I grimace. “Silence asks questions I don’t have jokes for.”
She nudges my arm, just barely. “You’re allowed to not know.”
I look out over the town, the quiet lights, the dark stretches between them.
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
The wind shifts, tugging her hair across her cheek. She tucks it back without thinking, and I’m distracted by how natural it looks. How unguarded she is right now, standing here with me under an open sky.
I clear my throat. “So. Before this gets any deeper and I start doing something wildly out of character?—”
She turns fully toward me.
Close enough that I can see the faint red around her eyes. Close enough that the joke I was about to make dies quietly in my mouth.
“Finn,” she says softly.
That’s what does it.
I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wants to.
She doesn’t.
My fingers brush her jaw, barely there, checking if this is real. Her breath catches.
“Tell me to stop,” I murmur.
She shakes her head.
So I kiss her.
This kiss isn’t about heat or momentum or seeing what happens if I push. It’s soft and intense, and wonderfully sensual.
Her hand comes up, resting lightly against my chest.
I feel it everywhere.
When we part, she rests her forehead against mine, eyes closed.
“That was different,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It was.”
I don’t get a chance to say anything else.
The door behind us creaks open.
I don’t even turn at first. I feel it. The shift in the air, the sudden weight, a storm cloud deciding to stop being polite.
Then I look.
Ryder stands a few steps back, arms crossed, posture relaxed in that dangerous way that means he’s anything but.
His gaze flicks from me to Aurora.
Then back to me.
No words. No raised voice.
