Page 150 of Before You Fell

His gaze darkens. “Well, I guess it’s definitely yours.”

A beat.

“I keep wanting to touch you,” he says, his voice rough enough to scrape.

He brushes a strand of hair back from my face. His fingers barely touch my cheek and my eyes close before I give them permission to.

His thumb grazes my jaw like he knows he has all night and wants me to know it too.

“Wills,” he says.

My name in his mouth has always been a problem I don’t have a clean word for.

“Fuck,” he says, dragging it out of him like it costs something. “You have no fucking idea how badly I want you.”

My stomach clenches hard because the last time he touched me, I let myself believe it meant something. That maybe this time was different. That I wasn’t just the girl he came back to when everything else went quiet.

His lips brush mine.

Not a kiss. Not yet. Just his mouth touching mine like a question he isn’t sure he should ask. There is so much restraint and it’s so much more dangerous than urgency because it means he is choosing this. One breath at a time.

His breath catches against my lips, and the sound goes straight through me. Heat spreads from the center of my chest and moves south fast, and I know I’m completely screwed.

His forehead drops to mine and neither of us moves.

“Tell me to fucking stop,” he says, rough and quiet. “And I will.”

I close my eyes. “Phoenix.”

“Wills.”

His mouth comes back to mine.

This time, I meet him. Every sensible thought I have dissolves on contact. Logic just… leaves. And the part of me that knows better, the part that sat in group sessions and talked about patterns, self-destruction, and the difference between what we want and what we need, is no match for Phoenix’s mouth at three in the morning.

I know I shouldn’t kiss him, but I do it anyway.

The kiss deepens slowly, as if both of us are afraid that one wrong move will bring the whole ugly past crashing into the room. His hand tightens on my waist, then immediately loosens as he checks himself. My fingers curl into his shirt, and I drag him closer because if he wants to be careful, that’s fine, but I’m done pretending my body doesn’t know exactly where it wants him.

He groans against my mouth. The sound is rough, hungry, and barely controlled. It goes through me like a live wire.

Phoenix’s mouth moves over mine with heat and want. His tongue slides against mine, and my body wakes up so fast it’s embarrassing.

His fingers thread through my hair. He pulls my head back and I gasp.

He smirks against my lips. “God, I love that sound. I want to hear every filthy version of it before this night is done.”

Heat detonates in my pussy, dragging a pulse through me that makes my thighs press together before I can stop them.

He pulls back enough to speak against my mouth. “Tell me to stop if this isn’t what you want.”

I open my eyes. “I’m tired of telling myself I don’t want you.”

“That’s not an answer.” His jaw clenches.

“It is.”

“No.” His thumb moves at my waist—a small stroke that is somehow more obscene than a hand between my thighs. “Not tonight. Not with this. I need the words, Wills.”