Page 107 of The Cabin

He understands my intention almost immediately as I crawl over to him. He lets me straddle him. A little switch up. He always gets to woo me like this. Now it’s my turn.

Rubbing my hands up and down his chest I watch him devour me. Every inch of me. He’s all smoke and smolder and googly eyes. “Why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I what?”

“Why didn’t you kiss me? Any of those times. Any of the times you wanted to.” I watch his eyes close. His body tense. I watch his eyebrows knit together and I see his teeth come out to worry on his bottom lip. His breathing is different. Everything about him has changed. “Grayson?” My fingers stroke his cheek.

A very deep sigh leaves his gorgeous chest and he sits up against the headboard. I stay in his lap and now we’re eye level.

He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me like he’s trying to memorize me. His hands hold me firmly. Strong enough that I get the sense he’s worried about me leaving.

So, this is it, isn’t it? The moment he lets me down easy. The moment he tells me he didn’t kiss me because he didn’t think I could handle it. That I would make more out of it than it is. Okay. I knew this was coming. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

His mouth turns into a flat line for a second or two. Then he shakes his head and speaks. “I didn’t, uh, kiss you because I didn’t think –”

“It’s okay, Grayson. You don’t have to. You didn’t want me getting the wrong idea. I get it.” I try to put some space between us, but he holds on tighter.

“That’s not why, Sol. Fuck.” I can’t believe how nervous he seems. Like he’s anticipating the worst. “At first, I didn’t kiss you because I didn’t want to scare you off. I was crazy about you extremely quickly and I think that scared me as much as it would’ve scared you. And then…” Big breath. He’s acting like he’s about to walk the plank. “I could tell this wasn’t the same for you as it was for me.”

“That’s what I’m saying, I understand you wanted to keep things casual. You don’t have to do all this.”

He lets his head fall against my chest. It’s quiet, all I can hear is our breathing. “That’s not it,” he murmurs across my skin.

I wait, rubbing soothing circles along his back.

“I couldn’t kiss you,” he whispers. His face is still nuzzled into me and I try to bring him back up so I can see his face, but he doesn’t move.

“Grayson. Hey. Look at me.”

He slowly shakes his head back and forth, kissing each step of the way. “I was following your lead. I had tried over and over again to show you how much I cared about you. How serious I was about you. How badly I wanted you. I put feeler after feeler out, and they all came back empty.”

“What do you mean? I love being intimate with you.”

His lips press down on my skin for a very long time. “You only admitted that yesterday, Sol. I thought you were just having fun. That I was here and that it was convenient.”

My hands gently pull on his hair. “Grayson,pleaselook at me.” I watch his shoulders move with his breath. His grip tightens one more time as he lifts his head up. He looks devastated. “Why do you look so sad? Iamhaving fun with you. But not just because it’s convenient.”

“This is more than fun for me, Sol.”

Validation. Okay, he needs validation. I can do that. “Oh! Sorry. I didn’t elaborate. I’m having so much fun with you. You make me feel so good and I really like being around you.” Those are safe things to say, right?

His head tips back and his hands fall to his sides. I actually feel really empty without them on my body.

His eyes come back to mine and all I see is defeat. “No, Sol. I didn’t kiss you because I didn’t know how to kiss you without getting my heart broken. I had decided that I’d rather have you on your terms than not have you at all. But I couldn’t kiss you. I knew if I kissed you that it would absolutely crush me when you walked away.”

I blink a few times. Sorry. Uh. Sorry…what? I don’t think my brain has come fully back online yet.

“Do you know when I wanted to kiss you the most?” I manage to shake my head. “Right now.” A breath. “When I tell you how goddamn in love with you I am.”

Every single thought escapes from my mind. There is just empty space. Completely silent until, ‘so goddamn in love with you,’ starts playing over and over and over. On a loop. I’m frozen.

I watch him say goodbye to me with his eyes. It is seeping from every pore, it’s all across his face. He genuinely thinks this is where things end. This mangenuinelythinks I somehow survived a month in his presence without falling for him.

“I one hundred percent respect you not wanting to continue things. But I had to tell you. I needed you to know. I don’t know –”

My lips come crashing down over his. My hands thread in his hair and I hold him to me. I make him open for me. I put every single breath I have left into kissing him. It takes him a second to react. And then he’s cementing me to his body. Holding so tight I can feel my lungs fighting to expand. His head moves back. He wants to say something, but I grip him so fiercely my fingers hurt. I do my absolute best to put every single thing I’m feeling into kissing him. I lick and suck and bite and mold us together.

It’s only when I feel like I’ve communicated what I needed to communicate with my lips that I pull back. His eyes are wild, flooded with anguish. “Sol…I don’t –” I silence him with another kiss. “Sol...” And another.

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