Page 119 of Seven Minutes
I snorted. “You’re very sophisticated.”
“Extremely.”
The contact was small. Ordinary. But it touched deep. My breath fluttered, too quick to hide. Adrian noticed. Of course, he noticed. He always noticed now.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Yeah. Just… feeling everything. Grateful for it.”
“Good,” he whispered. “Feel it.”
His hand drifted from my jaw down my throat, slow enough to make me swallow, then lower, flattening against my chest where my heartbeat thudded against his palm.
The world had gone quiet around us. Just the whisper of the breeze through the vines, the quiet clink of our half-finished glasses, and the warm press of his hand over my heart.
“You know,” he said, voice brushing my skin like a fingertip, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
I lifted my eyes to his, my pulse kicking hard beneath his palm.
“What’s that?”
He smiled—soft, deliberate, filled with something that felt a lot like promise. And before he spoke, he leaned in, lips hovering a breath from mine… ready to turn the night into something unforgettable.
His breath warmed my lips. The question—whatever it was—hung between us like the charged air before lightning.
I kissed him first. Hard, then slow. His mouth tasted of blackberry wine, sweet and heady. He slid one hand around my nape,angling me closer, while the other gripped my thigh just tightly enough to make a sound break loose from my throat.
He swallowed it with a kiss.
My fingers curled in the front of his shirt and pulled him closer.
I felt him melt under me, felt the tension from the drive, the week, hell—the lasttwelve years—unravel as our mouths moved. The kind of kiss that rewired my pulse.
He kissed down my jaw, soft, then open-mouthed against the side of my throat. My hips rocked instinctively; his breath stuttered against my skin.
I pressed closer, chest to chest. The chair creaked a warning under us, and he laughed against my mouth, breathy, already undone.
“We’re too heavy for this chair.”
“Then take me inside,” I whispered. I shifted in his lap, and his breath hitched, sharp and wanting.
He tugged my shirt over my head, tossed it onto the seat I’d vacated in favor of his lap, and ran his palms over my chest as though he had all the time in the world. I arched into his touch. A touch that said, I know what you need. I’ve needed it too.
“Eli,” he whispered.
I cupped his face and slid my tongue between his lips—slow at first, then deeper, more urgent. His hands tightened on my waist, pulling me tight against his erection, and I felt the familiar spark crack in my belly as he stood and carried me, my legs instinctively wrapping around his hips.
He brought me inside, laying me back on the edge of the bed with this careful intensity that made the room feel smalland hot. He kissed down my chest, across my ribs, over my scars, and lower, worshipping every inch of me.
And I let myself feel it. All of it. Heat. Lust. The wine. Happiness. Trust.
The low lamplight turned the room warm. Shadows curved across his face, sharpening his hunger.
Clothes went fast. Touches went faster.
His hands were everywhere—my chest, my ass, my hips—loving and greedy all at once. I arched into him, gasping when he trailed his mouth down my sternum, when he dragged his teeth lightly over my skin, when he whispered my name like a prayer he’d spent a decade perfecting.
When he slid against me—skin to skin, heat to heat—I said something that probably wasn’t English.
