She laughed — a broken, bitter little exhale — like she half expected me to tell her she was being dramatic.
But I never would. I wasn’t him.
Ariana inhaled, a long trembling breath that lifted her shoulders and dropped them again.
“Tonight was…God, it was like seeing another life I could have had. I felt so at ease. I loved being here with this family, with Ava and Rowan and Lennon, with all these people who so quickly called me a friend. I could see Georgie here with all of them.”
She paused, throat shifting before she looked at me.
“With you.”
The air changed, thickening and humming and pulling tight like a wire between us.
I felt it down to the bone.
Her gaze didn’t waver, even as the atmosphere sizzled between us. Years from our past flickered like highlight reels in my mind — and I knew she was experiencing the same. I saw it in the flush of her cheeks, in the way she leaned into me, the way hope flashed in her eyes.
“Do you remember the time we hosted Thanksgiving together?” she asked.
“I remember everything, Ari.”
Her breath caught, and the way she looked at me emboldened me to continue, to not waste this chance. I didn’t care if it was wrong. I didn’t care that she bore the last name of another man, that the man she’d sworn vows to was my boss.
At the end of the day, she didn’t belong to him. She never could.
Because she was mine, and I was hers, and no amount of time or distance could ever change that.
I reached up, sweeping a strand of hair gently behind her ear before my hand cupped her cheek.
She trembled under my touch, even as she tilted into it, like she was afraid to give into the desire I felt pulsing through her.
“Every day,” I said quietly. “Every night. Every word and touch and kiss.”
My thumb brushed her jaw, heart pounding in my throat with every syllable I uttered.
“You are embedded in me like the code that makes me operate. You were then. You still are now.”
“Shane…” she whispered, shaking her head — but she didn’t move away. She didn’t pull back.
I framed her face with both hands, tilting her chin just enough that her eyes fluttered closed.
“If you tell me to stop, I will.” My voice dropped to a raw whisper. “But selfishly… I really hope you don’t. I want to kiss you, Ari. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment you crashed back into my life. Please…” I swallowed, wetting my lips. “Let me kiss you.”
For a heartbeat, she hovered there — breath trembling, body leaning, soul caught between fear and longing.
And then she pressed up onto her toes, searing my mouth with the gentle brush of her lips.
It was the gunshot that set off a chain of reactions — her gasping, me inhaling a breath that burned my lungs, the night air around us pulling taut before it snapped like a rubber band.
I descended, my mouth firm against hers as my heart pounded in my chest. I wanted to go slow. I wanted to savor that kiss and each tender press of her lips against mine.
But I was like a caged beast, and she’d unlatched the door.
My fingers curled in her hair, cradling the back of her neck and holding her to me. I sucked in a breath on that kiss, and when I opened my mouth and she did the same, letting my tongue in to dance with hers, I moaned, deep and guttural.
“Fuck, I’ve needed this for so long, Ari,” I groaned, kissing her harder, more frantic. “Neededyou.”
I backed her into her car, pinning her against the door and pressing the full weight of me into her. I wanted her to feel how my heart raced out of control, how I trembled where I held her, how every breath was shaking out of me.
