Telling her about my last relationship, one that made it all the way to almost hearing wedding bells, makes her frown, but she listens along anyway.
I don't want her to think I'm worried about an old relationship, but I also don't want her to believe I'm cut off from any chance of falling for someone again.
"It fell through after I found her alone with my best man." Sighing out, I expect to sound uncaring after all these years, but the words still catch in the back of my throat. It wasn't just losing her; it was the total demolition of my entire life in a single afternoon.
Lucia's fingers brush gently against my cheek, providing a cool relief from the sudden warmth that flushed my face."Is that why you're up here all alone?"
I lean into her touch, closing my eyes for a brief second just to focus on the feeling of her skin against mine.
"Everywhere I went, people looked at me like I was a kicked puppy," I admit, my voice dropping an octave. "The whispers, the pitying smiles, the hands on my shoulder from people who just wanted a front-row seat to my wreck. It suffocates you. Up here, the trees don't pity me. The mountain doesn't care that I was stupid enough to trust the two people who mattered most."
"Even if it guarantees you'll never meet anyone else?" she whispers, her thumb brushing the edge of my jawline.
I open my eyes, looking directly into hers, the firelight catching the gold in her irises. "I thought I wanted isolation forever. I thought a dead heart was a safe one." A small, roughchuckle leaves my chest, the humor completely gone as the gravity of the moment pulls us closer. "But I met you, didn't I?"
A small chuckle leaves my chest, but the humor dies out the second her brows shoot up in surprise. She looks at me, really looks at me, and it hits me like a physical weight—maybe it hasn't crossed her mind yet. Maybe she thinks getting stranded up here on my mountain was just bad luck. But looking down at her, with the storm howling outside and her entire world narrowed down to this room, it feels like fate. A quiet, undeniable gravity.
Spread out beneath me on the cushions, she doesn't have the slightest clue how beautiful she is. The firelight catches the soft curve of her throat, and the urge to touch her, to claim this quiet space between us, becomes too loud to ignore.
As she murmurs my name so sweetly, I hit my breaking point.
I lean down, closing the distance so slowly I can feel the exact moment her breath hitches against my lips. I don't rush her. I let the heat of my mouth hover over hers for a fraction of a second, giving her the chance to pull away.
When she doesn't, I brush my lips against hers.
It’s a soft, aching sigh of a kiss. A quiet reassurance after everything I just confessed about my past. I part my lips slightly, tasting the sweetness of her, my heart doing a slow, heavy thud against my ribs. It isn't demanding yet—it's a question, a gentle worship of the mouth that's been driving me crazy since she walked through my door.
Her fingers move from my cheek, a trail of fire grazing my throat, and she lets out a soft breath that parts her lips further, letting me in just a fraction deeper.
"Dawson..." Whispering my name ever so softly, her fingers coast over my chest before I feel the first hint of a push. "We shouldn't do this."
Pulling back takes a level of restraint that tears at my muscles, but the sudden, sharp fear of history repeating itself freezes me cold. I lean back, my chest heaving, searching her eyes for the rejection I’m terrifyingly familiar with.
I don't miss the misery in her eyes, as if turning me down is hurting her more than it is hurting me.
My hands act on their own, framing her jaw. Her skin is warm, a stark contrast to the cold dread pooling in my stomach. I feel the flutter of her pulse right beneath my thumb, beating just as fast as mine.
I thought that maybe she felt it too. This force pushing us together.
"I don't understand." Sounding stupid admitting the words, they're the truth. "Did I do something wrong?"
Quickly shaking her head, she shuts that down without giving me time to drown myself in my worries.
"It's me, I promise." Forcing out a sigh, her eyes lower to my chest where her hands are flat. "I want this, I really do. But... if we keep going, I'm not going to want to leave."
The admission hits me like a wave of heat. She isn't pushing me away because she doesn't care; she's pushing me away because she cares too much.
My gaze drops to her lips, watching the way they tremble slightly on an exhaled breath. I lean down just an inch, shifting my weight so the solid length of my chest presses flush against her palms, trapping her hands between our heartbeats.
"Then don’t," I growl, the last remnants of my control snapping into two.
I don't give her time to rethink it, time to let the logic of the outside world crawl back into this room. I lean down and claim her mouth, but the tentative sweetness from before is entirely gone. This is hungry. This is demanding.
This is me showing her what she does to me. Something like this isn't a flash in a pan. It's hot enough to last for a lifetime.
A ragged gasp catches in her throat, and I drink it in, tilting her chin up to deepen the angle. My hands slide from her jaw, burying deep into her hair, anchoring her to the cushions beneath us. I need her to feel the absolute truth of what she does to me—how she’s completely upended the quiet, lonely life I built up here.
Lucia doesn't fight me. With a soft, desperate whimper, her hands leave my chest and wrap around the back of my neck, pulling me down until there isn’t a single inch of empty space left between us. The heat of her body arches up into mine, a perfect, scorching fit that drives me out of my mind.
