They were so close now that she could feel his breath on her cheeks. For a second she thought he would pull back, let her go. And a realization shuddered through her pulse: she didn’t want him to.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she whispered as her eyes darted to his mouth.
His blue eyes flared with something white-hot. She was aboutto speak again, more words already forming on her tongue, but his kiss cut her off, hungry and deep and clouding her mind before she could recall what she was even going to say. She didn’t even try. The kiss was too good, too all-consuming. All she could focus on was the feel of his tongue sliding into her mouth, the smell of sandalwood and leather and salt overwhelming her senses as he pressed his body against hers.
His hand was cradling her jaw, angling her face as he deepened the kiss, and a guttural moan escaped her lips. She should have been embarrassed. She should have already pushed him away. But instead her arms found their way around his neck, pulling him closer.
The action made him groan, and suddenly he was lifting her up to sit on the steel table, slotting himself between her legs. He moved against her, holding her as she arched into him. Their bodies were flush as he moved his hand behind her head to grip her thick red hair. His other hand moved down her side, wrapping around her thigh so tightly she gasped and ran her fingers down his back. Suddenly, it was frenetic as they groped each other, every kiss more desperate than the one before.
“What are you doing to me?” he breathed against her lips.
Her head fell back, allowing his mouth to travel down her jaw to her neck. Something had snapped, and she no longer had control over her body. Her skin felt hot and alive, and it was so overwhelming that she almost didn’t hear as he continued.
“I hate this,” he murmured against the shell of her ear, his voice barely above a growl. “I hate how much I need this…”
The words rang in her head, cold and hard. His lips came up to meet hers again, but she leaned back, avoiding his kiss. “What did you just say?”
He blinked. “What?”
She pushed him away from her, and he allowed it, but only enough to open a few inches between them. “You just said you hate this.”
He kept both hands splayed on the counter on either side of her hips as his brow furrowed. “No. I said I hate how much I need this.”
“And you don’t hear how insulting that is?”
“What, the fact that I hate feeling out of control?” His blue eyes narrowed and that muscle in his jaw twitched again. “That I’m so distracted by you that I can barely function? Do you think that’s a choice?”
The words hit her chest, stealing her breath for a moment. She didn’t want this, either, she knew that, but hearing it out loud felt like a deep cut where she was most vulnerable.
She let out a short, dry laugh. “Wow, Will. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
“I’m trying to be honest.”
“God, I hate that,” she said, shaking her head. “I hate when people say something cruel but dress it up as truth. Being honest doesn’t excuse you for being a self-serving asshole, Will.”
“Would you rather that I lied?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing anyway?”
He reeled back. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Where is Charlie?” she exclaimed, her arms flying out at her sides. “He tells Jane he loves her and then he just leaves? You’re seriously going to keep pretending like you don’t know what happened?”
Will frowned. “You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. Charlie follows a predictable pattern. He falls for someone, he gets hurt, and he looks to me to fix it. So I did. After what happened on the Fourth, he wanted to go back to the city. I made sure hestayed there. The further away he was from Jane, the faster he’d be able to move on. He was heartbroken.”
“So was Jane!” Lizzy’s voice rang through the kitchen, reverberating off the metal trays and cement walls. “And if he really loved her so much, he would have stuck around to realize that.”
“He left because she didn’t feel the same way.”
Lizzy’s mouth fell open. “Don’t you dare blame my sister when leaving is all you people do.”
He stilled. “What?”
“You, Charlie—all of you come out here looking for a change, but end up acting exactly the same way! You find a local who keeps you distracted for the summer so you don’t have to think about how boring your lives are back in the city. Then September rolls around and you go back to those boring lives because none of this was real anyway, right? Just part of the vacation.”
He leaned forward again, glaring at her from under his brow. “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are. You’re the man who took time out of his day to come to my bakery to tell me I was an inconvenience. You’re the man who promised to help his friend who had nothing, just to turn around and take it away the minute you felt like it.”
