Map of Fates (24 page)

And then I noticed he was looking at me in a really odd way.

“Sorry.” I pulled away. “I—did that hurt?”

He blinked. “No.”

When the next round came, I took a sip and wrinkled my nose. “Doesn't taste right,” I said. I grabbed his and took a sip, and the bitter alcohol taste wasn't missing in his. “Hey,” I said. “Get me a real one.”

“No.” He took his drink back and put it out of my reach. That only meant I had to lean all the way across his lap to get at it. The invisible bubble of normal personal space had officially shrunk to nothing.

I sat back up with a triumphant “Ha!” but he snatched the glass away again before I could get a drink.

I pouted. My head was so warm, dreamy light as marshmallow cream. At some point, we'd shifted enough so our feet were touching on the footrest under the bar.

I paused, then moved my foot a little. It was enough to signal to him this was a person he was touching and not a chair leg, and to do the least awkward thing and move away. He didn't. I sat straight again, and even though I could tell my leg would fall asleep pretty soon in this position, I didn't move, either.

At the opposite end of the bar, a couple had started kissing. In the past few minutes, they'd nearly crossed the line into not-appropriate-in-public. “Kiss,” I said, drawing out the
s
sound.

“Hmm?” It was a little dreamy, a little unfocused, and I realized that he wasn't perfectly sober, either.

“Kiss. I never thought about it before. Isn't it a strange word? Such a
cute
word. Like the combination of bliss and . . . kitten. Kissssss.”

We both watched the couple. His hand crept under her shirt. She nearly knocked their wine off the bar. My foot pressed a little harder
into Stellan's. His pressed a little harder back. “Kitten . . . bliss?” he said.

Except now I was watching
him.
He turned and caught me.

“All I'm saying,” I said, flustered, “is there's got to be another word for kissing like
that.
”

Stellan smiled; his teeth grazed his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth. Our feet still didn't move. “Time for you to sober up,” he said. “I'm ordering you coffee.”

“Like
you're
sober.” I shoved him again, hard enough that I nearly knocked him off his stool.

He grabbed both my wrists with one hand. “More sober than you.
You're
making a scene.”

I wrenched one hand away and clapped it over his mouth. He turned back to me, eyes dancing. “Shush,” I said.

“Mrmph,” he mumbled, warm breath behind my hand. I pulled away an inch. “Bet you cannot go ten seconds without laughing,” he said from behind my hand, and propped an elbow on the bar facing me.

I dropped my hand and mirrored him. “Go.”

My mouth twitched for a few seconds, trying to giggle. His eyes danced merrily, the inner ring of gold especially bright in the dark. But slowly, the laughter left him.

I was on the very edge of my bar stool. We were facing each other more than we were facing forward now. Our knees, which had already been touching, pressed together purposefully. I felt my lips part.

“Stop it,” he breathed, his voice even lower than usual, accent a little thicker.

“Stop what?”

“You know exactly what,” he said, mockingly. My earlier words in his mouth.

I glanced down at our legs, back up. After a second, I said, “Why?”

Neither of us moved. “
Kuklachka,
” he said. “You never answered me. What do you want?”

I exhaled. I didn't know if it was the fight with Jack, or the vodka, or the music and the dark. Or if all that was only allowing me to feel what I'd been trying not to feel for so long. All I knew was that the knot in my chest was starting to come undone in his hands.

“Do you remember the rest of the meaning of
toska
?” he said. “Sometimes you want something you think you shouldn't.” There was less than a foot of space between our faces. “You're not even sure you understand it.” I could see the pulse pounding at his throat. “But not having it feels like you can't breathe.” For the first time, I noticed my breathing. How shallow it was, how quick.

He leaned even closer. “You want to find the tomb for more than blackmail. You like the idea of all that power. Of having control over your life.”

I couldn't see anything in the world but his face.

“You even want the power we could have together,” he went on. “Then you wouldn't be alone. You
liked
it when
we
said something and people listened.”

I swallowed. He looked at my mouth.

“I think you're even starting to care about the Circle. To want to be part of them. You
want
to be wanted. Say it. I want to hear you say it out loud.”

I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. My body wasn't my own. My voice wasn't my own. I
didn't
want it in the way some of the Circle did. I didn't care about money, fame, ruling the world. But the rest of it . . . An hour ago, I would have denied it all. Now . . . “I
want it,” I whispered. Stellan was still watching me, rapt. “I want all of that.”

