Page 35 of All In

The words stop me dead. “You don’t even remember our kiss.”

“No, but I saw it. Saw myself. Saw you. Know how it made me feel.” He raises an eyebrow. “Can you really tell me it made you feel nothing to see that?”

No, I can’t say that. It made me feel everything. Too much, even.

I shake my head instead of answering out loud.

Triumph lights up his eyes. “See.”

This is dangerous territory. It opens me up to the potential for hurt, and I’m okay with that. But it opens Harlow up to being hurt too, and that’s something I have a harder time risking.

“We could just try,” he whispers, his eyes falling to my mouth. “Maybe it was just the alcohol, or maybe it wasn’t, but all I know is I can’t stop thinking about it. About watching myself kiss you.”

I want to say yes. My mind is screaming at me to open my mouth and say it. Pleading with me. My heart is more guarded. Begging for me to protect it and say no. It’s hard to reconcile.

Before I have a chance to do either, Harlow surges forward and slams his mouth down onto mine.

I freeze, everything going still as my brain screeches to a halt. Harlow is fucking kissing me, and I’m stuck.

He nips at my bottom lip, and my heart jumps into my throat. Then his tongue is coming out to soothe the sting.

“Kiss me back, Gray,” he whispers against my lips.

My fingers sink into his hair without thought, and I drag him closer, parting my lips in invitation. His soft moan rattles around in my head, and all my systems seem to go offline.

There’s just Harlow. His scent in my nose and his taste on my tongue. His thick waves knotted and tangled around my fingers. His tongue sweeping past my lips. His breathy gasp against my mouth.

I’m in heaven and hell all at once. Holding all the things I want for my future in my hands, but knowing it’s not really mine to keep—he’s not mine to keep.

It’s that realization that has me breaking away from him with a gasp.

He presses his forehead to mine, his breath puffing out over my tingling lips.

“Fire,” he murmurs. “Just like I knew it would be.”

This is too much. I can’t do this.

I carefully move him off me, doing my best to ignore his whine of protest, and climb out of bed.

“Gray?”

“I just need a minute,” I respond without looking back.

I slip into the bathroom and close the door softly, then rest my forehead against the cool wood.

That was a mistake. I don’t even know what I’m doing. What we’re doing. Obviously I can’t hang out in here forever, though, so I take a couple of seconds to collect myself, and then I push open the door to the bathroom.

Harlow is sitting up on the bed, picking at his cuticles, and when the door creaks open, his head whips in my direction. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth.

I shake my head. “Nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

If anything, he did everything right, and somehow that makes it worse.

“I think we need to talk about this.”

“The kiss?” he asks, cocking his head.

“No.” I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Our marriage.”