It wasn’t cinematic or frantic, it was a quiet, urgent thing, a sealing of something that had been spoken in looks and small kindnesses. For a heartbeat I thought I might dissolve. The pantry, walls lined with jars and tins, shrank to the space of a single breath.
He deepened the kiss, not in heat but in insistence, and I answered because it felt like saying yes to a truth I hadn’t known how to voice. Hands found shoulders, a palm slipped behind my head, and the rest of the world narrowed to his warmth.
Then… the sharp crack of voices at the pantry door.
“Soniiia!” Molly’s sing-song voice called from the hallway. “We forgot the spice box! Sonia, are you in there? Open up!”
The sound was a small avalanche. We both startled apart, grazing cheeks and breathing hard. Alexander’s hand linge
