A smile flickers across her face, quick and wry and a little sad.
I sit down across from her, close enough to smell vanilla on her skin.
“You good?” I ask, voice quieter now.
She nods.
Then hesitates.
And I know that look. That pause.
Like she’s about to say something important. Like her words are balancing on a cliff, and one wrong move will send them tumbling.
“Josie—”
“I…” She stops, biting her lip. Her eyes search mine, wide and uncertain. “Knox, there’s something I?—”
I can’t take it.
I don’t know what she’s going to say. Don’t know if it’ll undo me or save me or both. But I can’t wait anymore.
Because her voice is soft and shaky and real.
Because her eyes are holding a whole damn galaxy.
Because every part of me wants her.
So I do the only thing I can do.
I lean in and kiss her.
Her breath catches, this tiny gasp against my lips, and then she’s there. All in. Her fingers fist in the front of my shirt like she needs something to hold onto or she might fall apart, and damn, I get it.
Because I’m unraveling too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Josie
I don’t remember moving.
One second, Knox is looking at me like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, and the next, his mouth is on mine, and I’m gone.
It isn’t gentle.
It isn’t careful.
It’s like a dam bursting open.
And the moment it starts, I don’t want it to stop.
I don’t care about the lights still glowing outside the window.
Or the way the whole house smells like cider and nostalgia.
I don’t care that my hands are shaking or that I had every intention of telling him the truth tonight.
Because when he kisses me, everything else fades.
