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“It leaves us exactly where we should’ve been all along. No more in-between. No more hiding. No more acting like we’re just friends. I won’t let you keep running from what’s already yours.”

“Ryder…” I shook my head, my chest tight. “This is actually insane.”

“I’ve never claimed to be sane,” he murmured, leaning in, his body brushing mine and stealing what was left of my breath. “But when it comes to you? I’ve never seen clearer.” His words wrapped around me, sharp and reverent all at once.

“After last night, I knew I needed to come here for three things. To make sure you were okay. To tell you this is happening and remind you who you belong to.”

I pressed a hand to my chest like I could steady the chaos inside. “I don’t get a say in this?”

His eyes didn’t waver. “No.”

“No?” I echoed.

“What is there to say?” His hands moved to my waist, fingers digging in just enough to ground me—or trap me. He pressed me back against the nearest surface, his body caging mine completely. “Tell me you don’t love me the same way I’ve always loved you. Tell me you regret kissing me. Tell me you don’t want this, that you don’t feel me in your fucking bones,” he demanded, his hands sliding up to cup my face, holding me steady. “Lie to me, Sass.”

I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.

I’d never been any good at lying to him, and he knew it.

Still… “You have a girlfriend,” I whispered, the words brittle, my last pathetic shield.

“I’ll handle her when the time’s right.”

The words came out like a death sentence.

“So you’re just stringing her along until then?”

I tried to twist away, but he wouldn’t let me. His grip only tightened, his thumbs stroking my jaw in a touch so tender it felt cruel. “You know me, Sass. You know nothing I do is without reason,” he murmured, his forehead dropping to mine. “You have forty-eight hours, give or take, to process.” His voice grew quiet, almost gentle, but beneath it was that dark, unyielding edge. “After that, I start making moves for us. Our future.”

I didn’t know what to say.

I hadn’t seen this coming, but I also wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t so oblivious that I couldn’t feel it, the invisible string coiling between us, pulling tighter with every shared secret, every almost, and every moment we pretended we weren’t already each other’s, knotting us into something neither of us fully understood but both of us needed.

“You don’t have to be afraid of this,” he promised, his voice low, like a vow meant only for me. “I don’t want anything but to be yours. Only yours.”

I wasn’t afraid of him.

I was afraid of what we’d risk losing if I let myself fall completely, the way I already wanted to. But as he stood there, his eyes burning into mine like I was the only thing in the universe worth seeing, every argument I’d built crumbled at my feet. I wanted every twisted, possessive, beautiful part of him. I already loved him, ruthless edges and all. I always had.

And he was right.

We couldn’t keep spinning in this endless orbit. Stalling, colliding, ripping each other apart just to put each other back together again. I swallowed hard, my pulse thrumming like a war drum in my ears. In that moment, I realized that if I stepped forward, there would be no turning back, and a part of me already knew I wouldn’t survive stepping away.

“Why forty-eight hours?” I latched onto it like a lifeline. Something to hold onto while everything else felt like it was shifting beneath my feet.

His fingers brushed a strand of hair from my cheek.

“I want to do this right. You overthink everything, and there are things I need to handle first. Things that'll silence the doubts you already have, and the ones I know you’ll invent before this becomes official.”

“I’m not that bad,” I said, half-defensive, half-teasing, though my voice betrayed how hard my heart was pounding.

He gave me a look, knowing and laced with something unreadable. The ‘things’ he needed to handle sounded ominous, but I didn’t ask him to explain. I knew it was better that I didn’t have all the details.

“I don’t completely understand… but I trust you.”

A slow, crooked smile curved across his mouth. “That’s all I need.”

He traced the pad of his thumb along my jaw. “Does this mean you’re finally done denying this? Or do I need to be clearer?”

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