“Aiden,” she said.
The sound of my name carried more weight than anything we’d said in the last ten minutes.
I didn’t think about the next step. I didn’t calculate it. I didn’t weigh it against consequences.
I just gave her wrist a tug.
She came with the motion, surprised but responsive, and the distance between us disappeared in one decisive movement.
Her eyes widened as I lowered my head.
There was no buildup. No warning.
I brought my mouth to hers and kissed her hard, cutting off the conversation, cutting off the doubt, and everything that had been circling between us since I’d sat down in that chair at Purple Rose.
10
Sage
I felt it before I processed it. The heat of him, the pressure, the sudden claiming of space that was neither his nor mine. My back met the storage unit door with a light rattle, the metal cool through my jacket while his hand on my waist ignited something inside me.
For a breath, my mind tried to argue with my body. Tried to line up pride, logic, and annoyance into something usable. But it failed the instant his fingers tightened slightly at my side, and his other hand slid to the back of my neck.
The kiss wasn’t polite or tentative. Aiden knew what he wanted, and when his tongue came out to nudge my lips apart, I was weak to resist.
My pulse reacted first, then my mouth.
Our tongues slid over each other, warm and wanting, my fingers curling in his hoodie. I wanted him closer, so impossibly close.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a faraway, numbed-out thought wriggled free. It reared its ugly head and forced me to notice.
He’d called me out. He’d questioned whether I was building my life or simply defending it. And now he thought a kiss could wrap that all up in something pretty that’ll make me forget.
My hands pressed against his chest and shoved, instantly breaking the contact. Aiden blinked through his breathless confusion and was about to say something when my flat palm struck his cheek.
His head turned with the force of it, but he stayed exactly where he was, eyes on me, jaw tight, one hand still hovering near my waist.
I felt the sting in my own palm more than the shock of what I’d just done. “You’re way out of line, and off base, and— and several other analogies that describe how totally and absolutely messed up this is. And you think you can smooth it over with your mouth? You think kissing me will make it okay?”
“You think that’s what that was?” he asked, catching his breath. God, the confusion now gave way to hurt, and I wasn’t ready for it.
Surprisingly, my voice didn’t shake when I said, “What was it then, Aiden?”
His gaze stayed locked on mine, and for the first time since we walked into this unit, I felt like I was the one standing at the edge of something. That I was the one holding myself up, open and vulnerable, for him to dissect.
“I wasn’t trying to smooth anything over,” he said. “I was just done talking.”
“That’s convenient.”
He exhaled through his nose and fought to contain whatever wanted out of him all at once. “You asked questions. I answered them. The point I was trying to make is… sometimes there’s nodifference between choosing our path and defending the one we ended up on.”
“That’s not the same thing.” I folded my arms across my chest, and hugged my jacket tightly. “It’s not.”
“It is if you’re honest.”
The word ‘honest’ hit like a spark against dry wood.
“So now I’m a liar?”
