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I’d kissed Alex once and couldn’t promise I’d never kiss him again.
“No to all of those questions. He’d see it as a frivolous hobby.”And I’m not ready to deal with what that would mean for us.
Alex drew back to peer into my eyes. “You can’t live like that. Don’t you get enough of that kind of thinking from your parents? You need someone who supports and adores that part of you.”
“Like you?” I scoffed, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t hate Alex so much anymore, nor was he an awful person. Still, the idea of us as an actual couple was so farfetched, I couldn’t fathom it.
“Why not me?”
I sighed. “Because I have a boyfriend and you and I aren’t ever going to be an option.”
What I didn’t say was now that Mo had gone against my parents and pursued his music career, all the pressure was on me. I had to earn the right degree, have the right boyfriend, find the right job once I graduated. Alex was a good man, but no matter how I might have felt about him, my parents would never approve. Mo was strong enough to go against them, but I doubted I had it in me.
“Yael,” his knuckles brushed over my jaw, “it doesn’t have to be me, but it shouldn’t be him.”
I pushed him away, suddenly exhausted and awash in a wave of melancholy. “It was good seeing you, Alex.”
Needing space and a little quiet, I wove my way upstairs and shut myself in the hallway bathroom. It didn’t take long for the door to creak open, then click shut again. Arms curved around my middle, and citrus and sage invaded my nose. Warm lips touched my neck, dragging up the column to my ear.
Alex spun me around, and I let him. His eyes sparked with something that scared me. Intensity radiated from his skin, and Alex wasn’t an intense guy. He was light and airy, but the way he looked at me blanketed my body in heavy desire.
“You only want me because I’m unavailable,” I rasped.
“Untrue.” He cupped the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. “And that doesn’t explain why you want me.”
“I don’t.” But even as I said it, I raised on my toes and curled my arms around his neck. “I don’t.”
With a low growl, he slanted his mouth over mine. The time since his lips had last touched mine melted away. We picked up where we left off, sliding tongues and fumbling hands. He tugged me close, and I pulled him closer.
It was wrong—so wrong. But why did it feel so right? Why did being in Alex’s arms never fail to center me one second, then send me topsy-turvy the next?
His finger skimmed my stomach, then slipped beneath my shirt to squeeze my breast. His groan was feral, and I whimpered like the prey in his clutches.
“Leave him,” he murmured between kisses. “He doesn’t know you.”
I know, I know, I know.
The pull between us was so powerful, it was almost tangible. I could get lost in this. Lost in Alex. I could throw everything away, and I would have to to be with him.
That thought wormed its way between us. No matter how good this felt, what waited on the other side of the bathroom door would be more pain than I could bear. My parents would be bitterly disappointed. Mo would be pissed. Harris would be betrayed. My friends wouldn’t understand. My future would change forever.
“Alex.” I turned my face, but he cupped my jaw to bring my lips back to his. When I whimpered, he pulled my bottom lip between his teeth and gripped my ass like he’d already claimed it as his. “I can’t do this. I have a boyfriend, and that’s not changing.”
“Yael.” He shook his head, trailing his hand from my ass to the center of my back. “Stop it. There’s nothing there.”
“There is. I love him.” His hold on me loosened enough for me to escape his embrace. “I’m sorry.”
I ran without looking back. I ran right out of the party, back to my tiny bedroom in my equally tiny apartment, and hid under my covers like a child.
Alex was my past.
Harris was my future.
No matter how bad I felt now, I would have felt worse if I had left that bathroom with Alex by my side.
This was right.
Tears blinded me, but I stumbled down the hotel hallway to room 8610 and pounded so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear my bones snap.
