Page 43 of A House of Gold
“I...” My voice comes out rough. Uncertain. “I don’t...”
“You don’t know?” His thumb strokes along my jawline. “Then let me help you decide.”
He kisses me.
It’s not gentle. Not tentative. It’s claiming, possessive, exactly what I should have expected from an angel whose entire existence is built on wanting and taking and keeping.
His mouth is hot against mine, demanding, and I freeze.
Complete, total stillness. My hands don’t move to push him away, but they don’t pull him closer either. I just...stop. Brain short-circuiting, unable to process that this is happening, that he’s actually kissing me, that his hand is in my hair and his mouth is on mine, and then it’s over.
He pulls back.
Not far. Just enough so that I can breathe again. His forehead rests against mine, and there’s so much frustration in the breath he lets out.
“You didn’t kiss me back,” he says, and there’s something dangerous in his voice. Not angry. Something else. Hungry and frustrated and wanting.
“No, I didn’t.” My voice is barely a whisper.
Silence. Heavy and charged.
Then he pulls back further, giving me space. His hand slides out of my hair, away from my thigh, and he settles back into his seat. But I can feel the tension radiating from him. Coiled. Restrained.
“I could make you want this,” he says quietly. Not a threat. Just a statement of fact. “I could make you crave me the way I crave you. Make you ache for my touch. It would be easy.”
My breath catches.Can he?“But you won’t.”
“No.” His hands curl into fists on his thighs. “Because that’s not what I want. I don’t want you compelled or manipulated into desire. I don’t want you kissing me back because I made you.” He turns his head toward me, those gold eyes burning. “I want you to want me. Really want me. Enough that when I kiss you again, you won’t freeze. You’ll pull me closer and kiss me back like you’re starving for it.”
“That will not happen.”
“It will.” There’s absolute certainty in his voice. “You already want me, Raven. I can smell it, feel it. You’re just fighting it because you think you should. Because you’re smart enough to know it’s dangerous to want an angel who’s already admitted he wants to keep you.”
He leans closer, not touching, but close enough that I can feel his breath.
“But you’ll stop fighting eventually,” he murmurs. “You’ll realize that wanting me isn’t a weakness. It’s inevitable. And when that happens, when you finally admit to yourself what your body already knows, I’ll be waiting. Patient as stone. Hungry as sin.”
He pulls back, settles into his seat again.
“Until then,” he says, voice returning to a smooth, controlled tone, “I won’t touch you again. Not like that. Not until you ask me to.”
“I’m not going to ask.”
“We’ll see.”
The car slows. I look out the window and realize we’re pulling up to a sleek glass tower. David Barnes’ building where I’m supposed to break a contract. After all of...that.
The driver puts the car in park but doesn’t turn off the engine.
Croesus reaches for the door handle, then pauses. Turns back to me and offers his hand.
I take it, my legs are still shaky, my lips still tingling from a kiss I didn’t return, my brain still trying to process what just happened, and let him help me out of the car.
The night air is cool against my bare back, and I’m suddenly very aware of how exposed I am in this dress. How thoroughly I’ve just been affected by him, even though I didn’t kiss him back.
Croesus tucks my hand into the crook of his arm, and we walk toward the building like we belong there. Like we’re just another wealthy couple with late-night business.
Like he didn’t just kiss me in the back seat.
