Page 70 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

I should let that go. But I don’t.

“Trust isn’t the issue,” I say, stepping closer again, close enough now that I can see the shift in her breathing. “Sustainability is. If we don’t build this correctly, if we don’t⁠—”

She shakes her head, cutting me off. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Turning something real into a business plan.”

I don’t have a response, which is rare. Dangerous. Because now I’m not thinking. I’m just reacting.

“You think that’s what I’m doing?” I ask.

“I think,” she says, holding my gaze, “you’re trying very hard not to feel anything you can’t control.”

That’s not wrong.

And the fact that she sees it, that easily, that clearly, that’s what does it, because all the control I’ve been holding onto feels thin.

Fragile.

Temporary.

“And what if I don’t want to control it?” I ask.

Her breath catches. “You do. You just said⁠—”

“I said I have to,” I correct, stepping into her space now without stopping myself. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Gabe—”

My lips crash against hers. Mid-sentence, mid-thought, cutting her off in a way that has nothing to do with control and everything to do with losing it.

Her breath catches against my mouth, and for a fraction of a second, I feel the exact point where this could stop.

It doesn’t, because she kisses me back.

My hand comes up to her face without permission from the part of me that usually runs things, fingers sliding into her hair, pulling her closer in a way that’s instinctive and far too rough to be considered careful. The other hand finds her waist, solid and warm under my palm, anchoring her to me as the kiss deepens without restraint.

She makes a small sound, barely there, and it hits in the part of my chest that I don’t have a name for.

The world narrows. I walk her back against the rough wall of the bar, deep in a shadow.

The bar, the noise, the entire structure of the night disappears until there’s nothing left but the way she responds to me. The way she shifts closer instead of pulling back. The way her hand comes up.

She needs something to hold onto, fingers catching in my shirt, grounding herself in the moment the same way I am.

It’s not controlled. It’s not careful. It’s immediate and consuming and far too intense for something that should’ve been a mistake.

I kiss her because I’ve already gone too far to pull back.

And that’s the problem.

Because I don’t stop when I should. I only stop when I have to.

It takes effort. Actual effort to pull back, to break the contact before it turns into something I can’t justify at all. When I do, it feels abrupt. Incomplete.

Wrong.