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Because she came here.
To me.
My gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before dragging back up to her eyes.
“You’re wearing a team hoodie,” I said quietly.
Maisey blinked once like she’d forgotten.
Then she looked down.
“Oh.” A blush spread across her face. “I—um…was gifted a lot of PitSpark and Kaz merch when I was first brought on.”
My heart genuinely did something embarrassing. “But that one is my number?”
Her expression softened. “Yeah, kinda partial to it.”
God. I leaned one arm against the doorframe because suddenly I needed the support. Maisey shifted slightly on her feet before speaking again, quieter this time.
“Tell me to go back to my room, and I will.”
Absolutely not. The answer lived in every part of me at once. Instead, I stepped aside from the doorway slowly without taking my eyes off her.
“Come here, Red.” The second the door shut behind Maisey, the air in the room changed. It seemed to happen every time she got too close to me lately, like the entire atmosphere bent around her existence. The hotel room suddenly felt smaller, warmer, charged with something dangerous that sat just beneath my skin.
Maisey stood just inside the doorway, looking entirely too pretty for midnight.
Between the illusion of bare legs and the oversized hoodie swallowing her whole, she looked like she had been plucked right out of one of my daydreams. The scar from her leg surgery caught my eye poking out from the hoodie’s hem. I wanted to kiss it.
Sleepy eyes and flushed cheeks and lips still pink from where she’d worried them between her teeth on the walk here.
“You’re staring,” she whispered, though there was no real bite to it.
“I know.” I didn’t even try denying it.
Not after yesterday. Not after kissing her and finally understanding why nothing else had felt right for years. Every woman I’d tried to distract myself with blurred together eventually because none of them were her.
None of them looked at me like they could see straight through every ugly part and stayed anyway.
Maisey shifted slightly under the weight of my gaze, nervous.
That realization grounded me instantly.
I stepped closer carefully, slow enough that she could stop me if she wanted to.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I said quietly.
Her expression softened immediately. “I will,” she whispered.
My hand slid gently along her waist, giving her time to pull away. She leaned into the touch instead.
Fuck.
My forehead dropped against hers as I exhaled slowly, trying to keep hold of the tiny thread of self-control I still had left.
“You’re killing me.”
A quiet laugh escaped her.
