Page 73 of At First Spark
Because she’s right.
“No,” I say quietly. “But I get to decide what I do about it.”
“And what exactly are you doing?”
She asks a question she already knows the answer to. Like she’s waiting to see if I’ll say it out loud.
I reach for her. Giving her every chance to step back. To stop this. When she doesn’t, my hand settles at her waist. Her body reacts instantly, like it remembers me just as clearly as I remember her.
“That’s what I thought,” I say.
Her fingers curl into my shirt again.
“This is a mistake,” she says.
Her voice is quieter now, less certain, but all it does is fuel the fire.
“Probably.”
“You don’t sound concerned.”
“I’m not.”
That does it. Whatever line we’ve been pretending to hold snaps. My mouth finds hers without hesitation, the distance between us disappearing in a way that feels inevitable now, like we’ve already crossed this line once, and there’s no point pretending we don’t know where it leads.
She responds immediately. No pause. No resistance. Her grip tightens in my shirt, pulling me closer as the kiss deepens fast, heat sliding through it in a way that’s sharper than before, less restrained.
I feel it everywhere. The way she presses into me. The way her breath breaks against my mouth. The way my hand shifts at her waist, fingers tightening, pulling her fully against me like I don’t trust anything less than that.
It’s different from before. This is want. Clear and undeniable.
Her other hand slides up, catching at my shoulder, and the contact sends something straight through my chest that makes me lose whatever control I had left.
I deepen the kiss. She meets me there, and at that moment, nothing else exists. I don’t even care about the fact that this is going to complicate everything we’ve been trying to keep simple. All I can focus on is her and the way she fits against me like this is something we’ve done before, even though we haven’t. Not like this.
My hand slides slightly along her side. It’s just a hint of movement, but it’s enough to feel the shift in her breath. Enough to know exactly how close we are to crossing into something neither of us will be able to take back.
She makes a small sound against my mouth. That’s the edge where this stops being something we can pretend is just tension.
Just as my grip tightens and my mouth shifts, she pulls back. The break is abrupt, as if she’s physically separating herself before the rest of her can catch up.
I use that moment to take her in. Her breath is uneven, eyes wide.
“This—” She starts, then stops.
I don’t move. If I do, I’m not sure I’d stop.
“That’s not—” She tries again.
I drag a hand back through my hair, forcing space between us before I lose the ability to choose it.
“Yeah,” I say.
She looks at me, eyes darting across mine, like she’s waiting for me to fix it. Explain it. Undo it. Except I can’t, even if I wanted to.
“You don’t get to act like that didn’t just happen,” I add.
“I’m not—”
