My eyes sting.
Which is embarrassing and unacceptable and apparently unavoidable.
Tristan sees it immediately.
His face softens.
“If you hate it,” he says, “we get back in the car and I take you somewhere else. No pressure. No guilt. You say the word and we’re gone.”
I let out a shaky breath and look past him at the hotel, at the coast, at the whole impossible scene spread in front of me like a dare from the universe.
Then I look back at him.
“No,” I say softly.
His brows lift the slightest bit.
I step closer.
Close enough to feel his breath.
Close enough that if I tipped forward one inch, my mouth would brush his.
“I don’t hate it.”
Relief flashes through him so fast it nearly looks like pain.
Good. He deserves a second of suffering.
I lift a hand and smooth it over the front of his shirt, because now that I understand what he’s done, what this is, I need to touch him or I might actually combust right here in the hotel drive.
“This is…” I stop and try again. “This is insane.”
A little smile.
“Yeah.”
“This is too much.”
“Probably.”
“And I definitely want to kiss you right now.”
His jaw tightens.
“I’m aware.”
I smile then, shaky and helpless and more gone for him than I have ever been in my life.
“This must be what love is.”
The words slip out before I can stop them.
His whole face changes.
Every bit of humor vanishes.
Every practiced, pretty-boy layer gone with it.
