[Just as he has learned the geography of her body in all the time they've spent exploring each other — the days strung together into weeks, the weeks into tentative, hopeful, foolish months — so too has he learned the language of her body. He can read Alina's desires in the bold push of her lips, as if he might slip away if she doesn't forcibly pin his mouth with hers. In the impatience of her fingers pulling his shirt open.

Nikolai answers in kind, wedging himself between her delightfully bare thighs to let her feel the beginnings of his arousal, thick and hot through the light fabric of his trousers.]

You only would have been very disappointed if you'd waited for me.

[His low laugh rolls against her ear. As he seizes another kiss, his fingers make fast work of the fastenings holding her shorts up, letting them slouch down her waist.]

I left you high and dry that night... [He draws back only far enough to allow him to yank the shorts down her thighs, sending the garment to the smooth stone floor.] Or not so dry, I should think.

[Rolling his hips against her, filling in the empty space between them like a hungry stomach as they slot together.]