Page 160 of Tag

I blinked, startled by the detail.

“You always fall asleep first,” he added, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “That night…I hardly slept at all. I couldn’t with you beside me like that. You looked so damn peaceful, Sass. And I remember thinking, right then, I could sit and watch over you like that for the rest of my life.”

I wasn’t sure why that made me so emotional.

Maybe it was the look in his eyes. Maybe it was the way his voice wrapped around the words like a vow. Or maybe it was just him. He’d always been by my side. Even when I didn’t deserve him. Even when I pushed him away.

“I’ve really missed you,” slipped out before I could stop it.

The silence that followed stretched between heartbeats and memories. Ryder didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling, his expression unreadable in the soft flicker of fireplace light. His bare chest rose and fell, steady. His arm stayed around me,holding me close. Finally, he spoke. It was so quiet and certain, it made my chest ache.

“Not anywhere near as much as I’ve been missing you.”

I shifted closer, snuggling into his side until there was no space left between us. My leg brushed his, my hand rested against his ribs, and I tucked my head beneath his chin. It was as close as I could get without climbing on top of him. His body curved around mine like instinct. As if this was always where I was meant to be.

“Do you regret what happened between us at the quarry?”

I didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. We danced around it long enough.

That freaking kiss.

Even now, I could still feel the heat of it, the stunned silence that followed for half a second before he took over.

I swallowed. “I… no.” And then, because I had zero self-preservation, I kept going. “You’re a good kisser.”

He laughed quietly and low, not surprised that I said it, but more amused. My cheeks flushed. I buried my face in his shoulder. “Why do I talk?”

He looked down at me with a look that was steady, patient, and dangerous in its own way. I adjusted and stared up at the ceiling, the memory tugging at the edges of my mind. It had started as a dumb social media challenge. Pretend to kiss your best friend and see how they react.

We never even made it to the pretending.

I told Roxxi I wasn’t going to do it, that I’d chicken out for sure. She dared me anyway, like the redheaded chaos demon she was. Two days later, she bombed her own challenge, telling me Xander looked at her like a sister and practically flung her off the couch when she leaned in. He didn’t speak to her for a solid hour afterward.

Mine happened at the quarry we always drove out to on late-night car rides. Just us, sitting in his truck at 2:30 in the morning. The sky was blanketed in stars, soft rain tapping against the windshield. The world felt hushed, and that was one of the many reasons I loved that place. I kissed him once, then told him about the challenge, attempting to laugh it off. He took my face in his hands so gently I forgot how to breathe—and kissed me again. Deeply. Technically, we kissed three times. One with me straddling him.

After he drove me home, we said goodnight like what we’d done hadn’t changed everything between us. The second I got to my room, I unraveled. The rest was history, and me making dumbass choices. It felt like forever ago, and also like it had happened yesterday. Now, here we were. His arm around me, that same gravity pulling me in, like it always had.

Unspoken didn’t mean forgotten.

“You want to know what that kiss was like for me?” he asked, voice low and rough.

I nodded against him.

“You were laughing. Telling me about that stupid challenge…” He paused. “All I could think about was how fucking beautiful you looked with stars in your eyes. So I kissed you again,” he said simply, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “And for the first time, everything made sense. That’s how it was always supposed to be.” His gaze drifted to the ceiling, as though he could still see that moment painted above us.

“I didn’t want to let you go,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower. “But if I didn’t, I was going to say things I wasn’t supposed to say yet. Do things I wasn’t supposed to do. I’ve kissed other people, but that was the first—and only—kiss that ruined me.”

My eyes burned, my throat tightening around the rush of emotions.

He was so… mine.

The other half of every memory that ever mattered. His name had been stitched into the lining of my heart long before this moment.

“You’re looking at me like you finally get it,” he murmured, gaze dropping to my mouth before flicking back up. His hand lifted, cupping my jaw, thumb gliding softly along my cheekbone. “You’re not gonna stop me this time, are you?”

I shook my head; my voice lost to the roar of my pulse. “No.”

“Good,” he breathed, the word more like a vow than a relief. “Because I have a promise to uphold.”

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