7. Lila #2
"Sadie cares about you. So does—" He stopped. His jaw worked. The words were right there, jammed behind whatever gate he'd constructed, and I watched him fight with it, watched the muscles in his throat move.
"So do I," he said.
I didn't move toward him. I waited. Because this had to be his choice, his step forward, his door opened. I'd learned what it felt like to pour yourself toward someone who wasn't reaching back, and I wouldn't do that again. Not even for him.
He reached for me.
His hand came up to the side of my face, palm against my cheek, fingers sliding into my hair behind my ear. The touch was careful. Deliberate. Like he was handling something that might break, which I was not, but the care of it undid me more than confidence would have.
"Lila." My name in his mouth. Low, rough, the R barely there.
"Beck."
He kissed me.
Not gently. Not the way he'd kissed me at the bandstand or in the station kitchen, careful and questioning.
This was a dam breaking, his mouth on mine, hot and demanding, his hand tightening in my hair, his other arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me flush against him so I could feel every inch of his chest, the hard planes of muscle, the pounding of his heart through two layers of fabric.
I kissed him back with everything I had, my hands fisting in his T-shirt, my body arching into his.
He tasted like toothpaste and something darker.
He kissed like a man who'd been holding his breath for two years and had finally decided to inhale.
We stumbled backward, his doing or mine, I couldn't tell.
My back hit the wall beside the bookshelf.
A paperback tumbled. Neither of us noticed.
His mouth moved to my jaw, my neck, the spot below my ear where I gasped, and the sound made him groan against my skin, a sound so raw and involuntary that it rewired something in my brain.
"Beck—"
His hands found the hem of my shirt and slid underneath, palms flat against my ribs, his thumbs tracing the dip of my waist. My skin ignited everywhere he touched.
I pulled at his T-shirt and he broke the kiss long enough for me to drag it over his head.
He was beautiful in the low light, broad shoulders, the ridged terrain of his stomach, a scar on his left side that I traced with my fingertips. He shuddered under the touch.
"Lila." A warning. Or a prayer. Hard to tell.
I pulled my own shirt over my head. The cool air hit my bare skin and then his hands replaced it, warm and rough, sliding up my sides, his thumbs tracing the edge of my bra. He looked at me like I was both the answer and the problem, and the hunger in his expression made my breath catch.
He kissed me again, deeper this time, his bare chest against mine, and the heat of skin on skin was dizzying.
His thigh pressed between mine and the pressure made me arch against him, a gasp lost between our mouths.
His hands moved to my back, unclasped my bra with a sureness that didn't match the tremor in his fingers, and when the fabric fell away and he cupped me, his palm warm and callused against sensitive skin, I moaned into his mouth and felt his whole body tighten in response.
"God," he whispered against my throat, his mouth trailing down, "you're?—"
He didn't finish. His lips found the curve of my breast, the flat of my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. My hands were in his hair, on his shoulders, tracing the muscles of his back. I could feel how much he wanted me, pressed against my hip, and the evidence of it made my head swim.
I reached for his belt buckle. His hand caught mine.
He pulled back. His pupils were blown, his breathing ragged, his chest flushed. He looked wrecked. Destroyed. And terrified.
"Tell me to stop," he said.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I can't—" He closed his eyes. Pressed his forehead against mine. "I can't do this halfway. And I don't know if I know how to do it at all."
My hands moved to his face. I held him there, bare skin against bare skin, his heartbeat slamming against my palm. "You're doing more than pretty well."
A sound that might have been a laugh, strangled and helpless.
He kissed me again, slow and devastating, the kind of kiss that made promises his mouth had no authority to keep.
His hands skimmed down my sides, across my stomach, his fingers trailing lower, tracing the waistband of my jeans, and every nerve in my body pulled toward the contact.
Then he stopped.
His hands withdrew. He stepped back, and the absence of his warmth was physical, an ache. He bent to pick up his shirt from the floor. His breathing was wrecked, and his eyes were doing something complicated, want and fear and guilt in a war he wasn't winning.
"I can't do this," he said. And the warmth drained from the room.
"Beck—"
"Not — not because I don't want to. Because I do. More than—" He pulled the shirt over his head. Ran both hands through his hair. "That's the problem."
He left.
The door closed behind him and I stood against the wall in just my jeans, my mouth swollen, my skin still burning everywhere he'd touched, my heart in a free fall that no protocol could stabilize. I pressed my palms flat against the wall where his hands had been. It was still warm.
The paperback on the floor was face-up. Pride and Prejudice. Because the universe apparently had a sense of humor.
I picked up my shirt and my bra from the floor. Sat on the couch. Pressed my hands against my flushed face and breathed.