He just did.
It wasn’t soft or careful.It was messy and desperate, days of fear, restraint, and the hellish idea of almost losing her detonating all at once.His mouth found hers as if it had been searching for it all along.
Chloe gasped, fingers curling in his shirt, pulling him closer.Her mouth opened beneath his, and every remaining scrap of good judgment he had went up in flames.
It was heat and relief, anger and want, all rolled into one hot press of lips and tongues and teeth.She kissed him back hungrily, recklessly, as he thought maybe she’d been holding her breath for days too.
Then she tore away on a sharp, terrified inhale.Kayne froze, lungs heaving.Her eyes were wild with panic.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, stumbling to her feet.“I can’t do this.”
Kayne rose slowly, hands raised as if she were a frightened animal he didn’t want to spook.“Chloe.”
“No.”She backed up two steps.“This, whatever that was, we can’t.I can’t need someone, Kayne.I can’t be that girl.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and it gutted him.
“You think I want you needin’ me?”he shot back before he could swallow it.“Needin’ means losin’, and I’ve lost enough for ten lives.”
She froze at that.So did he.
Around them, the construction crew became deeply invested in paint cans, air quality, and absolutely anything that wasn’t the emotional implosion happening five feet away.
Kayne dragged in a breath and forced the storm inside him back under control.“Chloe, you could’ve died.”
“I know.”Her voice was the smallest he’d ever heard from her.“And needing you afterward felt worse.”
That landed harder than the ladder ever could have.
He stepped close enough for her to feel the heat of him.“Needin’ someone doesn’t make you weak.”
“It makes me breakable.”
“So does livin’,” he murmured.“But I’m here.Whether you want me to be or not.”
She swallowed hard.“You shouldn’t be.”
Too late.Kayne didn’t say it, but it roared through him anyway.
Too damn late.
#
Chloe kept tellingherself she was fine.She’d been saying it so often lately, she could practically trademark it.Fine.Her favorite lie.Her safety blanket.She should embroider it on a throw pillow and call it self-care.
Except her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, andfinedidn’t explain why her legs were the consistency of cooked pasta or why Kayne’s heartbeat was still thundering against her ear, even though she wasn’t technically in his arms.
Chloe could still feel him, though, as if her nervous system hadn’t gotten the memo that the crisis was over.She remembered his body covering hers, powerful arms locked around her as if he’d rather be crushed than let her take the hit.His voice had been steady and low, even when she’d felt the tremor he tried to hide.He’d moved without hesitation, instinct choosing her before his brain ever weighed the odds.And then that kiss.
God.That kiss.
She pressed a hand to her mouth as if that might erase it.It didn’t.It only honed the memory of the heat, the hunger, the way he’d kissed her as if she wasn’t just someone to protect, but someone he was terrified of losing.
As if fear had finally lost the argument.
“That was close,” she whispered, staring at the mangled ladder on the floor.A few inches or a few more seconds, and she could’ve—nope.Not going there.Not now.She had a strict, newly enacted no-spiraling-before-lunch policy.
She inhaled through her nose.The smell of sawdust was suddenly too cloying.Everything was too loud.Workers were whispering and pretending not to watch her, afraid she might faint or spontaneously combust.
