I should have been overwhelmed, and maybe part of me was, but it wasn’t fear that stuck; it was clarity, because Novak had unpeeled a few layers, and somehow that made him easier to stand in front of, not harder.
“What is your decision?” It was as if he’d already decided he’d take whatever I gave him and adjust.
“I’m trying to catch up,” I said, dragging a hand through my hair, because my brain was still looping over convents and conditioning and the fact he’d been nine,fucking nine, and somehow the thing that kept cutting through all of it wasn’t the violence, it was him standing here now choosing me.
“You’re not scared,” he observed.
I let out a short breath. “I should be.”
“But you’re not.”
I met his eyes. “No.”
I’d seen obsession before, up close, lived in it from the outside, and it wasn’t chaos the way people thought it was—it was focus, it was certainty, it was knowing where you stood in someone’s world and never having to question it, and that made more sense to me than anything softer ever had.
Killian had it with Jamie, that quiet, unshakeable gravity that bent everything around it, and Lyric had it with Rio in a way that looked effortless until you realized how absolute it was, and Enzo… Enzo would burn the world down for Robbie without hesitation, and nobody questioned it because it was just the truth.
This was that.
Novak and me.
Just stripped down to something sharper.
“The ultimatum is all in or you stalking me,” I said, because there wasn’t any point pretending otherwise.
“Yes.”
I huffed out a laugh that didn’t feel like humor so much as disbelief catching up. “Jesus.”
I should have said I needed time, or space, or anything that sounded sane, but instead I closed the gap he’d put back between us, because distance suddenly felt wrong.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted, , because that part was true, “but I can’t seem to get enough of you either.”
His fingers curled around the back of my neck. “Is it okay to touch you like this?” he asked.
“God, yes.”
“Do you want to talk about it more?”
“No more talking,” I said.
He tugged me close and kissed me. It wasn’t careful, but it wasn’t out of control either; his lips firm against mine, his grip steady, and I could feel how much he was holding back even now.
I kissed him back without thinking about it, because thinking was the problem, and led to questions I didn’t have answers for yet.
I understood him and me.
This.
His other hand came to my jaw, tilting my head to deepen the kiss, and I let him, let myself lean into it, because there was something addictive about the way he focused on me.
It should have been too much, but it wasn’t.
My forehead rested against his. “I should probably run.”
“Yes.”
I huffed out a breath that almost turned into a laugh. “I’m not going to.”
