened my mouth, closed it. I tried again.
"We got locked in. The door was stuck."
"Mmhmm." She didn't sound convinced. "Well, you're unstuck now. Dinner's in an hour."
“How did you find us?” Sebastian asked.
“Security said they saw you heading this way on the cameras, so I came to get you. This wing isn’t safe, so let’s get back to the main hotel.”
She turned and walked back down the hallway, her footsteps echoing on the old floorboards until they faded to nothing.
Silence.
I couldn't look at him. I stared at the floor, at the dust motes swirling in the light, at anything that wasn't Sebastian. My heart was still pounding. My lips were still tingling. My whole body was still humming with a want I couldn't afford to feel.
"Aria…"
"That didn't happen." My words came out too fast, too sharp.
"What?"
"Whatever that was." I forced myself to look at him.
He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, dust in his hair, his eyes soft and confused, and so unbearably hopeful it made my chest ache.
"It can't happen again. We're on opposite sides of this.
We're competing for the same hotel. This is exactly what Mr. Kahale is watching for. "
"Aria…"
"I'm not going to lose this hotel because I can't control myself around you."
His expression shuttered. The softness vanished, replaced by something carefully blank.
I walked past him. Out the door. Down the dusty hallway, past the old photographs, past the covered furniture, past the ghosts of a history I was supposed to be honoring instead of making out with my competitor.
I didn't look back.
But I could feel his eyes on me the entire way.