My whole body leaned towards him like it had been waiting for permission that no longer mattered.
But Noah moved.
He cupped my face with both hands and kissed me.
Hard.
Like he didn’t make the choice so much as something in him finally broke free.
His mouth was warm and urgent, tasting of panic and longing and everything he’d refused to say out loud. My gasp melted into him. My fingers curled into the front of his shirt. I felt his breath, the tension in him, the tremor in his hands.
It wasn’t a soft kiss.
It was the kind of kiss that happens when the ground disappears beneath you, and you reach for the nearest solid thing.
He pressed against me, his body flush against mine, and heat rushed through me so fast I almost forgot to breathe.
I kissed him back.
God, I kissed him back.
Everything that had been simmering between us finally snapped.
He lifted me up and my legs wrapped around him.
His hands pulled me closer.
My nails scraped his shoulders.
The ground spun, but his mouth anchored me.
And then—
He stopped. He lowered me gently down. Then tore himself away from me like it physically hurt to do it.
“Holly,” he breathed, voice shredded. “I shouldn’t have—shit, I’m sorry!”
I tried to hold steady, dizzy from the force of him.
“Noah—”
“No.” He backed up, running a hand through his hair, pacing like a man being chased. “That wasn’t fair. My head’s all over the place.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Everything’s upside down. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
He looked at me with something wild and pained in his eyes.
“I just… I can’t do this right now.”
My pulse stumbled.
My legs felt wobbly. My lips still tingled.
Noah looked away first, towards the ocean beyond the cliffs.
And somehow that felt like my cue to leave.
