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“Greyson,no.” He laughed again, and it sounded genuine. “I’m not running from them. It’s fucked up if they wanna stay here to force me to talk to them, but I’m not hiding.”

He fixed me with a look that told me he could hold his own and I needed to relax. I knew he could, but that didn’t change my urge to shield him from people who had hurt him too many times to count.

Noah’s parents weren’t annoying and meddlesome. They were overbearing and abusive. The reason he thought he deserved a lot of the bullshit he went through.

And when I realized what was going on, I couldn’t sit back and watch that shit. There was a reason I wasn’t allowed at Hunt family gatherings. The only reason I was going to this reception was because his sister invited me, not their parents.

Which made them staying at the resort even more fucked up. They didn’t like me. And they tolerated their son. Yet they wanted to stay for a week? It wasn’t adding up.

“We good, Grey. Forget about them.”

Noah erased the space between us and reached out to fix my tie.

“You ain’t gotta worry about me all the time.” His fingers brushed over my throat and it only took seconds for his proximity to get under my skin.

He smirked at me when he was done adjusting my tie, the curve of his lips hypnotizing me.

I blinked, but my vision was still clouded with Noah. He was staring at something on my face and it wasn’t until I ran my tongue over my lips that I realized his focal point was my mouth.

Heavy lids formed slits while his attention remained pinned on my lips.

I took a step, he didn’t step back. So I did it again and only stopped when our chests touched.

What was I doing?

Why couldn’t I stop?

I angled my head so that our noses touched, inhaling him and memorizing how he felt this close.

I was never this close to Noah. Why wasn’t I ever this close to Noah? I always wanted to be this close to Noah.

So, I dropped my head and kissed him, relief winding through me when he didn’t push me away.

My lips covered his and then his lips covered mine. I tasted the hot chocolate on his tongue and I knew he could taste the mint on mine.

My hands were on his face, pulling him into me.

His teeth were on my bottom lip, grazing and biting before his tongue teased the seam of my mouth.

I let him in. There was no other option.

And I stood in that hallway, in front of the sauna and kissed the hell out of my best friend.

In the hallway.

In front of the sauna.

Those words ran through my head at least ten times before I yanked myself away from him.

Anybody could have seen us.

Fuck.

What the fuck was I doing?

My back hit the wall again. So hard it hurt this time, but the pain was welcomed after what I’d been doing.

“Shit.” I hissed a string of curses, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry, Noah. I shouldn’t have done that.”