It was so wrong to feel those things. To feel absolutely anything over and above wanting to save my mom. I couldn't believe I'd just said it out loud. But I felt light. Free.

A smile flickered across Stellan's face. His pupils looked huge in the low light. “What else?”

A thrill shivered through me, hitting low in my stomach. A minuscule shift, and one of his knees slipped between mine. He looked down at it. I did, too.

“Little doll, is there something else you want?” he murmured.

I stared into his eyes. It was only a moment, but the moment dragged back as far as I could remember, like we had never been anywhere but here, suspended precariously between yes and no, between
want
and
don't.

I felt terrified. I felt powerful. I felt bold.

I nodded.

S
tellan stared at me for a beat. Two. Then he stood, abruptly enough that I pitched off my bar stool. He caught me, tossed a handful of euros on the bar, then took my hand and led me outside.

We made it almost to the bottom of the steps.

He turned abruptly, leaving me standing one step higher; he gathered his fingers in my dress and pulled me against him.

There was a second of hesitation, of skin touching skin, a cold nose on a warm cheek, lips almost brushing, so close, and are we really—

I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.

It was all the encouragement he needed. Sparks shot from my lips through the tingling tips of my toes. His hand was firm on the back of my neck, lifting my face to his, and the rest of the world fell away.

I'd half expected, after so much buildup, for kissing him to be disappointing.

I was wrong.

He pulled away a few inches, eyes wide. “Oh,” I breathed, and it said a million other things that would make me blush to say them out loud. His lips curved into a smile, and then I couldn't see the smile anymore, just feel it, and then there was nothing else.

I realized now that I'd thought about this before, even if I'd tried not to. I'd imagined it would be the almost violence of lips and breath and hands that would burn so hot, it'd flame out as quickly as it had started; that we'd just have to do it once and get it out of our systems.

I hadn't imagined this: the feeling that, even though he had far more experience than I did, he was just as captivated as I was by how our lips took no time at all to get used to each other, the echo of our muffled breaths, the fact that it was chilly outside, but between our faces, it was nothing but soft and warm. I hadn't imagined, though maybe I should have, that this would be the physical manifestation of that way he had always looked at me, since the day we met, like he could tell what was going on inside me so well it was almost uncomfortable. I'd never been kissed by someone who knew what I wanted before I did—exactly when to run his hands through my hair, when to cup my face like it was something precious.

It was deliberate, sweet, frantic at the same time, tinged with vodka and lime and
not
the taste of cigarettes, and I wondered very briefly whether that was for my benefit and then that thought was lost, too, because everything was lost except for the small, pleading noise I made when his mouth broke away from mine.

“
Kuklachka,
” he murmured. “Little doll.”

Little doll. That's exactly what I didn't want, wasn't it? To be anyone's plaything in this game.

I forced myself to push him back, hands on his chest. “Do you just want what I can do for you,” I whispered, “or do you actually want me?”

I expected him to say whatever it took to keep kissing me, but a look deeper than I would have imagined passed over his face. He licked his lips, and I couldn't help but glance at them. His eyes darkened. “Both,” he said, like he'd just realized it himself.

“I thought I wasn't your type,” I whispered, remembering the conversation he and Jack had on the boat.

A soft laugh. “You're not.” His hands were on my waist, fingers spread on my rib cage like piano keys. “Who's spying now?”

I shrugged, tired of apologizing, then pulled his face back down to mine and didn't let go again.

I didn't know where we were. Who we were. We were on a street for a few minutes, I think. Against a statue in the middle of the sidewalk. Then pressed into a rough stone wall, my feet dangling a foot off the ground, my back clanging against the metal gate of a storefront, closed for the night.

And then things started to look familiar, but I didn't care, and then up a driveway, and I think we went up some stairs, and doors and more doors, and then we very definitely opened the door to a bedroom.

I pulled away with a gasp. “Are we back at Colette's?”

He nodded. His shirt was half untucked, hair everywhere. He must have been staying in a different wing than I was, and thankfully, no one else was around.

I looked inside the room. One soft bedside lamp. Books on the coffee table. Stellan—oh my God, seriously, really,
Stellan,
after everything? I flashed briefly to another set of lips on mine, a kiss that felt so different than this did, a clench in my chest just at the thought—but no, it was Stellan now, in the doorway, waiting. I almost expected the look on his face to be triumph, like it was when I'd asked him to teach me to fight. But there was no hint of smugness.

