“What?” she whispers.
I swallow and force the words out, steady. “Not like this. I’m not… I’m not doing it like this.”
Hurt flashes across her face so fast I almost miss it, buried under panic.
“You don’t want me,” she says, and it might be the most insane sentence I’ve ever heard.
I actually huff out a rough laugh. “Jesus, KitKat. Trust me, that’s not the problem.”
Her eyes snap up, searching my face.
“The problem is you’re asking me to do something that I can’t undo for you,” I say. “Something I can’t hand back to you when your grandmother goes home, and your father’s threat is neutralized. That’s not a favor. That’s not ‘strategy.’ That’s… you. That’s your first time. And I am not taking that from you while you’re this scared.”
“Scottie—”
“I’m not saying no,” I cut in, because I see the terror start to spike again. “I’m saying not like this. Not because of her. Not because of fear.”
Tears spill over before she can stop them. I tilt her face back to me with two fingers, wiping away a tear with my thumb.
“I’m not taking that from you like it’s a prop for some fucked-up show,” I say quietly. “If I sleep with you, it’s going to be because you want me. Because you can’t stop thinking about me. Because the idea of not having me drives you as crazy as the idea of not having you drives me crazy. Not because your grandmother is scary and your father is a control freak with a God complex.”
A wet laugh slips out of her, choked and surprised. “She is terrifying.”
“I’m sure she is.” I can’t help but smile. “But she doesn’t get to dictate what happens in this bed.”
Her breath shudders out of her. For a moment, her eyes stay locked on mine, and I swear I can see every thought flickering across them—fear and want and hope and whatever the hell we’ve built between us since the day we said “I do”.
“I do want you,” she says finally, voice small but fierce. “It’s not just fear. I promise it’s not just fear. I think about you all the time. Every night we’re together, I think about it.”
Every word is gasoline on a fire I’ve been barely holding back.
My grip on her shoulders tightens.
“I want you,” she says again, and there’s no mistaking the truth in it. “I want my first time to be with you. I want it to be… you.”
My heart slams so hard it almost hurts.
“And I want that, too,” I say, voice rough. “You have no idea how much. But if we cross that line, it means you're mine, that this is real… I’m not going to be able to play this like it’s temporary anymore. I’m barely holding it together now.”
She blinks, startled. “What does that mean?
I laugh softly, bitter at myself. “It means I’m already half in love with you, and if I make love to you, that’s it. Game over. I’m done. I’m not going to be okay smiling and signing divorce papers after you get your visa renewal from PNB and then go off pretending it was all just… logistics.”
Her lips part.
I push on because if I don’t say it now, I’ll never say it.
“If we do this,” I say quietly, “you don’t get to pretend it didn’t mean anything. Not to me. You don’t get to walk away and call it a chapter. Because it will be the whole damn book for me. Do you understand that?”
Silence stretches out between us.
Her eyes shine again, but it’s different now. Softer. Like something inside her just re-arranged itself.
“I didn’t know,” she whispers.
“Yeah, well.” I shrug one shoulder, trying to play it off even as my chest feels like it’s splitting open. “I didn’t really plan on saying it out loud this morning, but here we are.”
She gives a non–comical laugh like this whole thing turned out messier than we planned.
