“I’m also the woman you touched on the boat like you were afraid to want me.”
That truth hits him like a bull’s eye.
He releases my hand and stands, turning away with one rough breath. For a second, I think he is leaving. Instead, he stops at the open bedroom door, one hand braced high on the frame.
“That is exactly why I need to be careful.”
“Because you want me?”
His shoulders go still.
“Yes,” he says.
One word that’s delivered low, rough and honest.
Heat moves through me, slow and certain, cutting through the fear without erasing it. Maybe that is what shocks me most.Want does not make the fear disappear. It stands beside it defiantly.
I rise from the bed. Cole turns before I take two steps, and whatever he sees in my face makes his expression go fierce.
“Do not come closer because you need an escape,” he says.
“I’m not.”
“Do not come closer because you’re scared.”
“I am scared.”
“Kara.”
“But that is not why I’m coming closer.”
The space between us disappears one inch at a time. He does not reach for me.
Cole waits until I stop in front of him, until I lift my face, until the choice is so clearly mine that even my fear cannot argue with it. Then his hand comes up, slow and careful, and cups the side of my face. His thumb brushes my cheek.
I almost break from that alone.
“You say stop,” he murmurs, “and I stop.”
“I know.”
“You say step back, and I step back.”
“I know.”
His mouth lowers to mine.
The kiss is not gentle. It starts careful, because Cole is careful with me, because he is trying to be a better man than his want. But the moment my mouth opens beneath his, control slips. His other hand comes to my waist, holding me like he has been waiting too long to know what I feel like closer.
I grip the front of his shirt and kiss him back.
All the fear, all the anger, all the terrible uncertainty has nowhere to go, so it becomes heat. It becomes breath. It becomes Cole’s low sound against my mouth and the hard strength of his body under my hands.
For the first time since the photo, since the knife, since Orlando, I am not only being watched. I am being wanted. There is a difference. A massive one.
Cole breaks the kiss first, breathing hard, his forehead almost touching mine.
“Tell me you’re still here,” he says.
