Page 14 of The Silent Hour

He slowly reached out and gently took my water from my hands, and then set it down.

There was nothing hurried about it. He moved slowly, deliberately, giving me every opportunity to pull away as he closed the distance between us.

He moved closer.

One smooth, unhurried shift across the leather, closing the distance between with the kind of deliberation that left every door wide open. I could feel the heat of him before he even reached me—the warmth radiating off his body in the cool air of the penthouse, the faint cedar-and-something-darker scent of his skin cutting through the lingering sweetness of sweet and sour sauce and candle wax.

He gave me every opportunity to pull away. The pause was long enough to count, one breath, two—his dark eyes steady on mine, waiting. I didn't move. His hand came up, fingers brushing the curve of my jaw with a touch so light it was almost imagined. The pad of his thumb traced the line of my cheekbone, and I felt the callus there—rough, unexpected—against my skin.

"I've been wanting to do this all day," he confessed, his voice low and rough at the edges.

My breath caught in a way that was almost painful. I could see every detail of him this close—the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the dark sweep of his lashes. His thumb paused at the corner of my mouth, and I felt myself lean into the pressure without deciding to.

"All day?" I managed.

"Since you woke in my bedroom wearing my shirt." The corner of his mouth lifted. "Since before that, if I'm being honest."

"When are you ever honest?" I teased.

His laugh was barely more than a breath against my lips. "With you? Apparently more than I should be."

The distance between them was nothing now. I could feel his heartbeat—or maybe it was mine, the two rhythms tangling together until I couldn't tell which was which. His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers threading into the long copper strands of my hair, and the touch sent something electric down the length of my spine.

"I'm going to kiss you now," he warned, and it wasn't a question.

"Okay," I whispered.

He closed the last inch between them, and his mouth found mine with a precision that made me forget every other kiss I’d ever had. The first contact was soft—testing, almost—his lips warm and soft. Then his hand tightened in my hair, angling my head just slightly, and the kiss deepened into something that tasted like whiskey and want.

It felt inevitable.

Not because I'd known him long enough for anything about us to make sense. I hadn't. But somewhere between learning he knew exactly whose daughter he'd brought home, arguing over books, laughing over pineapple, and watching him remember to order Toya's dinner, the day had been quietly tilting us toward this moment. So when Ethan kissed me, I kissed him back.

That was all it took.

One ordinary day that hadn't been ordinary at all.

One man I hadn't planned on meeting.

And one kiss I didn't stop.

my hand found the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric to pull him closer. His settled at my waist, thumb pressing into the dip above my hip bone through the borrowed cotton of his shirt.

The city kept burning beyond the windows, indifferent to whatever was happening on this sofa, on this floor, in this room. The ice in my forgotten glass shifted with a quiet clink that neither of us heard.

My hands found his shoulders and I pushed, hard enough that he fell back against the armrest, the leather creaking beneath him. His eyes widened—just a fraction—before I moved. I swung my leg over him, knees sinking into the sofa on either side of his hips, and settled my weight onto his lap.

The sound he made was low and rough, almost a groan, and his hands found my waist immediately, fingers digging into the cotton with a grip that felt like it could leave marks.

"Julia."

I didn't answer. I kissed him instead—harder than he'd kissed me, my hands framing his jaw, my thumbs pressing into the stubble along his cheeks. His mouth opened under mine and I took it, took everything he was offering, and asked for more.

His hand slid from my waist and found bare skin beneath the hem of his own shirt—the one I was still wearing—and the touch of his palm against my lower back was so hot it felt like a brand. I arched into it, a gasp escaping against his mouth that he swallowed whole.

"God," he breathed, and his other hand came up to tangle in my hair again, pulling just enough to tilt my head back and expose the line of my throat. His mouth followed, pressing kisses along my jaw, down the curve of my neck, and the scrape of his teeth against my pulse point made my entire body shudder.

I was wearing his shirt and his cologne and the memory of every careful thing he'd done all day, and none of it felt borrowed anymore. It felt like mine. He felt like mine, his hands on my skin, his breath hot against my throat, the hard line of his body beneath mine.