Chapter 203 The night it all changed.

Chapter 203 The night it all changed.
The touch stopped me instantly. His grip was careful... almost hesitant, as though he was terrified I would pull away if he held me any firmer. 

Even so, the moment his fingers closed around my wrist, a sharp current shot through my arm, settling somewhere deep inside my chest. 

My heartbeat stumbled over itself. I turned back slowly until I found him staring up at me, his grey eyes fixed quietly on mine, searching them with an intensity that made it impossible to look anywhere else. 

The silence stretched between us, thick enough to touch, until his lips finally parted. "Stay with me." His voice was low, rough around the edges, carrying something I had never heard from him before. It wasn't a command. It wasn't a plea either. It existed somewhere painfully in between, spoken with such quiet honesty that saying no didn't even feel like an option. 

I found myself taking a small step back toward him, fully intending to sit beside him again, when he spoke once more. "Only if you can handle it, Lisa." His voice dropped even lower this time, the depth of it sending another wave of heat racing through me. 

My brows pulled together in confusion, my pulse already climbing. "Handle... what?" I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice.

For several long moments he didn't answer. He only stared at me, his jaw working as though he was fighting an argument inside his own head. 

Then he released a slow breath, the sound carrying every ounce of exhaustion he'd been hiding since we'd arrived at the cabin. "It has taken me three sets of push-ups," he admitted quietly. "A hundred each. A full jog around this entire cabin. Three bottles of water consumed like I was a man dying of thirst." He let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head at himself before dragging a hand through his hair. "All because I was trying to stop myself from knocking on your door, Lisa." 

My heart forgot how to beat. I could only stare at him, completely frozen, he stood up slowly, and took a slow step toward me. Not enough to trap me. Just enough that I could see every line of tension carved into his face.

"When you look at me the way you did tonight..." His fingers tightened almost unnoticeable around my wrist before relaxing again. "I lose every bit of restraint I've got. Every sensible thought inside my head disappears the second you come within an inch of me. I don't deserve to ask this of you. Hell, I know that. I should be the last person on earth standing here saying any of this after everything I've put you through." 

His laugh came again, softer this time, filled with frustration rather than amusement. "You'd have every right to throw your shoe at my face... or kick me out into the woods. I'd deserve it."

His eyes never left mine as he slowly lifted his free hand, giving me every opportunity to step away. I didn't.. His palm settled gently against my cheek, warm and impossibly careful, his thumb barely grazing my skin as though I were something fragile he was afraid of breaking. 

Every nerve in my body caught fire. My breathing turned shallow, my lips parting on their own as I stared up at him. "But I'm still going to tell you the truth anyway," he whispered, his voice wrapping itself around every piece of me. "I want you, Lisa Darien." 

My stomach knotted so strangely I thought my knees might give out beneath me. 

His eyes darkened, not with cruelty, but with a hunger so raw it stole every coherent thought from my head. "I want you like the air I breathe. If me chasing you all the way to your house after the party wasn't enough to prove it... if kissing you outside your front door without caring whether Frank or your uncle saw us wasn't enough... if the way I kissed you that other day at my house and practically begged you to stop making me chase you wasn't enough..." He swallowed hard, his thumb brushing slowly across my cheekbone. "Then maybe this will be."
He stepped closer until there was barely an inch separating us, his forehead almost touching mine, our breaths mingling between us. 

His hand remained around my wrist, feeling the reckless way my pulse jumped, while the other continued to cradle my face, leaving me completely surrounded by nothing but him. 

My heart was beating so loudly I was certain he could hear it. My entire body had forgotten how to function. "This kiss..." he murmured, his voice no louder than the whisper of the wind outside the cabin, "...might not end with just a kiss if you let me, Lisa." Every word settled beneath my skin, sending warmth rushing through places I didn't even know could ache. His gaze drifted slowly to my mouth before returning to my eyes, giving me one final chance to stop him. "So unless you don't want this..." His forehead rested lightly against mine now, his breath warm against my lips. "...turn away now." 

He didn't close the distance. He didn't rush me. He simply waited, his eyes holding mine with a patience that somehow made everything even more overwhelming, leaving the next choice entirely in my hands.

What was I supposed to say to a confession like that?

Even when Tobias and I had been together… he had never spoken to me this way. There had been no grand declaration. No breathtaking confession that left me unable to think. We’d simply stumbled into each other.
We clicked. The bully and his victim, somehow becoming something neither of us had expected. It had been messy and complicated and beautiful in ways I still couldn’t explain.

But this…

This was different.

This wasn’t the confident Tobias Thomas who always knew exactly what to say. This was a boy standing in front of me with every wall stripped away, placing his heart into my trembling hands and silently trusting me not to break it.

It felt as though Tobias had reached inside me without laying a finger there, settling somewhere deep within my soul, consuming every coherent thought I had from the inside out.

Was this what it meant to fall in love with the same boy twice? To watch the person who had once shattered your heart unknowingly piece it back together… one heartbeat at a time?

I wanted to answer him.

God, I wanted to.

I wanted to tell him that he already had me. That somewhere between stolen glances, accidental touches and kisses that never lasted long enough, I’d stopped belonging entirely to myself.

That every time he smiled at me, my world shifted ever so slightly beneath my feet. But my throat refused to work. My heart had climbed so high into it that words simply couldn’t make it past. I didn’t know whether my head had given him the smallest nod or whether my eyes had answered the question for me, because I knew my mouth certainly hadn’t.

It didn’t matter.

Tobias had never been a patient man.

His restraint finally snapped.