When he faces me, the look in his eyes is a punch straight to the ribs. Torn but decided.
“This can’t continue. Not now that you know what I am.”
The words land between us like a verdict.
I take a step forward, bare feet whispering across thefloor. The distance is impossibly wide, an ocean he refuses to cross. He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t soften. He’s bracing, already halfway gone.
“To be fair, I still don’t know exactlywhatyou do.”
He shifts, ready to leave.
“And I don’t care. I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
Bastien halts. Truly halts.
His jaw loosens, and his breath slips sharp between his lips. His fingers flex at his sides.
“Tell me what that means.”
I close the distance by a step, my pulse thundering against my bruised throat.
“It means I think I’m falling in love with you too.” The words shake out of me, fragile and fierce all at once.
Another step and I’m almost touching him. “I can’t bear it if you open that door and vanish. I can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again.”
Cold ripples across my skin, fear and longing tightening every inch of me.
He moves before I can blink.
Three strides—long, hard, decisive—and his hands are on me, pulling me into him with a force that steals the air from my lungs. My back meets the wall, his body caging mine, heat rolling off him in waves. His fingers slide into my hair, fisting at the base of my neck, tilting my mouth up to his.
The kiss hits like impact, sharp and hungry, almost brutal with how badly we both want it. His lips crash into mine, parting them, swallowing the broken sound that slips from my throat. I grab fistfuls of his shirt, bunching the fabric, dragging him closer like I’m afraid he’ll vanish if I loosen my grip for even a second.
My hands tremble as they climb to his shoulders, then to his jaw, tracing the rough scrape of stubble and the heat of his skin. His thumb sweeps along the column of my throat, pausing over the tender bruise the intruder left. His touch there makes something inside him break. I sense it in the desperate press of his mouth, in the way hisother hand drags down my back and pulls me flush against him, with no space left between us.
“Bastien,” the whisper spills into his kiss, soft and shaking.
He groans into my mouth—low, guttural, wrecked—and deepens the kiss.
“I’m obsessed with you, Bastien,” I breathe against his lips. “I can’t get enough of you.”
Everything in him stills long enough for me to catch the tremor that runs through his body. Then his hands clamp around my hips, hauling me tighter, his mouth claiming mine again with a fevered, consuming tenderness.
His kiss tells me everything he’s too afraid to say aloud.
Our mouths are still touching when a thought slices through me. It pulls a shiver up my spine, breaks the kiss, leaves our breaths tangled in the inches between us.
“What do we do about him?”
Bastien doesn’t flinch. He eases back enough to see my face, his hands still firm on my hips. His breath steadies in a way that tells me he’s already ten steps ahead.
“How do you want to handle it?”
Calm. Controlled. As if we’re discussing the weather, not a dead man sprawled on my bedroom floor.
My fingers tighten around his arms, and I grip the muscle beneath my palms. His steadiness is a contrast to the panic pulsing under my skin.
My gaze flicks toward the darkened hallway where my world shifted tonight.
