Page 93 of The One Who Never Left: Colter

“Happy? Easy?” he repeated, low. “You think that’s what that was?”

Her shoulders lifted in a small, defensive shrug, but her eyes stayed locked on his. “You looked like it. Like it was easy and you weren’t thinking about anything else.”

“That’s the thing,” he said, taking a step closer before he could talk himself out of it. “It wasn’t.”

Her breath stuttered, just barely. He noticed. He noticed everything—how her fingers flexed at her sides, how she leaned back against her car like she needed the support, how she didn’t step away.

“You shouldn’t care,” she said. It sounded like a rule she was reciting. “We agreed⁠—”

“I know what we said,” he cut in, not unkindly. “Doesn’t mean it stuck.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and humming. The kind that pressed against his ears and dared him to say the wrong thing.

“You left,” he said quietly. “Didn’t even say goodbye.”

Her mouth curved, sad and bittersweet at the same time. “Because you were on a date.”

“Which you wanted me to go on.”

“I didn’t,” she said so low that the words were taken by the night’s air.

“Didn’t what? I need to hear you say it.”

“I lied. I never wanted you to go on the date.”

That did it. That cracked something so wide open between them that he could feel the shift in the atmosphere.

Before he could say another word, she crossed the space between them in two strides, slid a hand behind his neck, and yanked his head down and then their mouths melded.

He hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected her to take the lead.

Her kiss. It wasn’t careful or polite. It was desperate and heated and full of everything she’d been telling him she didn’t feel. Her mouth crashed into his, fingers fisting in his hair like she needed the contact to stay upright.

Colter groaned, low and involuntary, and his hands were on her before his brain caught up, gripping her hips, thumbs gliding under the hem of her shirt. He kissed her back just as hard, teeth tugging at her lower lip, like he’d been waiting all month for permission to stop holding himself back.

“Jesus,” he muttered against her mouth.

She made a soft, broken sound that went straight to his dick.

He walked her backward without breaking the kiss, guiding her step by step until her back hit the side of his truck. She gasped, hands bracing on his shoulders, and he took full advantage—deepening the kiss, slow and devastating now, like he wanted her to feel every second of it.

He popped the door open and lifted her just enough to sit her on the edge of the bench seat.

Her breath hitched as his hands slid to her thighs, thumbs pressing into warm skin, not so much roaming as claiming space. He stood between her knees, kissing her like he’d been starving and she’d finally handed him the damn meal.

Her fingers, still in his hair, tugged, and he swore under his breath, forehead dropping to hers.

“This is a bad idea,” she whispered, her breath skating across his lips.

“Yeah.”

She kissed him again anyway.

The world narrowed to heat and breath and the way her body leaned into his like it already knew where it belonged. For one suspended, reckless moment, nothing else existed—not consequences, not timing, not all the reasons they shouldn’t.

Not even that they were in a parking lot in the heart of town.

All that registered was the way she tasted like wine and want. And the way he was already ruined.