Page 187 of Mine Again
I want to be with him fully and completely, with no secrets between us. Him knowing everything about me isn’t something I resent. It’s exactly what I want.
My hand lifts, brushing lightly over his chest. His warmth seeps into my palm, and I let it linger for a moment before pulling away and locking eyes with him.
“No. I don’t,” I admit.
His eyes darken, the faint tension in his jaw easing. Before I can process the change, his hand comes up to cup my cheek, his thumb grazing the corner of my mouth. Then his lips are on mine, stealing the breath from my lungs.
The kiss is unhurried but deep, coaxing me open, pulling me closer until my fingers are curled into his shirt without me even realizing it.
My resistance unravels in seconds. Whatever I had been holding back slips away, replaced by the dizzying warmth of having given him something he clearly needed to hear.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine and our breaths mingle.
“But this is a two-way street,” I murmur, softer now. “If there’s no hiding anything from you, then there’s no hiding anything from me either. Since you know everything about me, I need to play catch-up.”
“Agreed,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching. “And you have been catching up these last few days… rapidly too. Roller coaster, remember?”
“How about at a more sustainable pace?” I counter, my tone dry. “I just got up, and you’ve already ambushed me with new material I need to digest. I’m almost afraid to ask if there’s anything else you need to tell me.”
Luca’s jaw moves from side to side, the faint pull of muscle betraying the fact that he’s weighing his options. His gaze holds mine, unblinking, like he’s deciding how much I can handle before I’ve even eaten.
“Just spit it out,” I say, bracing for whatever comes next.
Still, he doesn’t speak.
“That bad?”
He crosses his arms over his chest, and the movement makes his biceps flex beneath his shirt. For a second, it distracts me from the way his face tightens, the subtle scrunch at the corners of his eyes that looks a lot like guilt.
“Remember that no matter what I do, it’s always because I love you.”
I narrow my eyes, suspicion prickling at the back of my neck. “Luca, just tell me.”
“There’s one more thing. I—”
A sharp alarm blares from one of his computers, cutting him off. At the same time, his phone lights up and begins to ring.
For the briefest moment, his expression flickers with something startled and alert before it shutters completely, replaced by that cold, calculating mask I’ve seen before.
Whatever this alarm means, it’s important. Urgent.
The sound carries a menacing edge that settles in my chest like a warning. A strange, sinking familiarity seeps in.
We’ve been here before… on my seventeenth birthday, when the ground shifted beneath me without warning.
It all started with a phone call then too.
I remember the weight of my clothes pulling at my shoulders as I got dressed, the scent of our lovemaking still clinging to my skin, and the frantic pitch of Luca’s mother’s voice spilling through the receiver.
That call had ripped open the life I knew and sent everything spiraling.
My skin prickles, a faint chill sliding down my spine despite the warmth of the room. The air seems thicker, heavier, as if it is holding its breath with me.
My fingers curl around the edge of the desk, gripping it hard, searching for something solid to keep me steady.
It’s a déjà vu of sorts, a heavy foreboding that whispers the next moment might change everything… again.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
