Page 99 of Holding On To Good

He was stripping away her protective layers. Methodically peeling them back, one-by-one, exposing her truths. Revealing her secrets.

“Did it for you?” he murmured, and when she opened her eyes, he was even closer, the hand that’d touched her now pressed against the wall beside head.

Her gaze dipped—just for a moment and completely of its own accord—to his mouth before she managed to jerk it back to his eyes. “Wha—what?”

“Did it stop for you?” he whispered. “The wanting?”

I’ve wanted you since I was sixteen. It never stopped.

His earlier words, the significance of them, washed over her. Questions swirled in her head, but she couldn’t give voice to them. There was too much there to unpack. Way too much to dig up and sift through.

But more than that, she was afraid that whatever she might ask would give too much away.

Was terrified that whatever answer he gave would change too much between them.

“Willow?”

Unable to stop herself, she shook her head yet again, the movement slow. Deliberate. But this time, it wasn’t a denial. Wasn’t a rejection.

It was a confession.

He drew the hand at his side up her arm, the tips of his fingers grazing her skin. Settling that hand on the other side of her head, he leaned forward, his arms caging her. His head descended and she let her eyes drift closed.

Only to have them fly open when he gently rubbed his cheek against hers, his beard wiry against her jaw, his lips soft as they moved along the outer curve of her ear, his breath warm as he spoke quietly.

“Say it.”

She should put a stop to this immediately. End this madness now before it became too late.

But his words, his touch, had pushed them past the point of no return.

Her weakness for him kept them there.

“It didn’t stop,” she whispered.

He lifted his head, gaze searching.

He wanted more than that, she knew. He wanted her to say, clearly and concisely—as clearly and concisely as he’d said to her—that she wanted him. But she couldn’t give those words to him. She’d kept them buried for too long, had piled on too many lies, too many secrets, and way too many fears to unearth them now.

She almost wished he would push for them. That he’d demand them. Then maybe she’d find the strength to stop this. But he didn’t push. He pressed, a subtle movement forward until the barest of inches separated them.

He didn’t demand. He waited, still and silent, for her consent. Because even though her back was against the wall—literally—even though he surrounded her, she was the one in control of what happened next.

“One kiss,” she murmured, her voice husky with longing. Unsteady with nerves. “Just one.”

One kiss—one real kiss, done when they were both stone-cold sober. One kiss was harmless.

“Just one?” he asked, somehow managing to invoke a hefty amount of amusement, skepticism and arrogance into two measly syllables. As if once he got his mouth on hers, she’d be begging him for more, more, more.

He might not be wrong.

Which was why she’d added the stipulation in the first place. “Just. One.”

“In that case,” he murmured, “I’d better make it count.”

Before she could figure out if that was a threat, a promise, or a harbinger of her own doom, he settled his mouth on hers.

This was no mashing of lips, there was no fumbling or awkwardness like when she’d kissed him two nights ago.

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