Page 76 of Stolen Harmony

When he broke away, he was smiling—ruined and pleased, a little startled by his own satisfaction. “I never thought kissing a guy would be that good,” he said lightly, as if confessing a harmless indulgence.

“Sure,” I said, breathless and wrecked, the word clawing out of me as a laugh.

That earned me another kiss—brief, taunting, a promise and a dare. Then he stepped back, smoothing a palm down my chest like wiping prints from a surface. “Make us a drink,” he murmured. “I want to see where you live.”

I pushed off the door and moved toward the kitchenette, fingers clumsy around bottles I knew by weight. Ice cracked. The first pour was generous. So was the second. Behind me, the apartment shifted around Victor like a room straightening to impress a guest.

He didn’t wander. He surveyed.

He glanced at the framed photograph on the bookshelf—the one my mother had taken at the pier when I was fifteen, hair too long, sun too bright. He didn’t touch it. He looked, cataloging. The way his eyes moved felt like a ledger being updated.

Roxie ghosted across the hall, tail up like a question mark. She stopped, took Victor’s measure, then disappeared beneath the sofa with a quiet huff. Smart cat.

“Small,” he said, not unkindly. “Efficient.” His tone implied he’d memorized where I kept the spare key, the way the front window stuck half an inch from the top, the cheap lock on the back door that needed to be jiggled left before it turned. Helooked at my walls like a locksmith, a realtor, and a thief, all in one.

I handed him a glass. He didn’t take it immediately; he let our fingers touch, hold, overlap. His thumb pressed into my wrist, exactly over the beat. “Faster,” he observed, as if we were discussing an engine. Then he accepted the drink, clinked it once against mine without looking away, and took a slow, appreciative sip.

“Stronger than I expected,” he said.

“Like me,” I shot back, sarcasm snapping up to hide the way my mouth had gone dry. It landed and he smiled, delighted like I’d performed a trick for him.

“Like you,” he agreed, voice lowered. “Full of fire. No wonder he hovers. He’s afraid to be burned.”

I didn’t ask who he meant. The name pressed against the back of my teeth anyway, a habit I couldn’t break. Elias. The room tilted almost imperceptibly, and I took another swallow to level it.

Victor set his glass on the table without a coaster. A tiny, deliberate disrespect. My chest tightened. He noticed—of course he noticed—and smiled around the rim of his next sip.

“I wasn’t lying,” he said conversationally. “I didn’t think I’d ever want this. Not… like that.” His knuckles skimmed my throat, just there, where the skin is thin and full of old stories. “Maybe it’s you.”

Maybe it was the line. Maybe it was the cologne. Maybe it was the way he kept his voice pitched like the world had narrowed to the exact square foot I occupied. I leaned back against the counter because my knees made an executive decision without me.

He came closer until the counter pressed cold into my spine and there was nowhere to go that wasn’t him. He caged me with his arms, not touching yet, justcontaining, and itsaid more than hands. “Tell me something true,” he murmured, as if he hadn’t already filleted me in a dozen polite sentences at the bar.

“Like what?”

“Like why your hands are shaking.” His gaze flicked to the subtle tremor I couldn’t quite will still. “Like why you keep a packed bag by the door.”

I glanced toward the canvas duffel half-hidden by the coat rack. I hadn’t meant for him to see that. I hadn’t meant for anyone to.

“Insurance,” I said.

“Against what?”

“Me.”

He laughed, low and pleased. “God, you are intoxicating.” Then he kissed me again and I forgot what we were lying about.

He didn’t rush. He managed the kiss like a campaign—pressure where it mattered, retreat where it would make me chase, a little mercy to make the next cruelty land. I hated how good he was at it. I loved how good he was at it. My fingers slid up under his jacket, found the deliberate cut of his suit, the ridiculous wealth stitched into every seam. He made an appreciative noise into my mouth like I was something he’d earned.

“Straight,” I said against his lips, taunting, because I needed to put a crack somewhere in that composure.

He smiled against me, teeth grazing the softest skin at the corner of my mouth. “Labels are for lawn signs.”

I laughed, then swallowed the sound when his hand flattened on my sternum, not pushing me away. The possessiveness of it was a wire pulled tight through my lungs. He could feel the shiver I tried to kill. He rewarded it with a soft “Good,” like praise, like a leash slipping on.

“Drink,” he said, and reached past me for my glass, tippingit to my mouth with ritual slowness. Whiskey slid over my tongue, down my throat, warmth chasing warmth. His free hand mapped the line of my hip, thumb notching into the dip like he was installing himself in the architecture of my body. He watched me drink the way some men watch a tide: for when it will turn.

He stepped back again, not far, picking up the sheet of music on the table—my mess of scratched notes, the melody I’d been ruining and resurrecting for weeks. “This one’s yours,” he said. Not a question. “What’s it called?”