The kiss in the car flashes through my mind again—how everything inside me had lit up, how the fear had burned away into something else entirely. But fear can do strange things to a body. Panic can blur lines and remove the capability of rational thought entirely.
I need to know why kissing him felt more necessary than oxygen. I need to know why kissing him felt like…my world just changed forever. I need to know why, even though I should be freaking out over this entire situation and the fact that I’ve just disappeared from my life and how Martin is probably losing his mind that I haven’t shown up for work, but all I can think about ishimand how my body wants to crawl inside his skin.
So, I kiss him again.
It’s careful and testing at first. My lips brush his, waiting for my body to tell me if this is real—or if it was just adrenaline and terror masquerading as something deeper.
However, the moment our mouths meet, that same fire roars back to life, but it’s even hotter and steadier than before. It floods me, head to toe, like every nerve just came online at once.
I kiss him again and again, each time more certain, more desperate to understand what’s happening to me.
His arms tighten around me, muscles coiling under my hands like he’s holding himself in check with sheer willpower. He kisses me back with a restraint that feels almost painful, like he’s standing at the edge of something and refusing to step over it.
When I finally pull away, I’m breathless and trembling.
“Why…why does it feel like this? Why…” My voice shakes uncontrollably, overrun with every hidden feeling I’ve ever suppressed toward Rook and the big,differentlife I dreamed I’d have, and then some. “Why, Rook? Why?”
His forehead drops to mine.
“You’re mine,” he says quietly. “And I’m yours.”
“Says who?” I challenge, even as warmth blooms deep in my chest at the words.
He lets out a breath that sounds like surrender.
“The universe,” he says. He shakes his head, like he still can’t quite believe it himself. “You and I, Kylie Moon, we’re meant to be. We’re destiny.”
My heart stutters.
“We’re fated mates.”
Rook
She doesn’t stay in my arms long. Not because she pulls away in fear, but because she needs space to process and think and try to wrap her mind around things that contradict the foundation and reality that her entire life has been built on.
Of course, I let her have it. She deserves to fucking have it.
I watch her slide out from under the sheets, wrap herself in the hotel robe, and cross the room with careful steps, like the floor might shift under her if she moves too fast.
She sits on the chair with her hands folded in her lap, eyes wide and glassy, not crying but not steady either. Just…processing.
I stay where I am, on the edge of the bed, giving her room without putting distance between us. Every instinct in me wants to close that gap, to pull her back and remind her she’s safe—but I don’t.
She needs this moment to be hers.
She’s not so much upset anymore as she is overwhelmed, and for that, I can’t blame her. The whirlwind she’s been dragged intowould challenge anyone, but to be put in this position without any prior knowledge is akin to something like taking a bar exam without having ever cracked a law textbook.
But I know whereIstand.
Whatever this thing is between us—whatever lit up the second she came into my life—I’ve stopped pretending it’s temporary. She’s mine. I’m hers. I don’t question that anymore.
What I question is what I’ve set in motion by choosing her first and taking her before they could.
The danger I’ve now put us in. Put my brothers in. Put her in.
“I’m supposed to be at my grandmother’s tonight,” she says quietly. “Dinner. Staying over. But I don’t even have my phone to call her. I don’t know if she’s tried to call me. I…” She pauses, and worry creases her brow.
“I know.”
