“I was out of line.” My lips barely formed the words. They came out fractured. Hollow.
He laughed softly, no real humor in it. “No, you weren’t. You werehonest. That’s the difference. You just can’tstandthat you were.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
Sinclair’s gaze didn’t waver. “I know you want me.”
My heart stumbled.
“I see it,” he continued, softer now. “Every time you catch yourself staring. Every time you walk away with your jaw tight, like it’s the only thing keeping your whole world from falling apart.”
“You’re wrong,” I whispered, but evenIdidn’t believe it.
He moved in, and I felt him everywhere all at once. His body heat against my chest, his breath gliding along my jaw, his voice like silk and sin curling into my ear.
“Then why are you shaking?”
I looked down and realized I was. My fists were clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms. I was trembling—from want, fromfear, from the weight of everything I couldn’t name but felt like it might crush me.
“Stop,” I rasped. “Please.”
But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.
He leaned in, lips hovering near mine, not quite touching, but close enough to burn me. “Tell me you don’t think about it,” he whispered. “About touching me again. Kissing me. Having me.”
“Ican’twant you.”
“But you do.” His lips brushed my cheek, featherlight. “So badly it’s tearing you apart.”
And I was torn.Shreddedby it. The memory of him. His phantom touch. This impossible gravity between us—this need that felt like betrayal, like deliverance.
I knew I should walk away. But I was weak. Too far gone to rein myself back in. Instead, I turned. My lips were drawn to him by a magnetic force.
The kiss exploded out of me, violent and consuming, like it had been clawing under my skin for months. Years. Our mouths crashed together, and everything else fell away—guilt, duty, consequence.
He kissed me like he’d waited for this moment forever. I kissed him like I was dying.
His hands were in my hair, my shirt, everywhere at once, dragging me closer until there was no air left between us. I gripped his waist, his jaw, like if I let go for even a second I’d shatter and never be pieced back together.
“Fuck,” I gasped as he bit my lip and soothed it with his tongue. I slammed him back against the wall, devouring him, lost in the frantic heat of his mouth.
“You drive me insane,” I growled into his throat, kissing a path up to the sharp angle of his jaw.
He tilted his head for me, that wicked grin twisting again. “Then stop pretending you don’tloveit.”
I did.
God help me, Idid.
I kissed him like I wanted to erase the parts of me that still said I shouldn’t—the part that blared like a tornado siren. I kissed him like I wanted to carve this moment into my memory so deeply, it could never be taken back.
But reality hit me like ice-cold water. My father’s voice crashed into the walls of my head. “What have you done? How could you embarrass me like this?”
Shame and fear engulfed me. I broke the kiss, panting, my hands still buried in his shirt like I didn’t know how to let go.
“This can’t happen,” I choked out. “Not again.”
He stared at me, chest heaving, lips red and kiss-bruised, pupils blown wide. I saw something flicker in him—hurt, real and vulnerable—but it vanished behind the cocky little smirk I hated almost as much as I craved.
