Refuge(89)

He pulled back, and I felt like I’d been set adrift until his fingers curled under my chin, lifting my face to his. My eyes moved over his sensual lips, and all I could think about was what it would be like to taste them. Shocked by my sudden boldness, I raised my eyes to his and was lost in their smoky depths. Something tugged at my chest, a vaguely familiar sensation that drew me toward him. I read the intention in his eyes before they lowered to my mouth.

Then I forgot how to breathe.





Chapter 14





CONSCIOUS THOUGHT FLED when Nikolas’s lips brushed mine. Warm and firm, his mouth explored mine with aching slowness and infinite tenderness as his hands framed my face, holding me against him. As if I had the strength to pull away. Sensations I had never felt before blossomed in my chest, and instead of trying to understand them, I leaned in and kissed him back tentatively. I sensed something indecipherable shift between us – like two repelling magnets that flip and are suddenly drawn to each other – and my lips parted to let my breath escape in a soft sigh. He pulled me closer, if that was possible, deepening the kiss, and I surrendered to it, exhilarated and terrified at the same time and never wanting it to end.

Seconds, or maybe a lifetime later, Nikolas made a sound deep in his chest and pulled back. Trembling, I took a breath and met his dark, smoldering gaze that told me I was not the only one affected by the kiss. A storm of emotions assailed me: wonder, bewilderment, elation, but they soon gave way to shock as it hit me what I had just done.

Oh my God, I kissed Nikolas.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment, and I was acutely aware of his hands still cradling my face and his lips only inches from mine. Was he going to kiss me again? Did I want him to?

Before I could answer that question, his eyes became flat and unreadable and he dropped his hands to take a step back. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to . . . ”

His hoarse words hung in the air between us for a second before they hit me like a bucket of ice water. He didn’t mean to? I tore my eyes from his, but not before I saw regret creep into his expression. My stomach dropped, and my body grew warm as humiliation washed over me.

“Sara – ”

“No.” I didn’t want to hear him to explain or tell me it had been a mistake; his reaction said that loud and clear. It didn’t matter why he’d kissed me. It was done and we couldn’t change it. I did not want to talk about it, either. Tears pricked my eyes, making me angry that I should let a simple kiss bother me so much, even if it had been my first kiss.

A heavy silence stretched between us. I refused to look at him, but I had never been so aware of another person. Please, just go, I begged silently.

Nikolas sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said again. Then he turned and walked away.





* * *


I knocked on Tristan’s office door, and he looked up from his computer and motioned for me to come in. He pressed the mute button on his phone. “I just have to finish this call and I’ll be with you.”

“I can come back.”

“No, take a seat. It won’t be more than another five minutes.”

I sat on the couch and stared out the window, trying not to listen to his conversation, although bits and pieces of it reached me anyway.

“ . . . That’s seven people in Nevada this week that we know of . . . How many in California? . . . No, he didn’t find any leads in Vegas . . . It seems to be mostly the western half . . . ”

My mind began to wander as it did a lot lately, and soon my thoughts drowned out Tristan’s voice completely. I found myself going back, as I did way too often, to that night in the medical ward three days ago. My fingers came up to touch my lips the way they did every time I remembered the kiss. Before that night, I had convinced myself that the stirrings I felt for Nikolas weren’t real. But his kiss had not only reawakened them, it had brought them back so strong that they’d sent me into an emotional tailspin. Something had shifted inside me that night, and I didn’t know how to put it back the way it used to be.

The embarrassment I’d felt after Nikolas walked away was nothing compared to the burning rejection that hit me the next morning when I found out he had left very early on business and was not expected back for three or four days. Last week, he’d said he wasn’t going anywhere for at least a month and yet he was already gone. Did he regret kissing me so much that he had left so he didn’t have to see me?

In his absence, I’d gone back to training with Callum in the mornings. Now that I was doing better we didn’t clash as much, and it was a far better than training with someone who couldn’t even bear to face me.