Page 114 of A Heart So Haunted
Chapter Twenty-Three
We danced.
He asked me about my childhood. I asked him about his. Easy, simpler questions.Did you ever lay out on the lawn at night? Did you ever get in trouble for something absolutely ridiculous?
“At least I know the answer to one question,” I said. The mood had lightened, worries forgotten. I tipped my head back to look at him. What a concept—that I would be here, dancing in the middle of the living room at night. It felt good.
His mouth curved in a grin, still pointed angles. I stifled a shiver. “Enlighten me, Miss Frederick.” He gave me a spin. Tendrils of hair fanned around me. I came dangerously close to hitting the coffee table.
I laughed, the sound chest-deep. “You don’t know how to drive a car and I do.”
He yanked me back in. Our bodies collided, his grip playful, fervent. Both his hands on my waist now. My fingers tangled around his neck.
“Of all the things you hold over me, you choose this? At least I have no obsession with tiny screens, like you do.” He pressed his faceinto the crook of my throat and swung me into a dip. There, at the bottom, he pressed a kiss to my skin. I shrieked with laughter.
“I have to hold something over you, don’t I? Here you are, all handsome with good social standing. Besides—what are you going to do about it?” I giggled, breathy. His touch tickled. I tried to pinch my shoulder and chin together.
“Kiss you,” he said, mouth moving to the soft place beneath my ear. “If you would let me.”
Fluttering wings erupted throughout my ribcage. Moments like this didn’t feel real. Like any second, the room would dissolve around us, and I’d wake up.
“You’re asking.” My eyebrows pinched in. I didn’t mean to say that. Not really. It was more of a thought that came to the surface without my consent.
Right then, our gazessnagged. Like a hangnail between the teeth, ready to pull it away. To expose the sensitive, raw skin around it and below with one swift tug. That’s what he was doing to me. Peeling that layer. Letting air hit it.
The thought made my blood burn—in gratitude.
“I would never not ask you,” he murmured. A bated breath hung between us.
I tried to smile. To muster up that teasing thread that had somehow vanished. I couldn’t find it. Instead, I answered honestly.
My breath brushed his cheek. The hollow place just before his ear. His hair fluttered with it. “For you,” I said, swallowed, “always.”
I felt the smile before he pulled back, before he kissed me. Warm, inviting, happy.
Happy.
I took his face in my hands and deepened the kiss. His tongue touched mine, until he drew my bottom lip between his teeth. The music came to a murmur in the background, crickets chirped from an open window, and in that breadth of a moment, I lived in an infinity. An infinity where everything was okay, where each gasp was perfect, and I couldn’t get enough.
Because his hands didn’t move with force. They were languid and urgent all at once, nearly floating over my arms and around my low back, like I might drift away if he weren’t careful. I was the last clothespin holding a shirt on the line, ready to whip away in the breeze.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if this could grow into somethingelseif it were given the chance.
The thought made me falter. I shoved it away, far down into the barrel of my chest. I needed to stay in the now. But deep down, I loved that he’d grown not just into a nail that kept me pinned to the earth, but an anchor.
And the last thing I wanted was to let him go.
He walked me back. I let him. The air tasted crisper, the house grew closer, the night pressing inside toward us, urging us, farther, farther, faster. My calf scraped the coffee table.
Hadrian’s mouth gravitated to my neck again. “Should I have met you,” he said against my skin, “I would have run into you on accident.” He said it like a lie. Anaccident. “I would have asked who your family was.”
His hands gripped both sides of my waist. His voice turned rich, painting a picture with each breath.
His hair smelled of smoke, soil, and musk. Arms encircled me. Chest to chest, breath to breath. His shoes whispered over the rug.
“I would have come to your front door and knocked. Brought something I thought you might like. I would have spoken to your father and searched for you in the other room when he turned his back to me. I would have asked to take you for dinner or a walk.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Why was he telling me this? And why did it hurt so badly?
