Page 77 of A Match Made in Error

He flinches. “Your laugh does something to me I don’t trust.” Silence follows. Heart racing as the heavy, charged silence wraps as tightly around me as he is.

My body is humming, and in the silence, I take notice of the things I am acutely aware of. The rapidly shrinking space between our mouths. The swift rise and fall of his chest and the knowledge that the heart rate monitor would surely betray me right now. The way his fingers are flexing deliciously into the skin of my hip like he is physically holding himself back from devouring me.

And while my body is humming and coming to life at the weight of these truths, my mind is conflicted. If he wanted me too, wouldn’t he have said it? Plus, he doesn’t do love, and that’s all I want.

His thumb strokes once against my hip, sending a shiver through my entire body. Goosebumps pebble across my neck where his warm breath brushes me. It’s so undeniably intimate that it causes my breath to catch in my chest. I want this. I want him. But can I live knowing I’d only ever have him like this? A small piece of physical intimacy when I want it all.

He rests his forehead on mine. His control, or the thinning of it, is visible. In the tightness of his jaw. In the way his hand doesn’t move higher.

He is restraining himself.

For me.

“One more truth,” I breathe, barely audible. I feel a shadow press into my back, caressing the spot his hand left now that he is using it to tuck a rogue lock of hair behind my ear. “What are you afraid of right now?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “That if I kiss you, I won’t stop.”

My heart slams against the cage of my chest. Fear floods me. If I let this happen, there is no going back. I can’t leave the island and go back to working at his bar and acting as if my heart wasn’t on display for him and all he wanted was a tryst. It will break me.

My breath halts, the weight of his words settling somewhere deep in my chest. For a second—just a second—I imagine it.

What it would feel like if he did.

Too good to have only once.

Too world-shattering to allow.

My voice comes out softer than I mean it to. “Riven…” I shake my head, a small, helpless laugh leaving me as I drag a hand over my face, trying to steady the storm he just stirred within me. “That’s exactly the problem.” My gaze lifts to his again, finding it bright with something that looks a little too dangerously close to desire. “If you kiss me,” I say quietly, “I won’t stop you, and that’s not a thing friends do.” Because that’s all we will ever be.

The truth hangs there.

I swallow hard, forcing myself to press my forehead lightly to his shoulder before I lose the nerve to pull away from his lips. “So we’re not doing that,” I murmur. My arms slide around his waist, clinging to him in a way that feels safer than looking at his face right now.

We stay like that, the ocean moving below us, the lantern flickering between gusts of wind. Riven lets out a slow breath above my head, arms encircling me. Then, after a beat, his voice drops into that familiar teasing warmth.

“Right,” he says lightly. “No kissing.” A pause. His arms tighten. “Very responsible of us.” Another beat. “Shame, though,” he adds with a crooked smile I can hear in his voice. “I’m excellent at it.”

I sigh.

I know you are.

Chapter Twenty-Five

RIVEN

The deck is quiet again.

Too quiet.

Quiet enough that I can hear the thoughts I’ve spent years trying to silence. Thoughts that a simple truth potion pulled out of me with ease.

Poppy is close enough that I can feel the warmth of her through the thin linen of her clothes between us. If I move an inch, we would fit together the way we did during the first trial when her barely clothed, dripping wet body clung to mine. My bottom lip pinches between my teeth at the thought.

Her breathing has evened out, but I know she isn’t asleep. I know the rhythm of her too well now to be tricked by her too-still body and shallow breaths.

I exhale fully, the night air eating up the vapors in the blink of an eye. The truth serum is fully gone. I felt it leave before I told her about my darkness. The pressure behind my ribs eased; the compulsion to confess dissolved into something far scarier—choice. I wanted to tell her all of that because, out of everyone in this universe, I trust her the most.

And, shockingly, I’m not regretting it.