Fighting the urge to look away or touch my heated cheeks, I continued through those last steps until I was seated beside him. Not so close we were touching, but not an awkward distance apart either.
I watched as he seemed to take in the way my legs were crossed in front of me on the plush cushion, so I could fully face him, before he twisted to better face me.
“Need to know if you regret what happened.” The words were abrupt and weighted, as if he’d been waiting to release them for so long, but they caught me off guard, because they hadn’t been what I’d expected to talk about.
I’d expected to talk abouther.
When all I managed was a stunned, slow blink that he probably couldn’t even see, a hushed laugh tumbled from him, pained and worried. “Right.”
“No, I—” My head slanted as I quickly tried redirecting all my thoughts, because I’d bolstered myself for one very specific conversation before coming out here. Notthis. “Are you talking about what we said? Before we left Amber?”
“That’s not all that happened before we left Amber.”
My heart gave a little hiccup before taking off in a dead sprint as that kiss raced through my thoughts and made my lips tingle at the memory. When the impulse to touch my lips wove through my veins, I curled my hands into fists instead. “Why would you think I did?”
“You didn’t talk to me all night,” he said as if it should’ve been obvious. “I just couldn’t figure out if it was that, or that paired with the Tessa situation.”
“It—no,” I finally said. “No, I don’t regret it. I just...” I drew in a deep breath, prepared to, once again, show my insecurities and vulnerabilities, and paused instead.
“Tessa,” Gray muttered nearly a minute later, understanding and remorse weaving through the name.
“Right,” I whispered. I straightened my spine and forced myself to hold Gray’s stare, so thankful that the dark helped conceal what he was thinking, and tried gathering my thoughts that seemed so childish now. “The way you responded when you found out...it was like you lost someonesignificant.”
A thoughtful sound hummed in his throat before he reached out for me, sliding one of his large hands up my bare thigh and over my hip until his fingers were curling around my waist.
Leaving a trail of fire. Making my pulse erratic. All while I sat still as stone as I waited to see what his next move would be. As I waited for aresponse.
“If I’d known you had a tendency to lean toward jealousy...” he murmured, and I didn’t need to see the smile slowly stealing across his face to hear the amusement in the words.
“I don’t?—”
“Peach,” he said in that same low, unconvinced tone. His hand flexed against my waist, the pressure there gentle but commanding as he pulled me closer and closer until I was on my knees and pressed against him.
Our lips a breath apart.
For once, I wasn’t sure I cared if he could hear or even feel the absolutely relentless pounding of my heart, giving away everything I was feeling in that moment.
But just when I thought he would close the distance, he said, “I’ve agonized over the thought of you with anyone else because you’ve always felt like mine.”
Every part of me lit up at the claim and was just as quickly extinguished at the reminder that there’d only been thethoughtof me with someone else for Gray. But Gray with other women? That’d been a reality for me.
“Hypocrite,” bled from me, but the accusation didn’t hold the same weight it normally did.
“I’m aware,” he mumbled sadly, repentantly. “And you’ll never know how sorry I am.”
With a heavy exhale that showed exactly how much Gray wished he could go back and change his actions over the past eleven years, he smoothly and effortlessly shifted us until we were stretched out on the couch. Gray lay flat on his back, his arm securely wrapped around where I was curled up between him and the plush cushions, enveloping me in his warmth and that familiar, woodsy scent.
I didn’t fight the movements, but I was sure he could feel how stiff I was, even once we were settled.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t do this, it was that I’dneverdone this. Well, except for one night in Aruba, apparently. But that was obviously different.
I didn’t know how to just . . .be.
Before I could fall fully into my spiral ofhow do I do this?Gray said, “You would’ve known if I’d lost someone significant to me tonight.” His chest rose with his slow inhale before he softly admitted, “I would tear apart the world if I lost you.”
I stared at his profile, unblinking, as the depth of his words settled over me and wove into my very soul.
Tilting his head to meet my stare, he explained, “Tonight? Tessa? It’s because I think she was trying to tell me. I think—” He dragged his free hand over his face before letting it fall to his bare stomach. “I think whoever took her might’ve even been at the festival with us.”
