Page 88 of One and Only

For once, it was me.

And Greer, who’d stood from the step after I strode away, looked like she was about to fall over.

“You…” She shook her head. “You what?”

My blood thrummed fast and furious, I could hardly think from the rush of it through my ears.

The way it screamed her name as it raced through my veins.

I took one step closer. “You heard me,” I managed, doing my best to speak through gritted teeth. That tight lock of tension the most flimsy of leashes. The only thing holding me back.

Her chest heaved, her eyes wide and shockingly vulnerable. “Really?” she whispered. “You want to kiss me right now?”

More than that.

So much more than that.

My hands tightened into fists at my side, and she noticed, her big brown eyes snagging on the motion immediately. Her mouth fell open, a gentle O of surprise.

Then her gaze sought mine again. “Beckett,” she said, a slight pleading in her voice.

From what she’d told me last night, that she’d been awake when we both woke with my hands on her body, I damn well knew that I could smash through whatever line we’d erected. With greedy hands, I could snatch her close to me, be selfish with this feeling when it roared hot in my chest.

I closed my eyes.

She wouldn’t justlet me. There’d be no mild, meek allowance. No lukewarm permission.

She’d meet me there, jumping headfirst.

She’d toss kindling onto the flames, tipping over a full can of gasoline, and see how much damage we could do to each other.

And I knew that with every violent drumming of my pulse while we stood facing each other.

It was all so blurry in my head. Ever since I climbed into bed with her already there, soft and warm and sweet in sleep, the lines had faded into something insubstantial. And I didn’t do well without clarity, without knowing what was going to happen and feeling steady in that path.

So I took a step back and sucked in a great, cleansing breath.

“Greer,” I said, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “I have to … I have to bring Olive to Josie’s.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Now?”

I nodded.

Disappointment filled her eyes. There was no hiding it.

It should have had a cooling effect on how much I wanted her. But it didn’t. The desire was still there, sizzling under the surface and angry about being pushed aside. The strength of it, though it was still contained inside my own body, had the ability to knock my breath from my lungs.

Before this exact moment, anything I’d felt for another woman was so tepid, half the force of what had me wanting to cross those last few feet between us and slide my tongue against hers, test the way our bodies would feel wrapped tight around each other.

The sheer force of it was staggering—maybe because I hadn’t seen it coming.

Maybe because she was so fearless in the way she loved and did it without thinking. A natural protectiveness for the person who meant the most to me in the entire world. That she’d risk my anger, risk Josie’s, risk trouble with the school simply because Olive was sad—it was like a battering ram to whatever guard I’d been able to hold up with her.

And it was in that stunning level of surprise that I found a foothold of caution.

Because it couldn’t be the right way to do anything like this, no healthy foundation for any sort of relationship. We were already on shaky ground—lying to the people in our life as the bedrock of what we’d started.

I took a step back and exhaled heavily.

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