He shakes his head, so slightly I almost can’t tell. “It’s better if you just go.”
“You started all this, you sent me roses, you came to my work, you bought every last flower in the whole store. I wanted it to be over. After I figured out who you really were, I was done. But you came back, wanted to explain yourself. And I took a chance. And then you hurt me all over again. I didn’t ask for any of it. But now...now I’m here. And I just want...” But I can’t finish.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“I—” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
He stares back at me, his lips parted, like he understands everything I’m thinking. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. “That’s not what I wanted either.”
“Then what do you want?” I ask, swallowing down the words almost as quickly as they leave my lips. I can’t even trust my own thoughts anymore, my own voice. I’m saying things I normally would never say out loud—or think, for that matter.
“Charlotte—” he starts to say, moving toward me, but tentatively like he’s afraid I’ll run, bolt for the door, and never look back. But I’m locked in place. A million thoughts slamming against my skull, a tug-of-war, words colliding into one another in confusion. “I’m sorry for the other night,” he says, eyebrows slanted like he really is sorry, like it pains him to remember the events of that night. “I’m sorry for how I acted. I was just caught off guard. I didn’t realize I was your first kiss. And there are things you don’t know about me.” He takes in a deep breath, focuses back on me. “But I’ve missed you.” His mouth flattens. “I can’t stop thinking about you. And I don’t know why...but I haven’t felt like this in a long time. And then you just show up here, and all I want to do is kiss you again, tell you not to leave. But I know that I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because I might hurt you. Because our worlds are so different—and I don’t want to mess up your life.”
“Isn’t that my decision, not yours? I’m smart enough to know what I can handle.”
“I know you are,” he agrees. “And that’s part of what makes you so intriguing to me. You know what you want in life, you know exactly where you’re going, and I envy that.” I cringe a little at his description of me. As if I’m so responsible, so predictable. Maybe I don’t want to be that anymore—at least not the predictable part. “I just don’t want to ruin anything.”
“You act like it’s already destined to fail. Like there’s no way we could be anything but a disaster.” I can’t believe my own words—I’m actually arguing with him about a relationship we’re not even in.
“It’s how my life has been lately.”
“And so you’re just never going to take a chance on anything ever again?” I sound like Holly, and so not like myself. I’m the queen of not taking chances, unless they’re calculated. And now I’m asking him to take one. My logical brain has completely left this conversation—I’m now being driven by my heart.
He steps to within a foot of me, his bare chest reflecting the glow from the firelight. He studies my eyes, his breathing settling into a rhythm that I swear matches mine. “Is that what you want?” he asks. “To take a chance?”
I can’t breathe. My lips part, I find words, then lose them just as quickly. I can’t admit what I’m really feeling. To myself or to him.
But before I’m able to think of a way to deflect the question, he’s suddenly moving toward me. He slides his hands up along my jawbone and draws my face forward, sinking his lips into mine. For half a second, I’m unable to react, my body rigid beneath his hands. But then the warmth of his mouth sinks through me and I give in—I kiss him back. I breathe him in, the air sliding from his lungs to mine. His lips are needy, searching. The tips of my fingers just barely touch his hard chest, and my stomach unleashes a flurry of wings.
My eyelids flutter and he draws back his lips for only a moment, testing the space between us, and then he kisses me again, gently this time. My heartbeat hitches wildly as his fingers shift across my cheek, tracing a line along my skin, down the curve of my neck.
He pulls his fingers away before going any lower and I’m afraid he’s going to repeat what he did last time, wrench away from me and leave me all alone again. But this time he stays, drawing his fingers up through a section of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. “I’m sorry,” he says, gently dropping his hand as if he’s just broken some rule, invaded my personal space—lost control of himself for one brief moment—and now he needs to apologize. “I shouldn’t have done that. But I had to.”
“I’m not as breakable as you think,” I tell him.
A smile warms his eyes. “I’m starting to realize that.”