Page 79 of My Lucky Star
“Um, both.”
She shook her head. “You’re an ass.”
I wrapped my hands around her lower back, bringing her closer. “I know. I can tell that you love me, though. Admit it.”
She shook her head again. Slowly. Deliberately. But her fingers played with the buttons of my shirt and her breath turned shallow. I could feel her arousal. She held back, but her body craved mine like I craved her. Neither of us could hide it.
I glanced at the locked door. We were alone. I’d never had her like this, at my mercy. A hurricane of thoughts whirled through my mind, images of what I could do, how she might react. Aria, within my grasp.
Before I knew it, my mouth was on hers, tasting the sweet, minty flavor. She kissed me back, but her spine tightened under my hands.
I pulled back an inch and held my breath, our lips almost touching, breath mixing in hot, minty gusts. If she didn’t want me, I had to back down. I had to. This was like staring at a piece of chocolate cake on the table. If you couldn’t eat it, you didn’t bring it into the house to torture yourself. What was I doing?
“Cem,” she whispered. “I’m not strong enough to resist you.”
“Why do you have to resist me?” I stole another kiss and retreated again, but not far.
“Because you’ll break my heart.” She lifted her eyes at me, and I saw it all. The fear. The longing.
I wanted to fix it. I desperately wanted to change everything that stood in our way, but I couldn’t. My life wasn’t mine. I felt like a zoo animal, finally becoming aware of my captivity. I wanted to smash every wall.
“I probably will,” I said, reluctantly letting go of her. “I don’t want to, but... You’re right. I come with baggage.”
I glanced at our suitcases; her tiny carry-on dwarfed by my 30-inch titanium luggage. It seemed to perfectly illustrate my point.
Aria followed my gaze. “The size of my suitcase in no way correlates with my emotional baggage. I travel light because I don’t own anything worth dragging across the world.”
“I don’t care about the stuff. You know that, right? I care about you.”
“Yet, you’ll break my heart.”
“I’m trying to be honest. I come with all this mess. It’s... complicated. My life is complicated. You said you wanted to stop chasing those dreams. I made fun of you, and I still think you’re overreacting... looking at life through this twisted lens. But so am I. We all are.”
I wedged my hands into my pockets. I wouldn’t touch her again. She deserved better. Better than anything I could give her. “Maybe I don’t agree with your thinking, but I understand. You want off the rollercoaster. Higher highs and lower lows. It’s tiring. And now I’ve roped you into my crap. As soon as we arrived, I knew this was wrong. This is not how I wanted to introduce you to my family, my country. I want you to be here as... you. As mine.” I swallowed, the lump of regret in my throat ballooning like dough.
“We can’t.”
“I know. Maybe it’s all too messy to ever work out, and maybe that means I’ll break your heart, whether I want to or not. But you should know one thing.”
She stared at me, still like a statue. “What?”
“Mine will break, too.”
I watched her chest rise and fall as she studied my eyes, unsure. I waited a long time, observing her face, a woman at war with herself. Finally, she spoke. “Okay, then.”
“Okay, what?”
She took a step closer, placing her hands on my chest. “Let’s break our hearts.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off hers. They held me like a single flame in a dark room. Full of courage and hunger.
For a second, I hesitated. This wasn’t enough, but I couldn’t back down. Not with that mango-vanilla scent blurring my thoughts and those gusts of heavy breath escaping through her parted lips. Guileless. Surrendering. She’d captured me in the web of my own making and all I could do was claim her.
Her fingers tightened around my shirt fabric. There was no fight. No games. Only need. The delectable, hot sensation of her lips melting against mine, her tongue tasting me, instantly zapping every part of my body to attention. All I could think of was that fire between us and how it would swallow me whole.
“Aria,” I gasped, pushing her backwards until I had her pinned against the wall, deliciously trapped between the plaster board and my hard cock. “I can’t stop. You have to stop me.”
“Don’t you dare stop,” she hissed, eyes blazing.
