The sear of his gaze trailing down my face and neck, down to what’s below, awakens something within me I sincerely wish I never knew existed. Because now I know what itshouldfeel like to be looked at by the man you love. And nothing else will ever compare again.
Struggling for anything to say, words completely failing me, I step back, trying to put some space in between us. Unfortunately for me, my little interior design tips haven’t actually made the space any bigger, even if it looks that way to the naked eye, and I bump into the wall in just a step or two.
My throat works to keep the saliva out of my air pipe and to keep flooding my lungs with oxygen, and I’m thankful for that, because I can’t remember a fucking thing right now except for what this man has always meant to me, how gorgeous he looks, and how I would give absolutely anything for him tokeeplooking at me like that.
But a different face pops into my mind as he steps closer to me, pressing his front against mine, and I freeze at the green eyes I see instead of the tanzanite ones in front of me.
“What if I was wrong?” The rasp in his voice when he speaks next is entirely new to me, and I’m half afraid my knees are going to give out on me from the overwhelming sensations swarming me right about now.
“Wrong about what?” I breathe, barely audible to my own ears. He must hear me, though, because he answers with the words I’ve waited half a lifetime to hear leave his lips.
“What if I don’t want you as just a friend, Gemma?” His left hand comes up to trace the right side of my face, his touch so gentle, exploring the curve of my cheek, my jawline. “What if I’ve been missing what was right in front of me all this time?”
I never imagined my dream coming true could hurt so much, but here we are.
Nausea surges inside me, and I know this is wrong. This is all wrong.
My eyes flutter closed, and the only face that’s waiting for me in my mind’s eye is that of Spencer. My boyfriend. The one who didn’t deserve my doubt a couple of nights ago, and doesn’t deserve it now, either.
“Stop,” I croak out, forcing my eyes back open. His hand drops back down to his side, but nothing else changes.
The way he’s staring down at me has never been captured on film before. I know, because I’ve seen every single episode, movie, and short film he’s ever been in. I’ve got a copy of every magazine he’s been shot for on the bookshelf next to my desk. This fire hasn’t come across in a single frame of any of it. His chest presses into mine, and my nipples react automatically, stiffening against the friction of our clothing, the firm muscles behind his.
“I have a boyfriend,” I whisper, my eyes trailing between his eyes and his mouth, which is breathing quite heavily at the moment as he takes me in in an entirely new way for us.
“You have a girlfriend,” I try again.
He doesn’t move, and I’ve never been less sure of myself in my entire life.
What does he want with me? Why me? Whynow?
This couldn’t be further from the way he’s always treated me, and I can’t stop the onslaught of images in my mind right now. Specifically, the moment something in his gaze changed. That moment he saw the way Spencer and I interacted at the restaurant the other night.
And it clicks. I realize this isn’t aboutmeat all. It’s about jealousy, about wanting what he can’t have, and nothing more.
“You don’t want this,” I force out. “You don’t wantme.” The words sting, even though I’m the one saying them, the one who believes them.
“How do you know what I want?” he asks in that same throaty tone, his voice deeper than I’m used to hearing it, and it goes straight to my core. I imagine hearing it in all the ways I’ve dreamt of since we hit puberty, and a flush spreads to my face, tears springing behind my eyes. I lower them to the ground, or, really, his solid chest, as that’s what’s blocking my view of it.
I try to block out the feeling of his palm pressing into my hip, the thumb that’s stroking my hip bone through my sweater, and the flutters that go straight to my most sensitive parts at the feel of it all. I need my strength in place to say what needs to be said, to do what needs to be done here. To end this before he takes the chance to begin.
“Because you’veneverwanted me, Aaron. Not once. And I don’t think you do now, either.”
I’m not prepared for the expression that greets me when I look back up to meet his gaze. That’s a kind of pain I know all toowell. One that greeted me in the mirror just about every day for as long as I can remember. It looks like unrequited love.
It’s a pain I don’t want to see in him, but one that I’m not willing to cause in Spencer, or Kayla for that matter. So when he makes no move to stop, I keep going.
“Idefinitely don’t want this.”
He breathes a single word in response that calls me on my shit, and tells me I’m not about to get away with it.
“Liar.”
There’s a smug smile on his lips I’m not used to seeing, the look of a lion having cornered its chosen antelope, when they both know there’s no escaping at this point, and all that’s left is to devour it.
His head tilts ever so slightly to one side and it comes down toward mine for the kill, the fatal strike that will end life as I know it, and all I can do is watch as his lips part and prepare to capture mine in a move I’ve been waiting what feels like my entire life for.
Desire floods my entire body as anticipation coils within my lower stomach, and delicious flutters have me trembling with need for the feel of this man’s skin against my own.
