He leans forward, forearms on the table, and the motion draws my gaze to the veins on his hands, to the way his fingers drum lightly against the surface like he’s holding himself back from touching me again.
I wonder what would happen if I just reached across. If I tangled my fingers in his again. If I leaned over the table and closed the distance.
It’s insane, completely reckless, and all I can think is:I want him.
Before I can pull myself back, his hand slides across the table and finds mine. With that—skin against skin, his thumb brushing the side of my palm—my entire body lights up. Butterflies, static, something dangerously close to hope.
I don’t breathe, I don’t dare. Because one touch from him has me falling, and I’m not sure I ever want to hit the ground.
The rest of dinner passes in a blur of laughter and stories and that impossible ease that only happens with people you’ve known forever, or people you were supposed to find all along.
He tells me about his grandmother’s farm in Galway, about the first time he played keeper for a real crowd and nearly threw up from nerves. I tell him about growing up in Houston, about long summer evenings when the air felt thick enough to drink, and my dad would grill while I chased fireflies with my little sister until the streetlights came on.
We trade memories like currency, both of us richer by the minute.
By the time we step outside, night has taken the city. The temperature has dropped, sharp enough to raise goosebumps along my arms, but the streets are still buzzing—cars honking, someone playing saxophone near the corner, neon spilling color onto the pavement. New York is never quiet, never still, but somehow, with him beside me, it feels softer.
He’s saying something about the tiramisu when the wind cuts through my coat. Before I can react, he wraps his arm around me, hauling me against his chest.
The chill fades instantly, and all I can smell is him.
That warm, clean scent of soap and skin and something darker underneath, like cedar and rain. It hits me deep, and for one dizzying second, I swear I could stay right here forever.
He glances down. “You’re freezin’, lass.”
I shake my head, smiling up at him. “Not anymore.”
His mouth curves, small and knowing. “Should we take a taxi back to the hotel?” I ask.
“Aye, lass,” he says, that low rumble of his accent curling through the night.
I reach for my phone, but before I can pull it out, he’s already holding his out to me. “Here, lass. Use mine.”
The phone is warm from his hand. I don’t argue, just take it and bring up the app, his arm still tight around me as I type.
“Looks like the nearest driver is only a few minutes away.”
A group of people passes close behind us, laughing loudly. We have to move, pressed toward the nearest wall to make room. The space is narrow, shadows spilling across the brick. He turns toward me, closing the last bit of distance until I’m backed against the wall. I can feel the rough edge of the brick at my back, and the solid, unyielding warmth of Rogue in front of me.
He doesn’t step away—and neither do I.
For a heartbeat, everything slows—the city noise, the air, even time itself. His gaze finds mine, gray and unreadable, his breath ghosting my cheek. Then he lowers his head, and we collide.
The kiss hits like lightning.
Not tentative this time, it’s hungry, unrestrained, the kind that steals the ground from under you. His hand slides to my jaw, the other anchoring my hip, and I fist the front of his sweater, drawing him closer. The world disappears. There’s only heat and the sound of our breaths tangling, only the taste of him, warm and sharp and dizzying.
It’s the kind of kiss that undoes you. The kind that whispersthis is what you’ve been waiting foragainst your skin.
He closes that final inch, heat and muscle and need press closer until the world narrows to his mouth on mine and the sound of my own heartbeat. We don’t come up for air; we just keep falling, hands searching, mouths clinging, worried the moment might vanish if we stop.
Someone whistles as they pass, another voice calling something I can’t catch. The sound breaks the spell enough for us to laugh, breathless, dazed, and still tangled up in each other.
Our foreheads rest together, breaths mingling, his nose brushing mine. The city moves on around us, but I can’t hear it. All I can hear is us. Ragged, uneven, alive.
When his mouth finally leaves mine, I don’t move. I can still taste him—heat and want and something I’m terrified to even consider naming. Then a sharp honk cuts through the night behind him. He glances over his shoulder and I whisper, “He’s here.”
He takes my hand, fingers threading through mine like they belong there, and we head toward the car. The night air bites at my cheeks, the world coming back into focus, but part of me has been etched into that wall, lost in the feel of his mouth, the weight of his hands, and the dizzy certainty that I’ll never recover from this.
