My heart hammers in my chest because I’m not sure what he’s doing, but he’s so close to me that all I can focus on is him. The way he smells like cedar and spice, the quiet confidence in the way he stands, the almost effortless way he snatched his helmet from me—the same way he could just as easily take whatever else he wants from me. The breeze catches his dark, wavy hair, and his intense, amber-flecked brown eyes bore into mine, robbing me of my breath.

“Do you want to date him again?” he finally asks, and my tongue flicks out to moisten my lips. My heart stutters at the way he’s looking at me, like he can see right through to the truth I’m trying to hide.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I—I feel like I should. My parents really like him, and we made sense together.”

Declan lifts a brow at me but doesn’t back away. “You made sense together?” His hand rises to the side of my face where he drags the back of his finger down my cheek with deliberate gentleness. “Did this Aaron guy treat you like a princess? Pay attention to every little detail about you?” His finger traces the edge of my jaw. “Could he make you fall apart until you were a shaking, breathless mess?”

I swallow hard. Declan has somehow moved even closer to me without me realizing it, but how could I focus on anything other than the words dripping like honey from his mouth and the fire of his finger on my skin?

The worst part is that the answer to every single one of those questions is no, but somehow, it still feels fucking impossible for me to tell him that.

Because as much as the answer is burning on the tip of my tongue, I’m afraid of what comes after if I say it.

I feel like my body is at war with my brain. I’ve never been so attracted to anyone the way I am with Declan. It’s like there’s this switch in me that only he knows how to flip, and he doesn’t even have to do anything to make it happen. Every time I’m around him, my entire body feels electrified, almost like there’s some sort of magnetic current between us pulling us inexorably together.

Even now, as he stares at me with unmistakable hunger while he waits for an answer that he probably knows isn’t going to come, every hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up and lurching toward him like he has a gravitational pull.