His jaw works. His hands flex at his sides, curling and uncurling like he's fighting to keep them there. He lets out a breath through his nose, and closes the distance between us.
Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to see him. Close enough to feel the heat coming off of him. Even before he speaks, my eyes are burning.
"I am in agony." His voice cracks on the word and I watch him swallow it down. "Every single day. That is what this is."
I try to blink the tears back, the knot in my stomach pulling tighter.
"I feel it every day. All of it, all the time, and standing here not moving is the hardest thing I have ever done."
He stops, cursing under his breath, and I instinctively grab his shirt because I can't let him stop now.
"All I do is want." His gaze moves between my eyes, all over my face, and his chest is rising and falling under my fist. "And I can't act on it because I made a promise to your brother, and I don't break my promises."
Every word cuts me a little more than the last. Then I get to the part that makes absolutely no sense.
"You promised Rome?"
"Last year. Before you moved here." He swallows hard, avoiding eye contact.
"He asked me to stay away from you, and I agreed because you were twenty-one and leaving and I figured the promise wouldn't be hard to keep."
His tortured gaze holds mine for a long moment.
"I was wrong."
I can feel the hammering of his heart against my hand. I hold tighter, feeling the fabric bunch in my fist, feeling the heat of him through the cotton. Then I shove him away.
"What about what I want?" I sound angry, but I don't take it back. "What about what you want? You're standing here telling me you want, and I'm standing here wanting back, and you promised Rome?"
I let all my frustration show because I'm so angry with my brother that I'm shaking. With Callahan, too.
"Since when does Rome get to make that call?"
"He is protecting you. He's your brother."
"He's my brother, not my keeper!"
Angry isn't the right word. I'm baffled. My brother had been holding the key to this the whole time and nobody thought to mention it.
"I'm a grown woman, Callahan. Who I choose to want, date, or fuck is nobody's business but mine. Not Rome's." I jab a finger at my own chest. "Mine."
His eyes drop to my mouth. My brain registers it before the rest of me does. His gaze drops and stays there, and whatever he was trying to keep off his face loses its hold.
I don't move as my anger melts away at the look in his eyes. His hand comes up slowly, and I track it just as he's watching himself do it too, like he'd stepped slightly outside of himself and was waiting to see if he'd intervene.
His fingers reach me, skim the corner of my mouth, barely any contact at all. My whole body goes quiet, calm.
"I shouldn't."
Is he saying it to me or himself? My tears fall just as I close my eyes, but I can't take them back.
The moment he stops fighting himself is like a ropesnapping. His hand slides from my face to the back of my neck, grips hard, and pulls me in.
He kisses me. He kisses me like the promise is already ash. Hard and hungry, one hand gripping the back of my neck, the other pulling me in by the waist until there's no space left between us.
His tongue slides against mine and I am lost. So this is what all the fuss was about. This is the kind of kiss that rewrites every kiss that came before it into a rough draft.
Then he makes a low sound, something between a groan and a growl, and I stop understanding anything at all.
