Page 91 of The Wrong Man

I was wrong.

I am going to swoon. Right here, right now, on this hideous orange sofa. I am going to pass out from the sheer overwhelming intensity of being kissed by Dante, and then I will have to live with that embarrassment for the rest of my captivity.

His teeth catch my lower lip, a gentle scrape that makes my hips jerk involuntarily. He soothes the sting with his tongue, then claims my mouth again with renewed intensity. The hand on my hip tightens, pulling me closer, and I realize with distant shock that I am in his lap.

When did that happen? When did I climb on top of him? I have no memory of moving, no conscious decision to straddle his thighs, but here I am. Pressed against him from chest to hip, my fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt, making sounds I will definitely be mortified about later.

Dante pulls back just far enough to breathe, and I chase his mouth instinctively, not ready for this to end. He huffs something that might be a laugh against my lips and presses a softer kiss to the corner of my mouth. Then another to my jaw. Then a third to the sensitive spot just below my ear.

Stars dance behind my closed eyelids.

“Dylan.” His voice is rough, wrecked, nothing like the controlled tone I have grown used to hearing. “Look at me.”

I force my eyes open. His face is right there, so close I can count his eyelashes if I wanted to. His pupils are blown wide, dark and hungry, and there is color high on his cheekbones. He looks just as undone as I am.

“Hi,” I whisper, because apparently my brain has stopped working entirely.

His lips twitch. That almost smile I have learned to recognize, the one that feels like a victory every time I manage to coax it out of him.

“Hi,” he replies.

We stare at each other. The film is still playing in the background, forgotten entirely, and I cannot bring myself to care about anything except the way his hands feel on my waist and the warm press of his body beneath mine.

“I have wanted to do that,” he says slowly, “for longer than I should admit.”

The confession hits me like a physical blow. Not because it is surprising, exactly. I have suspected for days now that his feelings run deeper than a stern captor should allow. But hearing him say it out loud, with that raw honesty in his voice, makes something crack open in my chest.

“How long?” I hear myself ask.

“Since you fainted at the sight of my pliers.” His thumb traces absent circles on my hip. “Possibly before that. Possibly from the first moment you looked at me with those eyes and swore you were innocent.”

The first moment. When I was tied to a chair in his torture room, terrified and recently drugged and convinced I was going to die.

“That’s very messed up,” I say.

“I know.”

“I was your prisoner. I am still your prisoner.”

“I know that too.”

His hands have not moved from my waist. His gaze has not wavered from my face. He is not pretending this is normal or acceptable or anything other than exactly what it is. Complicated and wrong and utterly undeniable.

“I should not have kissed you,” I whisper.

“No, you probably should not have.”

“It was impulsive. I was not thinking clearly. The whiskey, and the film, and your stupid knee touching mine...”

“My stupid knee?”

“You were manspreading. It was very distracting.”

That almost smile widens into something closer to genuine. It transforms his face, softens the hard edges, makes him look younger and more human.

“I will try to contain my knee in the future.”

“Good. See that you do.”