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My eyes sting.

Which is embarrassing and unacceptable and apparently unavoidable.

Tristan sees it immediately.

His face softens.

“If you hate it,” he says, “we get back in the car and I take you somewhere else. No pressure. No guilt. You say the word and we’re gone.”

I let out a shaky breath and look past him at the hotel, at the coast, at the whole impossible scene spread in front of me like a dare from the universe.

Then I look back at him.

“No,” I say softly.

His brows lift the slightest bit.

I step closer.

Close enough to feel his breath.

Close enough that if I tipped forward one inch, my mouth would brush his.

“I don’t hate it.”

Relief flashes through him so fast it nearly looks like pain.

Good. He deserves a second of suffering.

I lift a hand and smooth it over the front of his shirt, because now that I understand what he’s done, what this is, I need to touch him or I might actually combust right here in the hotel drive.

“This is…” I stop and try again. “This is insane.”

A little smile.

“Yeah.”

“This is too much.”

“Probably.”

“And I definitely want to kiss you right now.”

His jaw tightens.

“I’m aware.”

I smile then, shaky and helpless and more gone for him than I have ever been in my life.

“This must be what love is.”

The words slip out before I can stop them.

His whole face changes.

Every bit of humor vanishes.

Every practiced, pretty-boy layer gone with it.