Page 53 of Zayrik

“You kissed me,” he said simply.

My head snapped up. “Don’t.”

“You did.”

“It was a mistake.” The lie tasted bitter.

His jaw ticked, but he didn’t stop. “Then why do your hands still shake?”

I curled them into fists, tucking them against me. Fighting the urge to reach for him. “I shouldn’t have done it,” I muttered. “I panicked.”

“You kissed me like your world was ending.”

“Because it was,” I snapped—louder than I meant to. The words echoing in the small space. “Itwasending.”

The quiet that followed was stinging. Breathless. Loaded with everything we weren’t saying.

I stood, too fast, the rush of blood to my head making everything spin. The movement brought me closer to him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough to remember exactly how it felt pressed against mine.

Zayrik watched me, his gaze steady. Dark blue eyes holding something that made my stomach flip. His voice came quieter now, rough around the edges. “You kissed me like you needed something to hold on to.”

I flattened my mouth, fighting the shiver his voice sent down my spine. “Don’t you dare make this something it’s not.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

I hated him in that moment. Not because he was cruel. Not because he was wrong.

Because he wasn’t.

Because he was seeing everything I was trying to bury. Every secret, every fear, every desperate want I couldn’t afford to feel.

My shoulders sagged. “I can’t afford this.”

“This?” he echoed, the word soft but intense.

“You,” I said, eyes locked on his. The confession burned in my throat. “This... connection. This pull. I don’t have space in my life for someone who’ll make me forget how to survive.”Someone who makes me want more than just making it through another day.

“You think I’d let you forget how?” he asked, stepping closer. The movement brought his scent with him something feral and clean that made my lungs tighten.

His voice dropped lower, intimate. “You think I don’t understand survival?”

I didn’t move back. I didn’t want to. Every cell in my body screamed to close the distance, to taste him again, to let myself fall. But I was terrified that if I didn’t hold my ground now, I’d never be able to walk away again.

“I don’t want to need you,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat.

His expression changed, just a flicker. But it wrecked me. Because it wasn’t disappointment. It wasn’t pride.

It was pain.

Raw and real and matching something broken in my own chest.

And still, he stepped forward, closing the distance until I could feel his breath on my skin. “You already do,” he said, the words a rough caress.

My breath caught. I wanted to tell him he was wrong.

I wanted to scream and shove and deny.

I wanted to grab him and never let go.

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