Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 35133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
For a heartbeat, he freezes, completely still, like he’s deciding something.
Then his hand tightens at my waist, drawing me fully against him, and everything shifts.
The kiss deepens, slower this time, more controlled, his mouth moving against mine with a steady precision that turns something impulsive into something consuming. There’s nothing hesitant about him now, no distance, no restraint, just heat and focus and the undeniable feeling of being pulled into something that has its own gravity.
“Careful,” he murmurs against my mouth, the word rough, carrying both warning and promise.
I don’t pull back.
“Then stop me.”
That’s all it takes.
His hand slides higher along my back, his fingers threading into my hair, guiding the angle, deepening the kiss in a way that steals the breath from my lungs. The tension from outside, the fear and the adrenaline, all of it folds into this, into the way my body reacts to his, into the way I lean into him without hesitation.
This isn’t fear anymore. It’s something else entirely, something reckless, something I probably should stop, but I don’t. My hands tighten instead, pulling him closer because I need something stronger than the memory of the man in the woods, something solid and real.
Him.
His breathing’s heavier now, his control still there but thinner at the edges, stretched just enough that I can feel it, and that does something to me, something dangerous, because I know he doesn’t lose control easily. But right now, he’s close.
“You don’t get to—” I start, but the words fall apart when his mouth moves against mine again, cutting off whatever argument I thought I had.
“Too late,” he murmurs.
My back presses harder into the counter as he leans in, his body steady and unyielding, filling the space completely until there’s nothing left but this moment, this heat, this pull I can’t seem to resist. His hand tightens slightly in my hair, just enough to make me inhale sharply, just enough to send a reaction through me that I can’t ignore.
“Still think you’re in control?” he asks, his voice low.
I force myself to meet his gaze, even as my breathing refuses to steady. “Yes.”
The lie hangs there between us, obvious.
Something shifts in his expression, something darker, more certain, and instead of calling me on it, he leans in again, slower this time, giving me the space to stop him.
I don’t.
The second kiss is different, deliberate, measured, and somehow that makes it worse, because this time I feel everything. The weight of his hand at my waist, the subtle movement of his thumb, the way his body holds mine exactly where he wants it, and the way I let him.
My fingers tighten at his neck again, my body leaning into his without resistance, like I’ve already made the decision I’ve been trying to avoid since the moment I got here. The tension doesn’t break, it tightens, pulls sharper, until I pull back just enough to breathe, just enough to think.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” I say, the words coming too quickly, like I need to say them before I lose whatever control I have left.
Ethan doesn’t move. His hand stays at my waist, his gaze locked on mine, steady and certain.
“It means everything,” he says.
The words land with weight, with certainty, like there was never a question.
My pulse stutters. “That’s not—”
“It is.”
Silence stretches between us again, but it’s different now, deeper, heavier, something that feels like it’s already shifted too far to go back. I shake my head, even as my body betrays me by staying exactly where it is, still close, still caught in the space between us.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then lifts again. “I don’t decide. I just see it.”
My breath catches, because I know what he sees, because I feel it too.
“You want to know why I’m so bossy?”
“Yes,” I answer.
He exhales slowly, like he’s reaching for something he doesn’t usually let himself touch. “Because something happened to my sister a long time ago. She’s okay now, lives in the city with her family, but she wasn’t always that way. She had a boyfriend in high school, and when she broke up with him, he didn’t take it well. He followed her, spread rumors, posted photos around the school, tapped on her window late at night. He terrorized her.”
My chest tightens. “That sounds terrifying.”
“He was,” he says quietly. “Until I did something about it.”
“What did you do?”
“What I had to.” His jaw tightens with the memory. “I’d do it again. I should’ve gone to jail for assault and battery, but I was only seventeen, and everyone in town knew what he was doing to her. I think a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief. I rearranged his face late one night, broke an arm and a leg. I looked at that guy and just saw red.”