Page 82 of Save Your Breath

“You’ve never told me about this,” I say breathlessly, fingering the silver chain necklace around his neck. I’m delaying what I really want to say, what I really want todo.

“What about it?”

“You’ve worn it since I met you. Does it mean something?”

“It was a gift from my mom.”

My brows pinch together as I look up to meet his gaze. We both know now that when he says mom, he means Annaliese — not his birth mom.

“She gave it to me when I made the team in secondary school,” he explains. “I’d made some offhand, stupid comment about how some of the guys on the team had necklaces and that I wanted one, but I never imagined I’d actually ever have one. We could barely afford food some weeks, let alone something like this.”

He touches the metal, rolling it between his fingertips before he lets it drop and his hand is on my hip again.

“She loved you,” I whisper.

He nods. “Not sure why.”

I frown deeper at that, and bravery finds me again as my hands come up to his face. I trace the lines of his jaw, the jagged bridge of his nose, the furrowed brows above his deep brown eyes.

“I know why,” I say softly.

Aleks tightens his grip on my hips when I rock against him, my eyelids fluttering a bit at the ecstasy that floods me with justthat bit of friction. My whole body is on fire right now, my skin hot, blood boiling.

My fingers curl at the base of his neck, tilting his chin up toward me and forcing his eyes to mine.

I rock against him again.

Against his erection.

He’s hard for me.

That fact sends me reeling, and I whimper at the feel of that hardness against where I’m so hot and soft and damp.

“Mia,” Aleks warns, and this time he grips my hips hard enough to stop me from bucking again.

“Aleks,” I breathlessly reply, dipping my forehead to his. I bite my lower lip, watching where each breath rocks his chest.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I don’t know what I want.

I don’t know what I expect to happen, where I expect us to go from here.

All I can hear are those three words on repeat.

We have tonight.

With shaking hands, I pull him into me, fighting against his resistance as I lower my lips to his neck. He groans the lowest, most delicious sound when I press a kiss to his throat.

His breath intensifies as I drag my mouth along the slope of his Adam’s apple, up to his jaw, nipping at the skin there with my heart about to burst out of my chest.

Then, I’m hovering, panting, my lips parted and just an inch from his.

“Mia, we—”

“Kiss me,” I interrupt, clawing at the back of his neck. “Aleks, kiss me.”

“Fuck.”