“I needed to fix it.”
“You needed towait for help.”
I swallow hard. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
His jaw ticks. “I’m everywhere you are.”
The words land like a strike of lightning. My knees wobble. His grip tightens.
There’s a beat—long, heavy—where neither of us moves or speaks. The world fades out. The wind still howls. Decorations flap. But it’s all distant, muffled, unimportant.
Ash is here.
Ash is holding me.
Ash is looking at me like he’s seconds away from ruining us in the best possible way.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe neither of us does. But suddenly his face is closer. His breath mixes with mine. His eyes flick to my mouth again, slower this time, deliberate. My pulse thunders in my ears.
“Ash,” I whisper, but it’s barely sound.
His hand slides from my waist to the small of my back, pulling me flush to him. My chest hits his. My breath catches. His other hand cups my jaw, thumb brushing the corner of my lips.
The world narrows into a single point: his touch. His breath. His mouth, inches from mine.
“Lucy,” he murmurs, voice shredded, “what are you doing to me?”
I don’t answer because I can’t.
Because all I want—all I feel—is the gravity pulling me forward. The ache. The heat. The electric stretch of air between our lips. His eyes flicker closed for one second.
One. Agonizing. Second.
Then he opens them and the restraint there almost breaks me.
I whisper, barely audible, “I trust you.”
The words leave me before I can stop them. Honest. Too honest.
His hand on my jaw freezes. He looks like the ground just shifted beneath him. Like he’s not sure whether to pull me closer or run from the weight of what I just said. Then his thumb strokes my cheek, slow as a heartbeat.
“Don’t say things like that,” he whispers, voice trembling. “Not when I want you this badly.”
My knees give out. He holds me tighter, like he expected it. His forehead drops to mine. We’re breathing the same air now. Sharing the same heat. Standing on the same dangerous line.
His nose brushes mine. His lips hover. That’s it. That’s all it would take. A millimeter. A breath. A choice. I feel his breath shake. His fingers dig into my hip. He’s losing it. He’s losing it and I want him to.
“Kiss me,” I whisper before my brain can catch up.
His reaction is immediate—a rough inhale, a soft curse breathed into my cheek—but he still doesn’t close the distance.
He pulls back an inch, jaw clenched hard. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I do, I won’t stop.”
Something dangerously warm spreads through my chest.
