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The words hang in the narrow alley between us.

His expression doesn't shut down.

Doesn't go careful or distant or controlled.

He just looks at me with something raw and open in his face that I've never seen before. Something that looks like it costs him.

He steps closer.

My back presses harder against the stone.

His hand comes up to my face. Thumb brushing tears from my cheek. Gentle in a way that makes me cry harder because tenderness from this man has always been my undoing.

"You are going to find it," he says. Low. Certain. "You are going to let someone in. You are going to have everything your parents had. Because you're—" He stops. His jaw tightens. His thumb stills on my cheek. "You're extraordinary, Aria. You deserve someone who sees that every single day and never lets you forget it."

My chest cracks open.

Because he's talking about someone else. Someone who isn't him.

And I can see in his eyes that it's killing him to say it.

"Everett—"

"Fuck… Aria… I want that man to be me."

"You do?" I ask, hope blooming.

"I’m just terrified I’m going to kill your spark. I can’t live with you losing yourself in the man I am. I’m not easy to deal with, I’m demanding, my job is…"

"I know… I know all of that."

"You’re finally painting. What if being with me killed that?"

"If being with you kills my spark? Are you serious?" I ask as if he hasn’t been paying attention. "Everett, I haven’t painted in over three years since my mom died. I only started now… because you gave me a safe place to do it. You gave my spark back to me."

And then he kisses me. Desperately.

There's no softness or carefulness in his kiss. I match him need for need—his hands on all of me, my hands gripping wildly at his shoulders, his neck, his hair... anything I can use to pull him closer.

His mouth is warm and tastes like pistachio and I almost laugh into the kiss because ten minutes ago we were sharing gelato and now his hands are sliding down my ribs and gripping my waist and pressing me harder into the stone wall behind me.

"Say it again," I whisper against his lips.

He pulls back just enough to look at me. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and there's nothing controlled about his face right now. Nothing careful. Nothing measured.

"I want that man to be me," he says. Quieter this time. Rougher. Like the words are costing him something he's been hoarding for months.

I pull his mouth back to mine.

His hands drop to my thighs. He lifts me like it's nothing—like I weigh nothing—and my legs wrap around his waist and my back scrapes against stone and I don't care. I don't care about anything except the heat of him pressed against me and the way his breathing has gone ragged against my neck.

My sundress is bunched between us. His hips press forward and I can feel how hard he is through his trousers and I roll against him deliberately, slowly, just to hear the sound he makes.

He groans into my throat. Low and rough and completely undone.

"Here?" I breathe.

His hand slides up the inside of my thigh. His fingers find the edge of my underwear and trace along it, just touching me through the thin fabric until my hips jerk forward on their own.