Total pages in book: 186
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
“Do you regret what happened between us at the quarry?”
I didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. We danced around it long enough.
That freaking kiss.
Even now, I could still feel the heat of it, the stunned silence that followed for half a second before he took over.
I swallowed. “I… no.” And then, because I had zero self-preservation, I kept going. “You’re a good kisser.”
He laughed quietly and low, not surprised that I said it, but more amused. My cheeks flushed. I buried my face in his shoulder. “Why do I talk?”
He looked down at me with a look that was steady, patient, and dangerous in its own way. I adjusted and stared up at the ceiling, the memory tugging at the edges of my mind. It had started as a dumb social media challenge. Pretend to kiss your best friend and see how they react.
We never even made it to the pretending.
I told Roxxi I wasn’t going to do it, that I’d chicken out for sure. She dared me anyway, like the redheaded chaos demon she was. Two days later, she bombed her own challenge, telling me Xander looked at her like a sister and practically flung her off the couch when she leaned in. He didn’t speak to her for a solid hour afterward.
Mine happened at the quarry we always drove out to on late-night car rides. Just us, sitting in his truck at 2:30 in the morning. The sky was blanketed in stars, soft rain tapping against the windshield. The world felt hushed, and that was one of the many reasons I loved that place. I kissed him once, then told him about the challenge, attempting to laugh it off. He took my face in his hands so gently I forgot how to breathe—and kissed me again. Deeply. Technically, we kissed three times. One with me straddling him.
After he drove me home, we said goodnight like what we’d done hadn’t changed everything between us. The second I got to my room, I unraveled. The rest was history, and me making dumbass choices. It felt like forever ago, and also like it had happened yesterday. Now, here we were. His arm around me, that same gravity pulling me in, like it always had.
Unspoken didn’t mean forgotten.
“You want to know what that kiss was like for me?” he asked, voice low and rough.
I nodded against him.
“You were laughing. Telling me about that stupid challenge…” He paused. “All I could think about was how fucking beautiful you looked with stars in your eyes. So I kissed you again,” he said simply, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “And for the first time, everything made sense. That’s how it was always supposed to be.” His gaze drifted to the ceiling, as though he could still see that moment painted above us.
“I didn’t want to let you go,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower. “But if I didn’t, I was going to say things I wasn’t supposed to say yet. Do things I wasn’t supposed to do. I’ve kissed other people, but that was the first—and only—kiss that ruined me.”
My eyes burned, my throat tightening around the rush of emotions.
He was so… mine.
The other half of every memory that ever mattered. His name had been stitched into the lining of my heart long before this moment.
“You’re looking at me like you finally get it,” he murmured, gaze dropping to my mouth before flicking back up. His hand lifted, cupping my jaw, thumb gliding softly along my cheekbone. “You’re not gonna stop me this time, are you?”
I shook my head; my voice lost to the roar of my pulse. “No.”
“Good,” he breathed, the word more like a vow than a relief. “Because I have a promise to uphold.”
Then he kissed me, and everything else fell away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SANJANA
His lips moved against mine reverently. Controlled. He was making me feel every second of it. When we finally pulled apart, it was slow with a shared breath that lingered between us. His eyes swept over my face, then he kissed me again.
Deeper this time.
His tongue swept in, and I almost forgot how to breathe. It wasn’t rushed or clumsy. It was perfection tethered by a restraint unraveling after being wound too tight for too long. My fingers slid into his hair, still damp from his shower, soft between my hands. He groaned into my mouth when I tugged. The sound shot straight to my chest, to the place where I’d kept every aching want buried.
I shifted closer. His hand moved down my back, steady and warm, anchoring me like he always had, only this time it wasn’t gentle. It was possessive. I knew I shouldn’t let this happen, but his touch lit a match inside me I couldn’t put out. My pulse spiked as his fingers slipped beneath the hem of my shirt, skimming bare skin like he already knew where I burned.