Page 181 of Before You Fell

I press a fist against my chest because something inside is trying to break through. “And I knew then. Maybe I had always known and been too much of a coward to name it.”

She gets up onto her knees in front of me and I hold up a hand to keep her from touching me until she hears the rest. If she touches me too soon, I’m done. I will put my mouth on hers and hide inside her body instead of saying the one thing that should have been said before half our damage had names.

“So don’t give it back to me safe,” I tell her. “Don’t give me the version where you love me because I’m Phoenix and I’ve always been around, or because we were kids, or because some fucked-up part of us got tangled before we knew how to cut ourselves free.” My voice drops. “I need you to know what I’m saying.”

Tears slip down her face without a sound.

“I’m in love with you, Willow Hart. I have been for so long that I think every song I’ve ever sung was just me trying to say your name without getting caught. I really, really fucking love you.”

The room goes silent.

No old ghosts dragging chains through the corners. Just her staring at me as if I have finally stepped out from behind the asshole I have always been and she is not sure whether to touch me or mourn the years it took me to arrive.

Her hand lifts toward my face, fingers brushing my jaw. I nearly close my eyes, but I force myself not to.

“I thought…” She stops, her breath shaking. Her eyes hold mine, steady even though her voice isn’t.

“I have loved you too, in every way a person can love someone,” she says, her voice trembling but clear. “As my best friend. As the boy with the guitar who thought no one was listening. As the man who broke me. As the man who came back anyway and tried to put his hands where the hurt was, without making it worse.”

My throat locks.

“But you should know, Phoenix.” Her hand doesn’t move from my face. “I have always loved you. And if we’re being honest…” She takes a breath, as if she’s finally letting go of something she’s held for years. “Every fucking day, I have always been in love with you, too.”

The words hit harder than any crowd ever has.

My breath leaves me completely.

I kneel there like a fucking idiot, a twenty-three-year-old rockstar who has had entire stadiums scream his words back at him, only to be destroyed by the only words that fucking matter.

I’m in love with you too.

“Say it again,” I whisper.

Her lips tremble. “I’m in love with you, Phoenix Stone.”

Then her mouth is on mine. Or mine is on hers. I don’t fucking know anymore and fuck if it matters.

My hand goes to the back of her neck, holding her there as I take her mouth harder, deeper, because soft is not going to survive what is happening inside my chest right now. Soft is too small. Too clean. My emotions for this woman have never once been pure.

Willow makes a small sound into my mouth and that is all it takes. The last thread of control snaps cleanly through.

She gasps, and I catch the sound in my mouth, kissing her as if I have been starving in rooms full of women who were never her, because that is exactly what I have been doing for years. And I’m done pretending otherwise.

She pulls back enough to breathe. Her eyes are dark, lips swollen, and cheeks flushed. The sight of her like that makes my cock throb so hard it hurts.

“Phoenix.”

Just my name. But it is enough to undo me.

I grip her hips and lean her back onto the floor. A tiny breath leaves her and I sense it everywhere. I yank her shirt over her head and her hair falls around her shoulders. She looks so fucking beautiful that something in my chest aches alongside everything else.

I lean in and take her nipple into my mouth.

Her fingers tighten in my hair as I suck harder, tongue dragging over the tight peak, teeth grazing just enough to pull a gasp out of her. I palm her other breast, thumb working until she starts shifting on the floor, hips restless, thighs pressing together because she wants friction and I’m not giving it to her yet.

“Phoenix,” she breathes.

I pull off with a wet sound and glance at her. “You want something, Wills?”