I didn’t care about anything except the way he felt, the way he tasted, the way every nerve in my body lit up the second he touched me.
His grip tightened slightly, pulling me closer, and I made a soft sound against his mouth before I could stop it.
That seemed to snap something in him again.
The kiss turned sharper.Hungrier.Like all that control he’d been holding onto had finally broken loose.
And God, it was everything.
Everything I hadn’t been ready for before.
Everything I wanted now.
We pulled apart slowly, like neither of us really wanted to.Like we weren’t done.
I was breathing hard, and our foreheads were almost touching, with our eyes locked.
“Britta?”Tempi’s voice cut through everything.
Reality crashed back in hard.
“Uh—I’m just getting… something!”I called, not taking my eyes off him.
“Britta,” Swift whispered.
I shook my head.No.Not now.Not if he was about to ruin that.I stepped out of his arms before he could say anything else.
If he apologized, if he acted like that hadn’t just been…
Yeah, no.I wasn’t surviving that.
I turned, grabbed the cleanser off the shelf, and headed for the door.
His hand closed gently around my arm.“Britta.”
I looked at him, and there it was.
That flicker.
That hesitation.
That regret trying to creep in.
“I need to get back out there, Swift,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though my chest still felt like it was on fire.
He let go, just like that, and I didn’t wait.
I walked out of the storeroom and back into the bar, forcing myself to move like nothing had just happened.
Like my world hadn’t tilted on its axis.
Tempi glanced at me.Then at the cleanser, then back at me.Her eyes narrowed just slightly.But she didn’t say anything.
Thank God.
I went right back to wiping down the bar, my movements just a little too precise, a little too careful.
I was trying not to think.
