“Can’t help it.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, savoring the way she melted against him. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve completely fallen for you, Sabrina.”
She went still in his arms. Too still.
CHAPTER 16
Time crystallized, sharp as the edge of a granite cliff face in winter. Sabrina’s lungs seized, every molecule of oxygen frozen in place.
“You’re, um, what?” she wheezed, her throat closing as the mattress turned into quicksand, trapping her in a quagmire she’d never seen coming.
“I’m in love with you, Sabrina,” Noah repeated, probably not as harshly as it sounded to her. But the words raked through her, impossible to unhear.
The pause lengthened, gaining teeth, the way it did right before a storm hit the canyon, when the air crackled with doom and destruction, and the smart move was to get off the mountain before lightning struck.
But there was nowhere to go. No escape route, no backup plan, no clear path down.
“You can’t be.” Good grief, was that her voice?
Noah’s brows knitted. “What? Why not?”
“Because,” she ground out hoarsely, her throat feeling like she’d swallowed glass, “that’s not what we’re doing here.”
And he wasn’t supposed to make her feel like this—exposed, raw, as if he’d stripped away more than just her clothes.
“It’s most definitely what we’re doing here. Sabrina—”
But he reached for her then and she couldn’t. Could. Not. Do. This.No.
She needed air. Space. Room to think past the buzzing in her head that sounded suspiciously like warning bells. The sheet tangled around her legs as she scrambled back, nearly falling off the bed in her haste.
Noah didn’t try to stop her. Just watched with that intense gaze that never wavered, never faltered, never changed. Because he’d always looked at her like that. And she’d missed the signs. Had never even thought to question how much of that intensity burned forher.
“Sabrina.” His voice carried that same whatever it was that had drawn her in from the start.
It burrowed beneath her skin, inexplicably calming her.
And that was exactly the problem. She didn’t need him to do that. She didn’t need him at all. Or anyone. The minute you depended on someone else was the minute they proved you shouldn’t have.
“Stop doing that,” she ordered, backing away. “Stop saying all that stuff.”
Her hands trembled as she grabbed for her clothes, scattered across the floor like confetti for a party that she hadn’t realized she’d been invited to.
“Okay.” Noah’s quiet acceptance somehow made it worse. He should be angry, frustrated, something. Not this infinite patience that made her feel like she was the one being unreasonable. “We can talk about something else.”
A harsh laugh escaped her. Not because it was funny but because…well, she didn’t know what it was. She’d never been in this place before, where it felt like she needed to claw her skin off so she could breathe.
“I don’t think that’s how this works,” she muttered, shoving a hand through her hair, wishing it was tied back, but Noah had pulled her rubber band out long ago and she had no idea where it was. “You don’t just move on to a new subject after…” She waved a hand in a big, erratic circle. Which pretty much summed up everything.
“Dropping an emotional bombshell on you?” His lips quirked slightly. “Tell me what you’d like me to do instead then.”
Whirling, she yanked her shirt over her head, needing some kind of armor. Even if it felt about as effective as tissue paper against a rockslide. “Why am I the one who has to decide?”
The bed creaked as Noah sat up, keeping his distance. Smart man. “Because you’re the one who matters.”
The room just sort of tilted then. But there was nothing for her to grab onto to steady herself against the onslaught of Noah. Her heart just…liquefied.
What washappening?
She wrapped her arms around herself, cold despite the warm room. This was exactly the kind of thing she hadn’t signed up for—the way he said these impossibly romantic things as if they were simple facts.
