Heat flashes through me, hot and treacherous. My heart kicks so hard it’s almost painful. I force myself not to look away.
“I didn’t say that.”
He watches me like a predator who’s just noticed his prey stopped running. His grin deepens. “Do you want to be kissed, Bell?”
The nickname does something awful to me, awakening something inside of me I thought was dormant.
A saner version of me would backpedal. Laugh it off and pretend she didn’t just hand him that much power.
“Because if you wanted me to kiss you…” His voice drops to a sinful rumble as he leans closer, so close I feel his breath against my cheek. “All you had to do was climb into my lap.” A beat. “You remember how to do that, don’t you, Bell?”
My whole body floods with heat. Images flash—my knees on this exact seat, my hands in his hair, my mouth on his—I dig my nails into my palms and refuse to look away.
“Who says you’re what I want?”
For a heartbeat, his expression cracks. A muscle feathers in his jaw. His grip tightens on the steering wheel before he slides his hand off it, forearm shifting to brace on the center console instead. Veins pull tight in his wrist. The movement makes his shoulders roll closer, his body edging into my space.
“Since when,” he says quietly, “do you wait for permission to take what you want?”
My mouth goes dry. The truck suddenly feels very small. Very closed in. The throb of my pulse echoes in my ears.
He leans in half an inch, then another. Slow and unhurried, like he has all the time in the world to close the distance between us. He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, knuckles grazing my cheek as he leans in.
His eyes roam over my face—my cheekbones, the curve of my jaw, the hollow of my throat—with an intensity that makes my skin burn, like I'm something precious and fleeting and he’s trying to commit it to memory before I disappear.
His nose skims mine, and my lungs forget how to work.
“Bell,” he whispers, mouth a breath from mine, “don’t lie. Not to me.”
My entire world narrows to the inch of air between us.
A sudden rap against the glass behind my head shatters the moment. I startle backward, but Gage remains perfectly still, his eyes never leaving mine even as someone pounds on the window.
Slowly, I twist and look behind me. Lola stands there, eyebrows high, one hand on her hip, her expression flat as a dead battery.
“What,” she says, voice muffled through the glass. “Thefuck.”
I exhale so sharply it’s almost a laugh. Saved by my sister—because holy hell, was I actually about to make out with Gage in his car like we’re teenagers again?
“I should’ve figured your sister would be around here somewhere.” Gage pulls back, chuckling under his breath and dragging his palm over his mouth.
Lola opens the passenger door, and I all but tumble out into the heat, my eyes still locked with Gage’s, like we’re somehow tethered by an invisible string.
Lola loops her arm through mine.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with all of this, but we’re going now,” she announces like he’s a problem she’s already decided to solve.
I start to turn.
“Bell.” His voice hits my spine like a touch.
I shouldn’t look, but I do anyway.
He’s got one arm draped over the wheel, the other stretched across the passenger seat, head tilted, grin slow and wicked.
“I’ll be seeing you.”
My heartbeat goes sideways. I swallow, turn, and let Lola drag me down the sidewalk before I can do something incredibly, unforgivably reckless.
