Page 72 of Even if You Fall

“Gray’s personality? Yeah, I’ll give you that,” he continued softly. “But he was still trying to get you to go home with him until he realized I was battling things I didn’t wanna feel for the girl I couldn’t trust.”

I sucked in a strained breath when his thumb traced along my bottom lip and felt every one of my precariously built walls crumble when his stare followed the same pattern before meeting mine.

“Everything about you has driven me crazy from that first day,” he admitted like he still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “From your telling eyes and the way you blush, to your distracting smiles and the freckles I find myself counting whenever you’re near, to your ridiculous heels and shirts.”

“I love my shirts,” I muttered.

“Never said I didn’t.” The corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. “No matter how much I wanted to believe your reason for forcing that mask of joy was pure, I pushed against that belief and held tighter to my suspicions. Sure I was onlyseeing what I wanted because I was falling for a girl I’d been set on hating. And no matter how much I want to, I still don’t know how to fully trust you because it’s ingrained in me not to trust someone who’s hiding something. But you’re right, you don’t owe me whatever’s in your past.”

I was definitely dreaming.

And my swooning, melting-into-a-puddle self was going to be so mad when I woke up to angry, golden eyes.

“Now you know.” He swallowed thickly, a look crossing his face as if he just realized how vulnerable it was to have laid himself bare. “No matter what I wanted to feel or think, I couldn’t continue to.”

“This isn’t real.” The words tumbled free without permission, but just as shock and a hint of frustration started bleeding from him, I awkwardly and embarrassingly added, “Right? It can’t be. I’m...I’m gonna wake up soon, and this will all have...you know...”—I waved a hand in the barely-there space between us—“not happened.”

A wry smirk slowly tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Do you often dream about me, Bubbles?”

“N-no,” I stammered, the obvious lie making his smirk widen.

His other hand slowly wove into my hair, tipping my head back so he could search my eyes. “If this were a dream, would you stop me from kissing you?”

A shuddering breath left me. “No.”

He dipped his head so close that I became his air, and he became mine, but he held me achingly still, just a breath apart. “And since it isn’t?”

Seconds passed in tense anticipation before I tipped my head up, closing the last of the distance between us, and felt my soul come alive at that first brush of contact. The smallest press of mylips against his, and already I knew this was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

There was no chill clinging to my spine. The nausea I’d been fighting since the night before was blissfully absent as wings took flight in my stomach, making me feel lighter than I had in—well, ever. And the only thing on my mind as Adam slowly, teasingly parted my lips with his own, was this kiss.

Not a worry that I probably shouldn’t be doing this. Not a wonder ofhowwe had gotten there. Not a suspicion that something was off.

Nothing had ever felt as right as kissing Adam Thatcher.

A shiver ran through my body and curled through my stomach when he effortlessly took control, drawing me closer and deepening the kiss until I was dizzy.

Dizzy off the way his mouth moved against mine. Dizzy off the way his muscled body felt pulling me against him. Dizzy off him.

Wait, no. I’m—“Dizzy,” I gasped and reluctantly broke away from the kiss when I realized it wasn’t just the kiss or the man making me lightheaded. “I’m dizzy,” I breathlessly repeated as I clutched at his forearm and shirt to keep myself grounded.

An apology left Adam like a curse as he leaned far enough away to search my eyes. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, no,” I said weakly and just barely remembered to stop before I shook my head. “I’m fine. I?—”

“Stop,” he said on an exasperated laugh. When I finally managed to focus on him, his tone shifted to something more serious. “Even when you have your mask in full force, I can see when something’s wrong. So, when I ask how you are, tell me. When you aren’t okay, don’t try to convince me you are.”

My grip on his shirt tightened at the genuine plea.

Okay.

The word was right there, on the tip of my tongue. It was such a small word and should’ve been so easy to say, but the words, “I can’t,” left me instead.

Dejection and a sliver of frustration filled his eyes, but Adam forced himself to nod as if he’d known to expect this.

“I-I need water,” I said as I shakily released my hold on him, my throat suddenly so dry as everything I’d kept inside for nearly my entire life bubbled to the surface.

Because I realized Iwantedhim to know. And even though Adam saw me in a way no one ever had—even though he could already see past the mask—it didn’t make it any less terrifying to bare myself in this way.

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