Chapter 29 Phoenix
PHOENIX
Ididn’t remember leaving her office. Didn’t remember the door or the hallway or the icy slap of wind when I stepped outside. All I knew was her.
Her taste.
Her lips.
Her fingers curled against my chest like she didn’t want to let go—like part of her didn’t want to push me away.
And God help me, I didn’t want to be pushed away.
I stood beside my truck, the door open but forgotten, staring blindly out at the empty parking lot as my pulse thundered in my ears. My body was vibrating. Not from adrenaline, but from her.
I’d kissed women before. Plenty. But never like that. Never like I meant it.
Never like it meant something.
I’d walked into her office planning to apologize, maybe say goodbye. What I hadn’t planned was the moment she looked at me—really looked at me—with everything she was carrying, and everything she was hiding, and every scar she thought no one could see.
I saw her.
And I’d fallen. No warning, no chance to slow the descent. I kissed her because there was no other option. No sane, logical explanation for why it had to be now, only that it did. And when she kissed me back—soft, then fierce, then gone—I knew it.
There was no coming back from Rose Floris.
She wasn’t mine, but damn if my soul didn’t already think she was.