The Imitation Game ✓

TWENTY-SEVEN | POINT OF NO RETURN

One of Cora's hands fumbled with her key while the other gripped Rasmus' hand, pulling him inside once she finally got the door to open. As soon as it fell shut behind them with a small thud, his mouth was slanting across hers and a pleasured sigh left her lips.

Without Siena home, the apartment was eerily quiet and dark, with only a thin sliver of artificial light creeping between the gap in their living room curtains. Cora reached out to feel around for the light switch but stopped herself at the last second, tightening her fingers into his hair instead. If she turned the light on, she was going to start overthinking what she was doing.

And she'd spent all damn night overthinking.

As her heart began to throttle against her sternum, she silently broke off the kiss to wind her fingers between his and lead him to the place she'd sworn she wasn't going to bring a boy tonight: her bedroom.

She left the light off once again—her room was a mess—but just enough illumination could seep through the curtains in here for her to see what she was doing. Rasmus' eyes had gone a little wide, but he kept them locked on her as she lowered herself onto the edge of her mattress.

Cora drew him down onto her bed, not to rid him of his clothes or even to kiss him again but with the crazy thought that he might just lay with her and, she hoped, speak to her the most honestly here where they were hidden in the dark, far away from the lights and the scrutiny of the stage. He miraculously seemed to sense what she did—or more importantly, didn't—want. When she fell back against her pillows and pulled him down with her, his body braced around hers like a cage, he simply shifted aside.

He looked perplexed to have ended up in her sheets, his fingertips exploring the fabric as if something about it surprised him. Cora watched all of this, but when his eyes flickered back to hers, he closed them.

"Tell me to leave," he repeated, his expression stiff.

"Would that make you happy?"

A breath slid out tensely between his lips. "No."

Her insides hummed with warmth, but she studied him carefully. "When you showed up here, what did you want from me?" she asked.

Rasmus gave an embarrassed smile, more innocent-looking than she'd ever seen from him, which was ironic considering the present circumstances. "I don't really know, actually? I don't think I expected to end up in your bed," he clarified. "But I don't know what I was feeling...I just knew you were the only one who could make it go away."

It wouldn't be until morning that she would recognize how miraculous it was that he was actually telling the truth without hiding it behind a veneer of sarcasm. What she did in the moment was lean over and press her mouth against his again, but he was confusingly meek about it. After a long second, he finally reached up and tentatively touched the surface of her hair like he wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do or not.

She didn't understand why he was suddenly being so shy when he halfway undressed her in front of over a thousand people almost every day. A little peck of a kiss should have been nothing to him, but Cora pulled back, struck with the sudden sensation that she was mishandling something vulnerable.

"Something's wrong," she said.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Yes, it is."

Even in the dimness, she still caught the spot of pink that formed on each of his cheeks. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

A week ago, she wouldn't have believed anything they were doing right now, and yet here they were. "Try me."