There was a normal amount of beautiful a person should be allowed to look, then there was him. Was it possible he was actually more attractive all flushed and wild like this, or had I made myself block him out so thoroughly, I'd just forgotten?

“Yes.” I took his hand. The door shut behind us. “Okay.”

The next time I opened my eyes, I was sitting on the windowsill, Stellan's chest pressed between my knees. We'd been kissing for what had to be hours, but could have been minutes, and with a kiss like this, it was no surprise when I found myself, by some instinct rather than any particular decision, groping for the buttons of his shirt. My fingers felt clumsy, strange. The first button popped open. The second.

He pulled back, breathing hard, watching my hands undress him. His shirt fell off one shoulder, exposing the pattern of his translucent scars, beautiful, glowing in the low light.

A tiny knot of nerves blossomed in my stomach. I knew exactly where this was going if I didn't stop. It wasn't too late to button his shirt back up and keep this as the sweet kind of kiss. The
kitten-bliss
kind of kiss.

But did I
want
to?

Stellan's hand closed on my leg, just at the hem of my skirt. He looked up at me, the same hesitation shining in his eyes.

I must have paused, because just as smoothly, with nothing more than a tender kiss at my jaw, his hand moved back to my waist, wrapped around my back. Safe.

And we were kissing again, just kissing.

The nervous butterflies in my stomach flapped, but he had misunderstood. That pause, the irregular pattering of my heart against my ribs—it wasn't a bad kind of nervous.

I pulled back, just in inch. Just enough for him to take my face in his hands, for his eyes to wonder what I was doing.

I pulled the collar of his shirt through my fingers—then undid one more button.

Really?
his eyes said.

His mouth didn't have time to repeat it before mine was on it again. Telling him please, don't think, don't ask, don't talk, for once, don't make me agonize and decide and wonder whether I'm doing the right thing. Just
do.

The kiss wasn't quite so sweet after that. A while later, another of his buttons undone. Two. His shirt halfway off now.

I glanced toward the crisp white sheets on the bed across the room. So did he. I started to undo another button.

He stopped me, both our hands rising and falling with his uneven breaths.

“Avery, wait,” he said. The use of my real name was jarring, and my gaze snapped up. He gently brushed away a strand of my hair that had gotten caught in my mouth, tucking it behind my ear. “Have you ever . . . ?”

I'm sure he already knew the answer. I shook my head. “It doesn't matter,” I said, and kissed him again.

After a second, though, he stopped, lips in my hair. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure,” I said, and punctuated it with another long kiss.

“Really sure?” he breathed.

“Really sure.” My fingers fumbled with his final button.

“Okay,” he sputtered against my mouth. “Wait. Stop. I can't. You can't.”

My eyes flew open. “What? Why?”

He sighed like it hurt him physically, and stepped out of my arms, cursing, colorfully, under his breath. “
Kuklachka.
” He perched on the arm of the couch, burying his face in his elbow. “You've had too much to drink. We both have. I just want to make sure—I don't think we should—I don't want to be something you regret.”

It hung over us like a wet blanket, and I shivered, despite the heat of my skin. “I won't—”

“Just so you know, this is far more difficult than I'm making it look. Give me a second, okay?” He turned away from me, and I sat, staring. He was serious. And that was incredibly embarrassing.

My skin was hot all over, and then cold. My mind cleared all at once and the real world rushed back.

I jumped up and headed to the door.

The couch creaked behind me. “No, wait.” Stellan caught up with me at the door, blocking my way out. “I want you to stay. I just need to be able to think clearly. Okay?”

I pulled away. No. Not okay. It was the same as always. He was just like everyone else in my life, thinking they knew what was right for me better than I did.

“Move, please,” I said, not looking him in the eyes.

He ran both hands through his hair. “Avery . . .”

We both jumped when the door slammed open from the outside.

“
Merde,
” Elodie said, breathless, wearing a black evening gown and heavy eye makeup, her bleached hair slicked back from her face in a headband. “There you are. Why weren't you answering your mobile—”

She finally noticed me.

I couldn't imagine what I looked like right now. Stellan was hastily buttoning his shirt. Elodie pursed her lips, and under the humiliation of being rejected was the twinge of knowing I'd just done exactly what she'd said I was going to, and I'd promised I wouldn't.

“Ah,” she said. “Of course. Well, sorry to interrupt, but there's a small, tiny, actually very important problem.”