Page 83 of Save Your Breath

He mutters the word, wetting his lips. His tongue nearly touches me when he does. I feel the heat of it, the heat of him beneath me, the heat of this moment in every cell of my being.

“Mia, you… you’re drunk.”

“So?”

I rock against him, and he grunts, pinning me still once more.

“Aleks, I want you.”

He lets out another string of curses, this time in Swiss German, and I smirk a little.

This is it.

This is when we give in, when I finally feel what it’s like to be kissed by Aleks Suter, to be touched by him, to be claimed by him.

I try to lower my mouth to his, pulling him up to meet me.

But at the very last second, he turns his head to the side.

My lips land against the corner of his mouth instead, and I frown, pulling back to look down at him.

His nostrils flare, his eyes focused somewhere across my bedroom. For a long moment, he’s completely silent, me panting and waiting on his lap while he breathes like a fucking dragon and does everything but return my gaze.

“You’re drunk, Mia,” he repeats, and when he finally brings his eyes to meet mine, I swear a piece of me shatters. “You should get some sleep.”

And there it is, written in every feature of his beautiful, stupid face.

Rejection.

He doesn’t want me.

He’s using the fact that I’m drunk to laugh this off, to save himself from having to say what he really means.

To savemefrom embarrassment.

It’s too late for that last one, I realize, as I shamefully release him and climb out of his lap. As soon as I’m off him, he flies off the bed, and I tuck my legs up to my chest and hug them tightly.

Oh, God.

What have I done?

“I… I’ll go get you some water,” he says, scrubbing the back of his neck.

And then he’s gone.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I repeat the words over and over when he’s out of the room, slapping myself in the forehead. “Mia, what the fuck?!”

I burrow myself under my covers, pulling them up over my ears to hide my face. Maybe he’ll think I passed out when he comes back. Maybe I can just die of embarrassment without him being any the wiser.

“Mia?” Aleks asks when he comes back. I hear him set down a glass of water on my bedside table, but I don’t move. “There’s water here. You should drink it before you go to bed. And I brought two ibuprofen, too. They’ll help your head.”

I don’t reply.

I don’t move.

I don’t want to be living in this nightmare for another second.

I think I hear him sigh as his weight sinks the mattress behind me. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping I can play off that I’m asleep.