“Oh yeah?” My heart skipped. “About what?”
“Stuff.”
Amused curiosity pulled at my mouth. “What kind of stuff?”
His eyes held mine as his expression grew serious. “One—your ex was a damn fool to ever lay a hand on you. Or raise his voice. Or do whatever else it is that you’re not willing to share with me just yet.”
Air stalled in my chest.
“And two…” he went on, that serious expression of his morphing into something else entirely. “You keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna kiss you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Andi
I stilled,my heart thudding so hard I felt it in my fingertips. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like youwantme to kiss you,” he murmured, setting the plate on the counter behind us, then added, “but you’re too scared to ask.”
“I am scared,” I said quietly, surprising myself at the honesty behind the words.
His smirk faded, replaced with something less playful, as he turned toward me. “Of me?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not you. Never you.”
“Then what?”
I hesitated then shrugged, trying to play it off even though my voice betrayed me. “Of this.” My voice shook. “Of what it means. Of what it doesn’t.”
Zane’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile, but he didn’t. “I get it,” he said, his voice softer now. “Believe me, I do. You think you’re the only one scared?” he went on, eyes holding mine. “I’ve been burned too, Andi. Bad. So bad that I stopped letting people get close a long time ago because it always seemed to end the same way.”
I swallowed hard, my chest tightening.
“But you…” he said, then stopped, shaking his head like he wasn’t sure how to continue. “You make me feel something I forgot I could feel.”
My breath caught around the raw emotion snagging in my throat.
“It scares the hell out of me,” he admitted. “But it also makes me want more.”
“More pie?” I teased quietly. It was lame, but I needed a distraction to pull this conversation out of the serious territory it was headed.
The corner of Zane’s mouth lifted, and I knew he could tell I was deflecting again. He didn’t call me on it, but he didn’t let it slide, either. Instead, he reached for the plate between us. I watched, unmoving, as he dragged his thumb slowly through the thick syrup pooling along the edge of the crust. His eyes never left mine, and something about the way he did it made the space between us crackle.
He lifted his hand, bringing that syrup-slick thumb up toward my face.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
His gaze dropped to my mouth as his thumb brushed lightly over my bottom lip—just a soft, gliding stroke that made every muscle in my body go tight.
“Yeah,” he said, voice rougher now. “More pie.”
And then, without a hint of hesitation, he leaned in. But he didn’t kiss me, not right away. No, at first, he just…hovered. Like he was giving me the chance to back out of what he was blatantly offering. But I didn’t. His breath mingled with mine, slow and warm, while his thumb rested gently at the corner of my mouth. My breath hitched then as I felt the slow, deliberate pass of his tongue as he licked that same trail of syrup from my lip. A barely-there growl rumbled in his throat, caught there like he hadn’t meant for it to slip out.
“If you want me to stop,” he murmured, using the tip of his nose to nudge mine and tilt my head back, “just say the word.”
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because at that moment, I didn’t see the broody, guarded cowboy who kept people at arm’s length. I saw the man behind the mask—the one who’d been hurt and still chose to reach for something anyway. And I wanted to hold that softness in him like he was holding mine, gently and without conditions.
His hand cupped my cheek, the feel of it warm against my skin, as the other found the edge of the counter near mine, caging me in without trapping me. “You good?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
