Page 9 of Surfer's Paradise

His gaze dropped, tracked it.

The delicate slope of her neck. The way her pulse fluttered just beneath her skin.

His grip tightened.

“What the fuck is going on with you?” he demanded, his mouth too close to hers, his voice too thick with everything he didn’t understand. “Talk to me, Rosie.”

Nothing.

Just her sharp, blue stare cutting into him, her lips parting slightly, like she wanted to say something—

And then the tilt of her chin.

That infuriating, impossible stubborn tilt.

She wasn’t afraid of him.

She wasn’t backing down.

And fuck—

His blood went hot.

Isaac felt it hit all at once. The smell of her perfume—warm, light, familiar. The way her glasses slipped slightly down her nose, the way her body curved between his arms, the way her breath shivered in the space between them.

His fingers flexed against the rough brick behind her.

His jaw clenched.

He shouldn’t—

Fuck it.

His mouth crashed onto hers.

No warning. No space.

Just heat, hunger, need.

Just years of ignoring something he’d never let himself feel.

Rosie made a small sound against his lips— soft, startled, something that could have been a protest but melted too quickly.

Her hands shot up— maybe to push him away, maybe to pull him in.

Didn’t matter.

Isaac took.

Took the taste of her. Took the soft, warm press of her mouth, the way she gasped when his tongue slid past her lips.

Took every single fucking thing he hadn’t realized he wanted until now.

Her fingers gripped his shirt.

His hands dropped—curved to her waist, to the slope of her hips, dragging her closer.

Tighter.

---