“I’m here, Jase. Right here. Right now. That’s what we have, right?” His breath hitches, just barely, but I catch it seconds before I brush my lips to his. “Need me. Take me. Want me. Use me.”

That’s all it takes to reignite the still-smoldering fuse.

My lips crash against his as we move down the hall. His hands grip my hips like I’ll disappear if he lets go.

The kiss is fire and fury. It’s the pent-up tension unraveling between us in a single touch of our tongues. He pulls me closer, backing me against the doorframe. I’m desperate to feel every inch of him.

“Jase.” His name—one word—means so many things.

What is this?

How did this happen?

Why do I feel so strongly for you when I shouldn’t?

He rests his forehead against mine and sucks in a ragged breath, clearly trying to process his own questions, his own wants. Or simply trying to come up with reasons why this is a bad idea when it feels so goddamn good.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs. “Tell me I’m crazy for wanting you this bad.”

I open my mouth to speak, to give him the answer I think he wants to hear—it’s just sex, just physical—but it feels like so much more than that.

And both of us are terrified to admit it.

So I hide behind that fear.

I choose to show him with actions instead.

I slide a hand slowly back up his chest, up the side of his neck so that I can fist it in the short hair at the back of his neck, and then I lean in to kiss him again.

“You’re not crazy,” I murmur. “Far fucking from it.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Hendrix

I wake up to an empty bed. Again.

The sheets are cool where Jase should be, and for some reason, the reality of it gnaws at me. Last night was . . . too much. An overload of sensations, of unspoken emotions, of well-intended actions.

It was an overload of noise that contradicts this silence. I’m left alone with my thoughts, tangled in a mess of emotions I don’t know that I want to sort through.

I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling. My body still hums with the memory of his touch, of the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered. Like I was real.

And yet, like every night we spend together, when I wake up, he’s gone.

I should feel relief, right? This is pretend, it’s going to end, and so this is just my reminder of that.

But that doesn’t abate the hollow feeling I have or lessen the lie I’m telling myself. I don’t just like the man. I’ve downright fallen for him.

Fuck, man.

Just fuck.