He drops his hands, stepping back.
“I did it!” A startled laugh escapes me. My arm still tingles where I blocked him, the impact reverberating through bone and muscle. “I actually—holy shit, I blocked you!”
“Don’t get cocky.” But his mouth twitches, fighting a smile. “One block doesn’t make you Bruce Lee.”
I blink up at him. “Who?”
“Fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m getting old.”
Another laugh bursts out before I can trap it.
“You think that’s funny?” He advances.
“No.” I back up, laughter still catching in my throat. “Not at all.”
“Liar.”
I spin, making a break for the other side of the couch, but he’s faster. He grabs and lifts me against his chest, and I’m airborne for a split second before we both tumble to the floor, his body taking the impact. He rolls us immediately, pinning me beneath him on the worn rug.
My laughter dies.
His face hovers inches from mine, eyes darker now, playfulness giving way to something more intense.
Hunger.
His hands find mine, fingers threading through, pinning them beside my head. The position mirrors every late-night fantasy I’ve tried not to have, every moment I’ve lain awake imagining his weight, his heat, his control. Except those fantasies never included the actual gravity of him—how his chest expands against mine with each ragged breath, the way lamplight carves shadows across his jaw, how his eyes darken to almost black in the amber glow.
“Why do you do that?” His voice drops lower, rougher.
“Do what?”
His gaze pins me as effectively as his hands. “Disappear.”
That’s not?—
The denial rushes to my lips, automatic as breathing. Conditioned. I want to say it, want to tell him he’s wrong, that I’m right here, that I don’t know what he means.
But his eyes flick between mine, searching, and I see it.
Every moment, I’ve slipped out before dawn. Every moment, I’ve turned away from a touch that lingered too long. Every moment, I snuggled into his chest and acted like we were strangers the next. Every moment, I chose Amelia over him.
He sees all of it. Every careful retreat. Every calculated distance.
My throat closes. The words I was going to say shrivel and die somewhere between my brain and my mouth because lying to him right now would be like lying to myself, and I’m so fucking tired of doing that.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” His forehead drops to mine, noses almost touching. “Tell me you don’t feel this too, and I’ll back off. I’ll keep training you, keep my hands to myself, pretend every time you leave doesn’t feel like losing… Fuck, Dakota. Ineedyou.”
Three words. That’s all it takes to crack me open.
The heat of his body seeps through my clothes. His pulse hammers against my wrist where he holds me down. I can taste his exhales, feel the tremor in his fingers, see the vulnerability he’s laying bare.
Heneedsme. And Ineedhim.
“You’re right.” The admission tears out of me, raw and bleeding. “I do.”
“Dak—”
“I don’t want to disappear anymore.”
