And if I didn’t act quickly, he was going to notice.
It tingled when I put the filter to my mouth. I could have sworn it was still warm from him, but that was probably wishful thinking.
How hard could this be?
I braced myself and sucked heartily.
Ashy heat rushed into my mouth and burned all the way down my throat. For about 0.124 seconds I fought valiantly not to make an idiot of myself in front of Caspian Hart and then I just died. Coughing, wheezing, smoke pouring out my nose, water streaming from my eyes, the whole deal.
I must have looked really attractive. Same as when I fell on my arse.
I’d dropped the cigarette in the general carnage. I was vaguely aware of one of his perfectly shined shoes grinding out the embers. And the faint warm pressure of a hand between my shoulder blades, rubbing soothing circles against my jacket.
Then he was offering me a handkerchief. Monogramed, of course. I couldn’t breathe very well but I could still see how fucking exquisite he was. Where did he get all that poise? Was he just born gorgeous? Had he never been clumsy or messy or desperate like me?
“You don’t smoke, do you?” he asked.
“Not as such.” I wiped my face, feeling hot and smeary. “I think I nuked my lungs.”
His expression shifted in a way I’d never seen before, his brow creasing faintly with confusion. “Then why did you say yes?”
It was a legit question.
“Because you offered?” Yeah. That made even less sense when I said it aloud than it had in my head. But what was I supposed to tell him? “I wanted to impress you”? I stared at the ground because you never knew when it might be obliging enough to swallow you up. Of course that also meant I was stuck staring at the crushed remains of his cigarette. “Sorry I wrecked everything.”
His fingers were chill as marble against my chin, the gesture as fleeting as it was unexpected, tender and yet insistent as he turned my face up to his. “You didn’t wreck anything, Arden.”
“You only have one cigarette a month and it’s”—I pointed with melodramatic self-recrimination—“there.”
“I only smoke one cigarette a month, but I don’t carry it around in state like the Ark of the Covenant. I have the rest of the packet.”
The shadows had softened the icy splendor of his eyes, making it easier somehow to see—or imagine—that other side of him. The man who had teased and soothed me over the phone, who seemed so full of power and gentleness and need. “You really carry around a packet of ciggies, knowing you can only have one of them a month?” I asked. “How is that possible? I can’t even leave the second bar of a Twix.”
“It wouldn’t be temptation if it wasn’t tempting.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never figured out what you get for resisting it.”
“Personal growth,” he told me gravely.
And when I giggled—how could I not?—his lips curled slowly into an answering smile. Though all too soon, he was turning away, reaching into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and a lighter.
It was a swift, graceful ceremony, sensuous in its way, the crackle of paper, the swoosh of the flame, and the deftness of his fingers. I liked watching him. It felt intimate. I imagined all the times he must have done this to have grown practiced at it, developed it into ritual. Standing alone in the dark.
He moved into the space between the…wossnames…uppybits of the crenellations, braced his elbows on the stone, and blew out a wisp of cloudy smoke.
There was just enough room for me to squeeze in next to him, so I did, not quite realizing that just enough would bring my leg against his, his hip to mine, our upper arms into a warm L of togetherness.
“That ain’t no Marlboro Light,” I drawled.
“No, it’s a Dunhill. If you’re going to sin, you should sin thoroughly and with conviction.”
Words to live by. “It’s one cigarette. If that’s your idea of sin, I have to admit I’m slightly disappointed.”
“Oh no.” A few flakes of whitish ash drifted away like cherry blossoms in spring. “I have a familiarity with sin that is as profound as it is unglamorous.”
He sounded bleak, and I ached for him. Wanted to make him smile again. “Maybe you’ve been committing the wrong sins.”
“All the more reason to resist temptation and restrict myself to cigarettes.”
We were quiet a little. But it felt okay. Not scary the way too much silence can be sometimes. There was something relaxing about the steady inhale-pause-exhale of his smoking. He kept his face turned away, so I only caught the scent a little and it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it had been up close and personal.
Honestly, I was far more interested in him. I had no idea what cologne he was wearing, but he smelled good enough to eat. All this cocoa-dark and honey-velvet, sandalwoody deliciousness that made me want to either bury my nose in his armpit or go raid his bathroom cabinet. Except whatever he idly spritzed himself with in the morning was probably worth more than I was.
He let out a soft sigh of peace and pleasure.
And I thought how marvelous it would be to give that to Caspian Hart. And how fucking tragic that he would only trust himself to a paper cylinder of nicotine and tar.
I wouldn’t have to be rationed. You could give in to me.
But all I said was, “I don’t know how you acquire acquired tastes.”
He glanced at me. “What?”
“Well, why bother acquire them when you could just, y’know, cut out the middle man and consume something nice?”
“You mean smoking?”
I nodded.
“I never had to acquire it. I’ve always liked it.”
“So you just woke up one morning and decided to take up an unhealthy habit?”
“I…ah.” His fingers tightened on the cigarette, creasing it.
“What’s the matter?”
He shook his head. “Arden, I prefer to avoid personal conversation.”
“That’s not personal; it’s just conversation. Personal would be: Have you ever been in love? or What’s the thing you’ll always regret?” Oh shit. I shouldn’t have had that second glass of champagne. “I just mean…I’m a stranger. I’m not going to tell anybody and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter because you’ll never see me again. I’m nobody. I’m safe.”
For what felt like forever, he didn’t answer. Then, very quickly, “I liked having something to do with my hands.” I couldn’t help looking at them: his pale, perfectly groomed, perfectly controlled hands. Hard to imagine them ever doing something inelegant or being restless. As if he read my thoughts, he went on. “I was…different when I was younger. And I’ve been smoking since I was fourteen.”
“You iconoclast you.”
He didn’t smile this time. Just crushed out his cigarette against the stone and then put his back to the battlements, the city, the deep, blue-black sky. “I like the way it makes me feel. It eases the tight spaces in my mind. And it’s private.” He cast me a glance from under the shadow of his lashes. “Usually.”
His voice was so soft that it felt more like a caress than a rebuke. I smiled up at him, treasuring these unexpected confidences. This odd moment of being together in some small sense before the world remembered to turn and draw us our separate ways.