He picks up the glass. Looks at it. Sets it back down without drinking.
"Isabella."
"Enzo."
"You need to go back to bed."
"I told you I can't sleep."
"Then sit there and don't—" He stops. His jaw tightens. "Just don't."
"Don't what?"
He doesn't answer. Just looks at me with those dark eyes that are doing things to my nervous system that should probably be illegal, and the air between us pulls taut like a wire being stretched to its absolute limit.
I should listen to him. I know I should listen to him. I know exactly where this road goes and I know exactly how it ends and I know that nothing about this situation has changed even if everything about the last day has made me forget that.
But I'm tired of being sensible. Tired of building walls. Tired of lying in bed upstairs staring at the ceiling and pretending I don't know exactly what I want.
I reach across the table again.
Not for the glass this time.
My fingers brush the back of his hand, just barely, just the lightest possible contact, and I feel him go rigid like I've pressed a live wire to his skin.
"What do you want, Isabella?" His voice is barely above a murmur.
"I told you. I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
"Maybe."
He turns his hand under mine, slowly, and for one suspended second I think he's going to take my hand properly, fold his fingers through mine, pull me closer.
Instead, he wraps his fingers around my wrist and holds me there, not moving, his thumb pressing against my pulse point where my heartbeat is giving away absolutely everything.
"Your heart is racing," he says quietly.
"I know."
"Isabella—"
"Don't." My voice comes out softer than I intend. "Don't tell me to go to bed again. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm saying. Don't?—"
He stands.
Not away from me. He stands and comes around the table and I tip my head back to look up at him as he stops in front of my chair, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that I can see the exact way his chest is rising and falling slightly faster than normal.
His hand is still around my wrist.
"Stand up," he says quietly.
I stand.
We're close enough now that there's barely any air between us, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up even more to hold his gaze, and his hand shifts from my wrist to my jaw, cupping it the way he did before, except this time we're not in a room with Rafael, this time there's no crisis to use as an excuse for why he's touching me.
This time it's just us.
