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She wriggles her hand free of my grasp and tucks it to her chest. But her face looks lost, deep in thought. Not quite so angry anymore.

She rubs her wrist even though I did not hold it hard.

“What if I ask again and you still don’t answer?” she whispers, almost to herself.

“Then you’ll know I’m a coward,” I tell her. “And you can leave me behind with a clear conscience.”

She looks at the floor. Takes a deep inhale. Then looks up at me.

“Fine,” she says. She’s braced from head to toe like she’s about to take a punch. “What am I to you?”

I don’t have a speech.

I never have and never will. I saw my father sever my mother from his life with a few pretty words, and I decided then and there that I’d rather bite off my own tongue than spew bullshit like that.

So all I tell her is the truth.

“You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Then I take her face in both hands and I kiss her.

“Happy New Year!” screams the crowd in the ballroom.

Lilah goes stiff for a second. Her hands come up between us like she’s going to shove me off. She’s got one fist closed around that borrowed shawl and the other pushing against my chest, and I feel her heart going, or maybe mine, hard enough to shake both of us.

Then the fist opens.

Her hand slides up to my shoulder and she pulls.

Just like that, she is kissing me back.

Her mouth opens under mine and she whimpers in the back of her throat. I claim that sound like it’s mine, like she signed it over. A debt she owed me that I’ve spent my whole life waiting to collect.

She tastes like champagne.

Underneath it, faintly, like sugar.

I get my hands off her face and put them where I’ve wanted them all night. One at the small of her back and one on her hip.

I feel the give of her under my palm, the real shape of her, and I press her into me until there’s nothing left between us but that dress Ekaterina cut in the back of her shop.

The shawl slides off her shoulder and falls to the floor. She doesn’t notice, but I do. So I pull her closer to me to share my body heat.

Her fingers work into my hair. She goes up on her toes in those heels, and I put my arm under her to make it easier for her.

She’s warm and fragrant and soft in my arm. I’d stand here holding her and kissing her until the coats rotted off the hangers.

I bite her bottom lip until she gasps. Her hand fists in my shirt, first in shock, then in pleasure.

It’s only our first kiss, but if it’s the last first kiss I ever have, I’ll be fine with that. She’s too fucking sweet to ever let go.

I want her.

Here. Now.

I want to rip that dress to shreds and fuck her to within an inch of her life.

Then wrap her in my coat with nothing underneath it, take her home, throw her across my bed, part those perfect thighs, and lick her until she screams before doing it all again.