I cut him off, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’d marry her right now.”
Silence drops like a weight. Parents stop talking. Kids freeze. Even Rowan, standing twenty feet away, mutters “Holy shit.”
Briar’s eyes go wide.
Her ex sputters. “You—you can’t just?—”
But I’m done. He’s not worth another second. I turn my back on him and walk straight to Briar. She steps toward me like she forgot how her legs work.
“Saxon…” she whispers, voice shaking. “What did you just?—”
I stop in front of her, chest still heaving from adrenaline, from anger, from fear I don’t want to admit out loud.
“I meant it,” I say quietly.
Her breath hitching is the only sound I hear.
“Saxon… you didn’t have to?—”
“I did.”
Her lips part. “You really meant it?”
Everything inside me snaps.
I step in close, too close, crowding her back toward the side of the ambulance. My hands settle on either side of her hips, caging her in—not touching, but claiming the space around her like it’s my territory.
“Sweetheart,” I murmur, voice scraping the air, “I’ve been trying not to kiss you since the day you set off that damn alarm.”
Her breath shudders.
“And I’m done pretending.”
I don’t give her a chance to respond. I grab her waist. Hard. She gasps as I pull her into me, her chest hitting mine, her breath crashing into my throat in a sharp, broken sound that goes straight to my sanity. Her hands fly to my shirt, gripping the fabric at my ribs like she needs something to hold onto or she’ll fall.
I lean in. Slow. Calculated. Deadly.
Her mouth tilts up, lips parted, eyes wide and hungry and terrified in the best way. Then I kiss her. Hard. Deep. Claiming. She makes a sound—half gasp, half moan—that destroys whatever restraint I had left.
My hands slide up her sides, fingers digging into the soft curve of her waist, dragging her closer until her body melts against mine. She fists my shirt, pulling, needing, opening for me in a way that steals every ounce of oxygen in my lungs.
I kiss her like I’m starving. She kisses back like she finally stopped fighting gravity. Her lips are warm, desperate, perfect. Her breath mixes with mine, hot and frantic. Her body presses into me like she belongs there.
“Saxon…” she breathes against my mouth, voice shaking, “oh my God?—”
“I know,” I rasp, kissing her again, deeper, pushing her gently but firmly against the ambulance. “I know, sweetheart.”
Her hands slide up my chest to my shoulders, then to my neck, then into my hair. I groan.
She jerks at the sound, shivering.
I break the kiss only long enough to drag my mouth down her jaw, across the warm line of her throat, tasting smoke and sweat and something so sweet it makes my head spin.
She gasps and arches into me.
“Tell me to stop,” I murmur against her pulse. “Say the word and I’ll walk away.”
She doesn’t say it. Instead, she pulls me closer. Her hands slide under the hem of my shirt, fingers skimming the skin of my lower back. My breath breaks.
