The F List - Alessandra Torre Page 0,77

crumpled. It was a minor break, a wobble of her mouth, a widening of her eyes, a pinch of her features, but it was there, and it ripped a gash in my emotions and drained all of my anger out.

“Come here,” I said gruffly.

She looked to one side and tightly shook her head. "Please, don't," she whispered.

I stepped forward, closing the gap between us and wrapped her in my arms. She sank against my chest, her head tucked against my neck and let out a jagged breath, the huff of it warm and comforting. I kissed the top of her head, and she whimpered.

"I'm sorry." The apology was muffled, her voice clogged with tears, and I smoothed back her hair and pulled a half foot away, focusing on her face.

“Don’t be.” I studied her light brown eyes, wet with tears. The almost invisible dots of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The pink tremble of her lips. God, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to pull her into bed and hold her to my chest and confess every thought I’d ever had about her since the day I met her. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I wanted to strip her down and touch her everywhere and be the first and only man she would ever be with. I wanted to get her pregnant and share the news with Wesley, and adopt more ugly dogs and smear her face with wedding cake and watch her get old and cranky and scream at loud teenagers who don’t understand good music.

"Why are you smiling?" She searched my expression, and I couldn't tell her it all, not now and maybe not ever. So I told her just a piece.

"I want to kiss you." I didn't wait for a response or for permission. I brushed my mouth against hers, and the moment her lips parted, the anger and frustration seeped out of me. I gathered her to me and felt… calm. Peace. For the first time in a week, it felt like I wasn’t alone.

76

#crushable

EMMA

I haven’t been kissed by many men, but our first kiss, in the ocean, was when I really lost myself to him. At that moment, a new chapter in my life began—one where I stopped lusting after Cash Mitchell and began falling in love with him. And I’ve always had this ridiculous notion that I’m not like other people but honestly—unless everyone is like this—at the moment of that kiss, I shed any romantic future that didn’t involve him.

Maybe that's crazy. Or maybe everyone feels that way when they're in love but he was always it for me, and at that moment, I believed that he might feel that way too, like there was a potential scenario where Cash Mitchell and Emma Ripplestine could be together, and my soul abandoned any other scenario.

I’m not explaining myself well. What I’m trying to say is that in that kiss, I surrendered to him for the rest of my life. Whether we were together or not. I was going to be his or single. Part of a pair or alone. A crazy cat lady or Casma. Not that I was in love with that moniker.

This kiss, in the middle of his living room, tears on my cheeks, his hand in my hair… was different. In this kiss, I think he gave himself to me. There was something raw and unprotected in the way he looked at me. The crush of his lips when he claimed my mouth. The need in his eyes when he scooped me up in his arms and carried me to his bedroom.

He placed me on the mattress so tenderly that I smiled. He crawled over me and kissed my shoulder, my collarbone, my neck, and my forehead. He laid beside me and pulled me on top of him and ran his fingers through my hair, and it was terrifying how vulnerable I was.

He could crush me. This could crush me. It was one thing to never know love, but it’s another to taste it and then lose it. I rested my head on his heart and hoped desperately it was mine.

“When I came back in the kitchen, my manicotti was bubbling and lightly browned, and the living room was empty. I pulled it out and let it cool, then sprinkled some basil on top and jetted. Her car was in the driveway when I pulled out, and when I showed up the next morning, it was