He did something he’d told himself he would never do. He propelled her toward him, and she stumbled up against him, her delicate hands pressed against his chest. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, her mouth dropping open. She looked afraid, and he had told himself he would never make her afraid. But his heart was pounding too hard and his blood was pumping just a little bit too hot and fast, and he didn’t know what he was.

He didn’t know what he was.

He lifted her chin up, holding it tight between his thumb and forefinger, and he could see it in her eyes if only for a moment. A challenge. A dare.

And he was too far gone to not take it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind were the last vestiges of his sanity, and they were screaming at him. Screaming at him to get a grip, get it together, be the man that he had promised himself he always would be with her.

And he would’ve listened, if not for that challenge.

If not for the way she stood there, with an expression that basically said he didn’t have the nerve.

Old. Retired.

Comfortable.

Steady.

That was everything he never wanted to be, so why hearing it all come out of her mouth had riled him like it did, he didn’t know. But he was ready to disrupt that story she’d written about him.

Hard.

Before he could get another thought into his crowded brain, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers.

If sunshine had a flavor, it would be this. Because it was an explosion more than anything else. Heat and light like a full gut punch that immobilized him for a solid ten seconds.

He had spent so much time not thinking about what it would feel like to taste Sammy’s mouth, that it was like seventeen years’ worth of fantasies rolled out through his body in one brilliant flash. And when she parted her lips on an indrawn breath, a gasp that became a sigh when he slid his tongue against hers, it was like finding the answer to a question that had been dogging him for years.

And he made sure that kiss was nothing like she’d said he was.

Retired or old or steady.

She didn’t wrap her arms around him. She didn’t cling to him. Her hands were balled into fists against his chest, and she didn’t pull away, but she didn’t lean in, either. Didn’t resist the explosion between them, but didn’t return it, either.

And in the end, that was what stopped him.

He wanted to give, but there was a point where the way she was standing made it taking, and that wasn’t what he wanted.

He took a step back and the look on her face made his stomach a hollowed-out pit.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“Something that had to be done,” he responded, amazed that he could even get the words out through his tightened throat. He could barely breathe, much less speak.