“When you’re just going to push me away again.” Her voice breaks slightly. “Like everyone else.”
“I’m not pushing.” My fingers flex on her wrists. “I’m right here.”
“Then why does this feel like goodbye?”
Instead of answering, I release one of her wrists to cup her face. Her eyes flutter closed at my touch. “Look at me, Tink.”
When she does, the raw emotion in her gaze nearly breaks me. “Make me believe it’s nothing,” I whisper. “Make me believe you don’t feel this too.”
“Makemebelieve it’s real.” she says.
I can’t.
I can’t say anything more than I have.
I am a coward who can’t give her what she wants but God I can’t let her walk away.
She kisses me like she’s trying to prove a point, all fury and demands. I respond with equal force, backing her against my door. Her hands fist in my shirt as my fingers dig into her hips.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she says against my mouth.
Our kisses grow more heated, a clash of tongues and teeth as we pour our frustration into each other. I pin her wrists above her head, relishing her gasp.
“Is this what you want?” I growl against her neck. “To pretendthis means nothing?”
She arches against me. “Shut up,” she says, but her body betrays her, pressing closer.
I trail bites down her throat, savoring each shiver. “Make me.”
Her leg hooks around my waist and she grinds against me. I groan, my grip on her wrists tightening.
“You make meinsane,” I murmur, my teeth grazing her earlobe. “Stubborn. Impossible.”
“Look who’s talking,” she fires back.
I swallow any further argument with my mouth on hers, kissing her deep and slow until she melts against me.
A loud voice from downstairs shatters the moment.
“Glad to hear you guys are alive!” Ethan calls, amusement thick in his voice. “I’m leaving because these walls?Superthin.”
The front door slams, leaving a silence that is somehow louder than his voice. Tara’s cheeks burn crimson, her lips swollen, her chest rising and falling like she’s run a marathon. We juststareat each other.
And then, without warning, she crashes into me.
This time, her kiss is frantic, like she’s trying to erase the space between us, like if we stop, reality will catch up.
I agree.
I meet her intensity, my hands roaming her body, reclaiming every inch I thought I’d lost.
We stumble towards the bed, a mess of tangled limbs and half-shed clothing. Her shirt gets stuck at her elbow, and I yank it off impatiently, tossing it aside. My hands trace the curve of her waist, the dip of her spine, her body arching into my touch as a soft gasp escapes her lips.
“Still nothing, huh?” I murmur against her throat, teeth grazing the rapid pulse there.
She doesn’t answer. Just digs her nails into my back and pulls me closer, as if I could possibly be close enough.
I push her down onto the bed, watching her bounce slightly against the mattress, hair fanned across my pillow. She looks wrecked already, flushed and breathless, eyes dark with something she still won’t say out loud.
