His hand slips under my bra, fingers against my bare breasts, and heat flashes through me so fast I jerk.
He skids to a stop. His hands are gone.
“You don’t have to stop,” I whisper.
He exhales, shaky. “I do.”
“Why?”
“Because if I start, I’m not stopping,” he says, voice rough with restraint. “And this ain’t some quick fix. You deserve better than that.”
My heart twists. “You don’t get to decide what I deserve.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “But I do get to decide how I touch you.”
I almost whine, pushing my body into his.
“You almost drowned,” he says. “I ain’t turning that into something reckless.”
“Then don’t make it reckless,” I breathe.
He kisses me again, slow and consuming, until the world outside the cabin disappears and all that’s left is breath and the steady realization that this is a choice. Not mine. His.
When he finally pulls back, I know he’s decided not to take it further. We’re both breathing hard. He brushes his thumb over my lower lip like he’s memorizing it.
“This changes things,” he says.
“I know.”
“Not just for us.”
“I know.”
He leans his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. “For what it’s worth,” he murmurs, “I don’t regret diving in.”
“I’m glad you did.”
His lips ghost over mine one last time before he steps back. He grabs a dry shirt from a duffel and tosses it to me. “Change,” he says softer. “You’re still freezing.”
“And you?”
“I’ll turn my back.”
I laugh faintly because the absurdity helps me breathe. “You just had your hands under my bra.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
He looks at me over his shoulder, eyes dark and heated.
“How?” I ask, again.
He doesn’t answer right away. Then he says, low and certain, “This is something I’ve been trying like hell not to do.”
He turns away and gives me privacy. I slip out of my wet clothes, down to my panties, which I refuse to take off. My skin is still buzzing where his hands were. I pull his shirt over my head. It hangs past my thighs, soft and warm and smelling like him. When I tell him he can turn back around, he does.
His eyes drag over me slow, appreciative, possessive. This time neither of us pretends it’s anything else.
