Page 113 of Your Place or Mine

I kissed him because I wanted to feelalive.

And maybe, so did he.

He took a step closer, eyes locked on mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Callum—”

“I mean it,” he said, his voice low. “You didn’t force your way in. You didn’t break anything that wasn’t already cracked. I kissed you back because I wanted to. Because I’ve wanted to since the moment you marched into my bar with that look in your eyes like you were going to dismantle my world.”

“You thought I’d ruin it,” I said.

“No,” he admitted. “I thought you’d ruinme.”

God.

His words hit somewhere deep, sharp, and aching.

“And now?” I asked.

He looked down at his hands. At the ring still threaded on the chain around his neck.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I know I feel things I haven’t in years when I'm around you. Good things. Hard things. Real things.”

“Isn’t that worth something?”

“It is,” he said quietly. “And that’s the problem.”

My throat ached. “Because it feels like you’re betraying her?”

He didn’t answer.

But he didn’t have to.

Because I saw it in his face.

“I’m not asking you to forget her,” I whispered.

He met my eyes again.

“I’m just asking you not to forgetyourself.”

The wind stirred the trees. The graveyard around us felt suspended in time. He stood inches from me, heart locked behind a door he didn’t know how to open.

I didn’t try to touch him.

I just stood beside him, the weight of grief and want tangled in the air between us.

He looked toward the grave one more time. And then, finally, back at me.

“Let me walk you away,” he said quietly.

And I knew then…whatever we were?

It wasn’t over.

But it would hurt like hell before we figured out what it meant.

He helped me into his vehicle.

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