“Does he make you feel alive?” Tex asks, and suddenly his voice is a raw thing — all gravel and thunder. “Because I know for a fact you make me feel alive.”
My heart is hammering.
“Let me in,” he says, softly.
He waits. And I hate how badly I want to say yes. To everything. To him.
I don’t know why I do but I take a step back, letting him in. Tex doesn’t smile. Doesn’t smirk. He just walks in like he knows he’s crossing over a line.
25 FIRST STEPS
The air shifts the second the door clicks shut. It’s just us now. No uniforms, no assignments, no war games or politics.
Just me and him.
Tex doesn’t speak at first. He takes one slow step closer, like I might bolt if he moves too fast.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper. The words sound brittle. Useless.
“You let me in.”
God, I did. I did.
I should be smarter than this. I should hold the line I keep drawing. But my chest aches and I’m so tired of pretending I don’t feel it when he looks at me like this. As if I matter. Like I’m fire and he wants to burn.
“You kissed me like you meant it,” he says, stepping into my space. “Don’t lie and say you didn’t.”
I don’t. I can’t. My silence is answer enough.
His fingers come up, slow, tracing a line from my jaw to the edge of my mouth. “Still think you want normal? Something easy?” His voice is low now, intimate. Like a secret meant for just us.
And then he kisses me again.
His kiss feels like something feral, barely held back. His hands anchor atmy waist, pulling me in until there’s no space between us. I gasp, and he swallows the sound like he needs it.
I fist the front of his shirt without thinking, gripping tight, grounding myself in the weight of him. He doesn’t flinch. Just deepens the kiss, tongue sliding against mine like he’s starving for this.
I’ve never been kissed like this, not before him — like I’m wanted, claimed, devoured.
My back hits the wall, and I don’t even register how we got there. One of his hands slides up my ribcage, not greedy, not fast — just enough to make my knees shake. He pulls back just enough to look at me, breathing hard.
“I’ve tried to stay away,” he admits, forehead resting against mine. “Tried to convince myself this wasn’t real.”
“And?”
“And it’s killing me.”
I close my eyes. My pulse is thunder in my ears.
Because it’s killing me too.
When I open them, I whisper, “Then stop pretending.”
He kisses me again — softer this time, but no less intense. And this time, I kiss him back like I don’t care who I’m supposed to be.
Just a girl.
Just a boy.
