Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
My mouth moves before my caution does. “I can trust Gage, right?”
He stills.
It’s tiny—a pause sharp enough to cut. Then he straightens without looking at me, calm like stone. “No.”
The word lands heavy. Final. Like a door shutting somewhere else in the building.
I set my palms on the table, steadying the tremor I hate. “But he’s… been kind. And he’s not—”
“No.” Louder, threaded with something that sounds like it costs him. “Don’t trust him.”
My laugh comes out thinner than I intend. “That’s awkward, considering he’s standing in my kitchen right now.”
The silence after that sentence is a living thing.
Slowly, he turns. “River.”
“Yes?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” I breathe, stepping closer, “that you shouldn’t warn me away from a man who smells like your hoodie and writes in my notebook with your left-handed slant and buys the exact peppermint tea you already stock here.”
He doesn’t move. Just watches me like he’s bracing for impact and praying I hit him straight.
“And when you correct my stance,” I add, another step, “you touch my hip exactly like he does when he reaches around me at the espresso machine. Same patience. Same heat. Same… everything.”
A muscle jumps in his arms. “Coincidence.”
“Oh?” I tilt my head. “It’s you.”
He flinches. Barely. But I feel it like the room tilts.
“River.”
“Gage,” I say softly, because we’re past pretending and also because my chest is too tight to say anything else.
He shakes his head once, as if he can push denial between us like furniture. “This isn’t safe.”
“You’re right.” I close the last inches of air between us until the hem of his hoodie brushes my stomach. “So stop lying.”
He’s very, very still. His breathing’s rapid which matches mine.
“Say it,” I whisper.
His throat works. “I can’t.”
“I know.” I lift my hands—slow, careful—and press my fingers to the edge of his mask. “I’ll say it for you.”
He doesn’t stop me.
He doesn’t help, either. He stands there and shakes like restraint is a physical thing and lets me remove the Ghostface mask. There’s a balaclava underneath. He lets me curl the fabric down, past cheekbones I know too well, past the line of a mouth I’ve been dreaming about since the first time he kissed me.
Gage looks back at me.
The room rushes—the sound, the air, my pulse tripping over itself. It’s ridiculous, how fast relief floods in, how right my bones feel. I want to laugh and hit him and kiss him and demand he apologize in every language he knows.
“Hi,” he says, hoarse. No modulator. No mask. Just him.
“Hi,” I echo, and then a small, savage part of me adds, “You’re an idiot.”
His mouth tilts, wounded and fond. “I know.”
“For the record,” I say, because I need a tether, “part of me always wanted it to be you.”
Something breaks in his face—like a storm passing over water, like sun hitting glass.
“I told you not to trust me,” he says. “I meant it.”
“And I told you to stop deciding for me.” I take his wrist and place his palm flat against my sternum. My heart trips under his hand, unhelpfully obvious. “This is mine. You don’t get to pick who I give it to.”
“River,” he whispers, reverent and wrecked all at once.
“Say it again.”
“River.”
His hand flexes. My breath stutters. The hunger that’s been living under my fear raises its head, sleek and sure. “Kiss me,” I say, and I don’t care if it’s a bad idea, because every other idea hurts.
He hesitates for exactly one heartbeat—long enough to be a gentleman, short enough to be honest—then he moves.
He doesn’t brush or test. He takes—mouth on mine with a relief that feels like oxygen after a blackout, mouth open on a gasp that turns into a growl when I fist both hands in his hoodie and pull. He tastes like mint and heat and the hard edge of restraint snapping.
I open for him and he makes a sound I feel in my knees. His other hand comes up, cupping my jaw like it’s precious, like I’m something he’s been promising himself and finally allowed to touch. He kisses like hunger and apology and an argument he plans to win without speaking.
We stumble backward until my hips hit the table. He lifts me onto it like I weigh nothing, like I’m a problem he intends to solve with both hands. I wrap my legs around his waist and he hisses into my mouth, laugh-broken, like losing control is the first good mistake he’s made in years.
“Tell me to stop,” he says against my lips, the words shivering through the heat.
“I won’t.”
“Tell me anyway,” he insists, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, like consent is the only air he wants. “Say it so I know you can.”
“Stop,” I whisper. He freezes, every muscle held. Power hums through my skin.
“Start,” I whisper, and he does. God, he does.