Page 68 of Shades of Grey & Gold

He tilts his head in consideration, but his eyes mirror the heat I feel under my hands. “Is that a threat? I think that’s contempt of court.”

“It’s a promise.”

He’s still watching me with that careful expression. I feel a smile trying to escape, but I refuse to let it free because I need him to understand that I am completely serious.

I reach up and find the top button of his shirt and undo it. Just one. My fingertips rest against the small triangle of his chest it reveals; against the warmth of his tan skin and the dark hair there.

His breath leaves him. Not smoothly—it stutters slightly on the way out, just once, and I feel it against my fingers. And I beg the universe to let him break just this once.

I continue to push all the boundaries, tracing my fingers up from the open collar, slowly with both hands, along his throat, pressing them against the back of his neck with my thumbs across the edge of his jaw where his beard starts. I leave my hands there, curled under his jaw.

I can feel his pulse; the rise of his chest as he inhales a deep breath.

He closes his eyes for a second.

“I’m going to kiss you now, Max.” His voice is so faint I almost don’t hear it and he opens his eyes, fire behind them. “Okay?”

A small nod in response is all I give. My eyes stay on his.

I feel the warmth of his hands as they leave the rail and slide under the blanket, against my hips. While one stays, the other continues to burn a path up my back.

He leans down. His lips meet mine and the whole city goes quiet.

Not literally. The city is doing exactly what it probably always does—lights and noise and the constant low hum of ten million lives happening simultaneously.

But inside the blanket, inside the small warm space between us, everything narrows down to this. To his mouth, which is softer than I expected and more certain, to his hand that has found the nape of my neck under the blanket, to the way he kisses me like he has been thinking about exactly this moment for a very long time and intends to do it properly, steadily. And he takes his time.

I forget to think.

My hands curl into the front of his shirt and I hold on. His lips caress mine and press, and he peppers small kisses in with the deep ones. Every second feels like it lasts forever and is over too fast at the same time.

I press my fingers into his beard, feeling a sense of freedom and urgency to run them through his curls. Then, they trail back down under the collar of his shirt, against his chest. And that’s where they stay because the warmth of his skin on mine lights me up from the inside out.

After a minute—two, maybe, I’ve lost track of time entirely—he pulls back just enough to look at me. I try to remember how breathing works. I’m not entirely successful as my breath comes out staccato.

He watches my face and a smile starts at the corner of his mouth before bursting to life across his face.

He kisses me again, softer this time, but he squeezes the back of my neck just a little, sending lightning down to my core.

“Worth it,” he says quietly, reverently with his eyes closed and face tilted to the stars. “Nine years. Worth every second of that wait.” He looks down, placing his forehead against mine. “But I’d prefer to never wait that long for something that earth-shattering ever again. I’d prefer to kiss you like that every second of every day.”

I laugh. It comes out slightly breathless, which I refuse to be embarrassed about because it’s completely justified and based on the pattern of his own breathing, he feels it too.

He pulls the blanket tighter around my shoulders. He kisses me again, brief and certain, like punctuation.

Then he takes my hand.

“You’re shivering,” he says.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

I am.

He turns toward the door and leads me inside, the blanket still around my shoulders, his hand warm around mine, and the city lights slide across the white walls of the penthouse.

And I think about river views and coffee syrups that were barely touched and that kiss.