“Can I ask you something?” I whispered.
Micah’s mouth tilted slightly. “Yeah.”
“Do you … always feel guilty after?” I asked, and my cheeks burned as the question left me. “After wanting someone.”
His eyes darkened—not with lust. With something heavier.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Why?”
His jaw flexed. “Because wanting is weakness.”
I frowned. “No.”
That earned me a slow blink, like I’d surprised him.
“You think you’re the only one who’s wanted something they didn’t feel worthy of?” I asked quietly. “Micah, I’ve been doing that my whole life. I just did it politely.”
Something in his gaze shifted.
I continued, because once I started, honesty was hard to stop.
“When you’re adopted,” I said softly, “you grow up knowing you’re loved. But you start to believe you have to be … worth it.”
Micah’s eyes stayed locked on mine.
“So, you become good,” I murmured. “You become useful. You become easy. You become someone who won’t be a problem.”
My throat tightened.
“And then you meet someone like you,” I added, voice trembling slightly, “and suddenly your body doesn’t want easy anymore.”
Micah went still.
“That scares you,” he said, not a question.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a long moment, then said, low and rough, “It should.”
That should have chilled me.
Instead, it warmed something deep in me, like a match struck in darkness.
Because he wasn’t pretending.
He wasn’t charming me with lies.
He was telling me the truth.
And my whole life, I’d been hungry for truth, even when it hurt.
Micah’s hand slid down my side, slow and deliberate, not rushing—just claiming space as if he belonged in it.
I inhaled sharply.
His gaze dropped to my mouth again.
