I don’t have a clue how I got here or what made her decide to kiss me, but Hannah is in my arms, her lips pressed firmly against mine, and I feel alive again. I kiss her back with a hunger that’s been building since the moment I recognized her in the locker room. My tongue meets hers, exploring the inside of her perfect mouth as I use my body to guide her back against my bike, cradling her against me.

“T’as encore meilleur goût que dans mes souvenirs,” I mutter, clutching her face in both hands.

She shudders in response, and I rest my hand on her throat to pull her in for an even deeper kiss than before. She arches against me, her body seeking mine as if she can’t help herself. My entire body responds, blood rushing south in response.

But then her hands fly out, pressing gently against my chest and breaking our kiss.

I back off, although it physically pains me to do it.

We stare at each other in near disbelief, breathing heavily and unable to speak. Hannah’s pupils are blown wide, darkening the green and blue of her irises, and her cheeks are flushed pink. She looks like a fucking dream.

She pushes off my bike and licks her lips, and my body lurches instinctively like it wants to chase her tongue back into her mouth with mine, but I fight it. I need to let her set the pace, even when every cell in my body is screaming to close the distance between us again.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was a mistake,” she says quietly without looking me in the eye, probably because she doesn’t trust herself to do it.

Her body is betraying her words again—her rapid breathing, her flushed skin, the way she can’t quite meet my gaze—but I’d be a fucking liar if I said those last four words that just left her mouth didn’t sting.

“I just needed to get it out of my system,” she whispers. “You know, break the tension that’s been building between us since you started with the Aces. Now we can go back to being just casual acquaintances. We can act like what happened between us was⁠—”

“Say it was nothing,” I interrupt her, and her eyes dart up to mine before she diverts them again. “I dare you.”

She doesn’t say anything, just stares at the asphalt, so I reach for her chin and gently tilt it up toward me to look her in the eye.

“You should never apologize for kissing me, hummingbird,” I murmur. “There will never be a time when I don’t want to kiss you. And as for it being a mistake? I don’t think so.”