Page 76 of Fall Into Me

“Let me kiss you.”

The words were out of my mouth before I realized I’d even spoken them. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips, how they parted in surprise. Her sharp intake of breath. That was definitely a thought that should have stayed inside my head, but I’d always been all in where Calista Grey was concerned.

My tongue dragged along my bottom lip as I tried to remember—really remember—what it felt like to kiss her. To have her kiss me back the way she used to.

Like I was hers.

I was seconds from crossing a line, I knew that, but my grip around her waist tightened. That milk-and-honey scent of hers was everywhere, pulling me in deeper.

“No one’s here to see it,” she murmured.

Her eyes were on my mouth, and I saw a flicker of those walls around her shudder in the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the twitch of her fingers that were splayed on my chest. In my head,I was charging at those walls. Clawing at them, roaring at them in fury. Roaring at her to let me in.

“Doesn’t matter,” I rasped. So insanely desperate for her I didn’t care how clearly she could see it.

I moved closer to her, my mouth watering at the idea of tasting her. Of how it would feel to take that full bottom lip of hers between my teeth. The sound I knew she’d make the moment I did.

“That’s not the rule.”

“Rose—”

“I—you need to let me go, Fane.”

Her voice was weak, and I knew if I pushed a little harder, she would relent.

I closed my eyes and released the breath I’d been holding. Letting her go was something I tried to do many times over.

I uncurled my arm from her and stepped away because I didn’t want her torelent. I didn’t want her to give in, like it was crossing a line she had drawn in the ground for herself. I wanted her to choose me. To pick me because she wanted to, not because I pushed her.

So, I forced a smirk, pulling on the mask we’d both been wearing since I got here. This place of trading jabs and barbed words felt safer than the raw, open wounds underneath.

“I also fixed all the sagging eaves around the house and cleared out your gutters. You had alotof shit in your gutters.”

“Hey!”

She wasnothappy at that one.

“Whoever does them doesn’t do a good job.” I crossed my arms, knowing the dig would hit because I had a pretty good idea of who did them.

“I do a perfectly fine job.” She scowled at me, and I’d take that look any day over the broken one that had taken over her face when she told me to let her go.

“Well, your ‘perfectly fine’ job sucks.” I was being a dick, and I’d expected her to push back, but I hadn’t expected what actually came out of her mouth.

“You try falling off a ladder from way up there, and then try to get back up.” Her mouth snapped shut, her teeth making an audible click from the ferocity of it. It could have been heard from space.

“You…” I sucked in a deep breath to collect myself. It didn’t fucking work. “Youfelloff a fucking ladder?”

“No.” Her answer came too quick, not to mention she’d literally just it.

“Calista, you—are you—what?” My brain short-circuited, filling with image after image of her crumpled on the ground, hurt and alone, because she was too damn stubborn to ask for help. My stomach churned, the guilt a heavy, nauseating weight, because I knew.

I was the reason she’d been alone in the first place. Despite every decision I made being so that she wasn’t. So that she didn’t have to worry about shit like this. She was supposed to be home with her parents, with her sister.

Not here. Not like this.

“Were you hurt?” The question came out rough and heavy, my voice betraying every ounce of the fear crawling up my throat. I couldn’t look her in the eye because I knew—I knew—the answer was going to rip me apart.

She was silent for too long before she answered my question. “I—”

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