“This is real for me,” he barked. “My life is not a vacation from my true reality… I’m not slumming it for fun. I’m putting everything on the line for you. Putting myself out there—”
“Oh, stop with the righteous crap,” she snapped, whirling to face him as they reached their corner. Their building loomed large behind her. “You’re not being honest. You haven’t been honest with me since the start of this, not by choice. You only told me you were attracted to me because I tried to kiss you. If I hadn’t done that—”
“You think I would’ve just ignored it?”
“I think that’s exactly what you would’ve done. Left to you, we would’ve been strangers forever. You’d have been quite happy to just go about your life. Quite happy to let me pass you by. And you know what?” she asked, realizing something. “If it’s so easy for you to disregard this, then I’m better off without you.” His blink of surprise only encouraged her to nod. “Yes, I said it about Holden and it’s exactly the same with you.” Her words sped up as fire lit her inside. “I had no idea that you were even really attracted to me just like I knew he didn’t really love me. Men are ridiculous! Women aren’t toys for you to play with until you get bored and move onto the next one! We’re not distractions for you during an otherwise slow week!” Curling her fingers toward her palm, she tightened her jaw as her head went back to face the heavens. The frustration of teetering at the edge of her sanity exploded out of her. “When I’m with you my skin crawls.” The grinding ache of the words scratched her throat. “It’s too tight. I can’t breathe! I’m desperate and terrified and alive all at the same time.
“Nothing compares. Nothing I’ve ever felt. Nothing I’ve ever been through. With you around, I forget how to talk, how to believe, how to exist. Every moment we’re apart is like a slow, agonizing death. I think about you, obsess about you. You’re in my veins, in my blood, in my heart. I despise the misery. The torment of knowing the one thing I’ve always wanted is right in front of me and I still can’t have it.” Her anger didn’t dwindle even when she presented her hands toward him. “You don’t want it. You don’t get it. That’s fine. I will never beg anyone to be something they’re not.” Before he could open his mouth, Poppy pointed a straight finger up at him. “I have never, ever needed a man. I have never clung to one. Never simpered. Never pandered. If I don’t feel it, I don’t owe you a damn thing. I don’t owe any man a damn thing.
“But you want to talk honesty? Don’t kid yourself, every single time you turn away from me, you’re lying to yourself… either that or you’ve been lying to me all along. Which is it? Are you a liar or delusional? I don’t know if this is some sort of game to you, but out of the both of us, you’re the liar here. I’ve told you how I felt, offered myself to you. You know more about me than anyone else I’ve encountered since I left that church. I’ve trusted you and you have the absolute gall to stand there and accuse me of being dishonest? Get a grip! You wouldn’t know how to show me the truth of what was inside you if your goddamn life depended on it.”
Her chest rose and fell with every short, shallow breath that fueled her adrenaline. Poppy wasn’t sure she’d ever been so amped. She felt triumphant, like she could take on the whole world. It took a second for her to focus on the way Turner was fixating on her. Some of her gusto faded. He didn’t look happy. Maybe that was rage in his expression, he was definitely scowling, but she didn’t have a clue what was going on behind his glare.
When he started to move, Poppy took a quick breath, but he scooped both hands around her jaw and tipped her head up. She was still processing when his mouth covered hers.
The line was behind them. He’d crossed it. Oh, God damn, he was crossing it.
Sinking into the bliss of his kiss, Poppy used every ounce of her emotion to experience every second of a moment she may never have again.