My breath left my chest. My eyes were filling, my nose burning, and a golf ball increasing in size in my throat.

He swallowed, audibly, and stepped toward me, closing the distance I’d created.

Trying to breathe with him invading my senses was torture. I stepped back again and he followed, his hands coming up and cradling my face and tilting my face up. My legs weakened and I leaned against the side of the building. My hands grasped his wrists, meaning to push him away but not letting go. His lash fringed eyes roamed over my face. And behind him curious glances moved over and past us. “Mais, if you mean to do it, do it properly,” he begged, his voice low, his eyes burning. “Destroy everything that’s left of my heart. Leave nothing behind. I can’t do it again. There will be no one after you. Be thorough. Merciless. Finish me.”

‘“Wh-what are you saying?”

“I’m in love with you, Joséphine.” His eyes pinned mine, delivering all his secrets openly and helplessly.

The sound of my name uttered in that way, his accented French falling from his lips, curled into my insides.

“You have given life to a dead heart and soul. You brought me back to life. Hungry and gasping and desperate … for you. My heart beating … for you. No.” He frowned. “It’s as if it didn’t exist before you. I’m alive now in this world that might not have you in it? No. It’s impossible. I don’t want the world to turn another day, the sun to burn another day without you.”

“Xavier,” I whispered, my voice failing me. Liquid spilled hot down my cheeks and my heart pounded.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to see. To see you. To feel you. To believe you could love me. To believe my own heart. Mon dieu.” His forehead fell forward to rest against mine. His thumbs brushed my tears. Our breath mingled, stuttered.

My hands gripped his wrists tighter, his pulse strong and yet erratic beneath my fingertips. His mouth was so close. His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“So please,” he said, whispering now. “If you mean to break my heart, leave nothing left. I beg you. Leave nothing left. I will not survive it, otherwise. But do not break my heart, Josephine. I’m offering it to you. Completely. Take it. Take it … or destroy it.”

And then his hands slipped to the nape of my neck. His mouth, hungry and desperate, took mine. His lips opened, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, taking and tasting and begging. “Je suis complètement amoureux de toi,” he whispered as his mouth left mine and skated to my ear. His tongue dragged over my skin, setting me on fire. He groaned. “I love you.”