𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄

𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔'𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐍 lava against my own as I try to back away from him—as I try to pull myself from the mystery of him and into the reality of us, but he's not quick to let go of me. My feet move backward, rhythmically, until the back of my heels hit the wall.

Beau lifts his right hand to the slightly ajar door and closes it at the same time his left comes above my shoulder on the wall. He groans lightly, a shiver of an affectionate expression, as he pins me in his cage and brings his palm down to my collarbones.

His lips are two perfectly searing reams of rivers, and I shiver as his five fingers dance up my heated skin and rest like a possessive display on the base of my neck. His knee comes up between my legs, and it's my turn to breathe into him as the pressure sheathed between my bare thighs becomes an unbearable sting—enough that I put my hands to his chest and shove him away.

Beau stumbles, but doesn't fall, and I know it was not my intention to embarrass him or make him do as such because my mind is not on his actions, my eyes are not on his stature.

All I focus on is the pair of ruddy pillows that had just laced themselves to mine. All I focus on is how they are parted, deprived of air—and how I am the only thing standing between them and getting the oxygen they seek.

I don't mean to, but my hands begin to curl into fists at my side the more I regard him. I don't mean to, but my entire body tenses, like there's been a flip switched in me, and I cannot come down from this gloriously unwanted attention until it is his that I garner.

"We still have to talk," I grunt out.

"I know," he whispers.

Because I'm a fool.

Beau's words ring through my head, and instantly, like the snap of a finger, a cloud of fog sinks in and slithers around me. And unexpectedly, I don't care about our conversation. I don't care that there were things left unspoken, and things spoken too much of.

I don't care that there are things that Beau knows that I do not. I don't care that Aeris isn't my brother, or that my life has been upended within the span of a week and some change.

Because

Because

—a fool who loves you.

"I'm not the girl you remember," I say carefully, "I never will be."

"Then don't be," he swallows hard, "I don't care about her."

I take a tentative step into the room, deep enough that I close the small gap between our bodies. My toes are draped in socks, and they stop right before the tips of his Oxford dress shoes. I angle my chin up at him, bending to stare at him, but holding all the power, nonetheless.

Beau stares at me just the same, but unlike the prior times, there's not a hint of malevolence lingering in his minty forest. Even as he aggressively cups his hand to the back of my neck, even as he makes me gasp from the force, and presses me to his hard body, he does not act as if he's looking down to me—but like he's finally giving me the supremacy I seek.