Page 84 of Face Off

Charm shuddered, her fingers closing around the front of my shirt. “You remembered.”

“I told you.” My teeth grazed her skin before I spoke against it. “I remember everything about you.”

Her breath left unevenly. “Then stop acting like you don’t want this.”

I lifted my head and caught her jaw, forcing her eyes to mine. “I have never acted like I don’t want you.”

“You always stopped.”

I nod, “I was careful with you.”

The truth changed her expression.

I had always been careful. Even when I fucked her hard enough to make her forget her own name, some part of me remained controlled. I watched every shift in her breathing, every hesitation, and every flash of uncertainty crossing her face. I knew how quickly intensity became danger inside her head and how easily desire turned into another test she believed she had to pass. I wanted permanence, so I protected the relationship even while Charm refused to admit we had one.

I wasn’t protecting a future tonight.

My thumb traveled across her swollen bottom lip. “I’m not stopping now.”

Want entered her eyes before hope tried to follow it. I saw the second she began turning those words into something I hadn’t offered.

“This can be fucking,” I said. “That’s all I can give you tonight.”

The words hurt her. Charm didn’t lower her eyes or pretend otherwise.

I kept my hand against her face. “I don’t forgive you. I don’t trust you, and I’m not walking into that room to start rebuilding something I don’t want.”

Her throat moved beneath a hard swallow. “You want me.”

“More than I’ve wanted another fucking thing since I left you. That doesn’t mean I will keep you.”

The confession scraped every wall I’d built, but it was physical enough to survive saying aloud.

Charm’s palm settled over my heart. “And tomorrow?”

“We wake up knowing exactly what tonight was.”

“And what is it?”

I looked at the woman I once believed would become everything. The woman who broke me. The woman standing in front of me now with my taste on her lips, her body healthy and soft beneath my hands, and enough confidence to hold my stare while I gave her the ugliest version of what I could offer.

“One night where nobody gets to tell us how to want each other.”

Her eyes glistened, though the sadness inside them did not weaken the certainty entering her face. “That isn’t all this is to me.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to lie so you feel safer taking me inside.”

“I don’t want you to…I just… I still love you.”

The words hit exactly where she intended them to, but Charm didn’t wait for an answer I wasn’t capable of giving. She wrapped both arms around me and pressed her face against my chest.

Every part of me locked.

Fucking her belonged to the weekend I’d constructed inside my head. Holding her didn’t. A hug carried comfort, safety, and every quiet night when Charm climbed into my arms because she trusted me to hold the pieces she couldn’t manage alone. My body remembered the shape of her before anger could stop it. One arm closed around her waist while my other hand settled against the back of her head, holding her against the heart she had already broken once.

Charm released a trembling breath into my shirt. “I missed this.”