Page 89 of Fractured Ice

My heart is hammering. I press my hand flat against the door for a second, not knocking yet, just standing there. I think about Emma in the kitchen two days ago saying there's only one way you'll know, and I think about the pen in my jacket pocket that I've been carrying since the fair, and I think about pink cotton candy and a shaded path and his voice in the dark telling me I was incredible.

I knock.

I hear something, maybe movement, a chair, his voice saying something I can't make out, and I push the door open.

He's at his desk.

There are papers everywhere. On the desk, on the floor, crumpled into balls scattered across the rug in a radius around his chair. His hair is doing the thing it does when he's been running his hands through it repeatedly, which means he's been doing this for a while. He's got a pen in his hand and a look on his face of a person who has been trying to solve a problem that isn't cooperating.

He looks up.

The look of pure, unguarded shock on his face is one I haven't seen before, and it makes my heart squeeze.

"Sienna—"

I lock the door, then turn and cross the room.

He's already starting to stand, already saying my name again, and I don't give him the chance to say anything else. I take his face in my hands and kiss him.

He goes still for just a second. He's surprised, I can feel it, and then his hands find my waist and he kisses me back. It's nothing like the kissing booth, it's nothing like the party, it's something with more weight behind it, more intention. I press closer and he responds immediately, pulling me in.

He walks me backward until my back meets the door, his mouth still on mine, warm and certain, and I reach for the hem of his shirt and pull. He breaks the kiss just enough to get the shirt over his head, to look at my face, checking, asking without words, and I answer by going for his belt.

"I thought you didn't⁠—"

"I changed my mind." I get the belt open. "Two days of thinking will do that."

He watches me with dark, focused eyes as I get his jeans open and push everything down, and then I drop to my knees, and he makes a low rough sound when he realizes what I'm doing.

He's already hard when I take him in my hand, thick and warm, and I look up at him once before I take him into my mouth.

"Sienna—" His voice breaks on my name.

I never let myself think about this. Not directly, not with any real examination. But the truth is it's been there since that first day on campus, the first time I saw him across the quad and my brain filed him under dangerous before I'd finished thinking about why. I've wanted him and refused to want him for months, and I'm done refusing.

I take my time. I work him with my mouth and tongue, learning what makes his hand tighten in my hair, learning the sounds he makes when I take him deeper. He says my name like it's the only word he knows, ragged and reverent, and I feel powerful and warm and completely certain in a way I haven't felt in any bedroom in recent memory.

"Sienna." Strained now, urgent. "If you don't stop I'm going to⁠—"

I pull back just enough. "Come," I tell him, and take him back in and give him everything.

He comes hard, my name on his lips, his hand gripping my hair, his whole body shuddering through it. I take all of it, and when he sags back against the door I slide out from under him and stand up. I'm warm all over and there's no version of this I regret.

I go to his bed. I reach back and unzip my dress and let it fall, and he's watching me from across the room with an expression that does not contain a single thought other than me.

"Can you—" I start.

He's already getting hard again.

He crosses the room and stands behind me, his mouth on my shoulder, my neck, the curve of my ear, and his hands come up to cup my breasts as I lean back into him, my head falling to his shoulder. His thumbs trace over my nipples and I make a sound I don't bother managing.

"You're incredible," he says into my neck. "God, Sienna."

His hands are warm and thorough and he knows exactly how to touch me from two nights ago, and my nipples are so hard under his palms I'm already aching lower. He skims one hand down my stomach and slips it into my underwear, and I feel his exhale against my neck.

"So wet," he says, low and satisfied. "Already."

"I've been thinking about you for two days," I say, which is more honest than I intended and also completely true.