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“This won’t take long.”

He closed the door behind me and indicated for me to continue.

I drew in a deep breath before I spoke, mentally gearing up to put Noah in his place. He interrupted before I got a chance.

“That last class with you was torture,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“Because you were sitting right in front of me. I could smell the scent of your vanilla shampoo.”

It was the last thing I expected him to say. “You can sit somewhere else, you know.”

He shook his head slowly, as though my suggestion was impossible to imagine.

“It’s not just your scent that’s driving me crazy,” he continued. “It’s seeing you every day and knowing I can’t touch you, knowing I can’t smile with you or talk to you. I can’t stop thinking about the forest...” His eyes dropped to my lips, and he stepped closer like he was thinking about kissing me again.

“Noah, you said that kiss was it. That we would kiss one last time and move on...”

“One kiss wasn’t enough,” he murmured, moving closer still.

I backed away from him, jolting as I accidentally knocked into his desk. I’d come here to tell Noah I needed more space, and he was doing the exact opposite. I was already struggling with self-control when it came to him, and the closer he got to me, the more he erased any ability I had to resist. Coming to his room was stupid enough, but giving in to any desire I felt for him could be fatal to my slim hopes of moving on.

“Noah...” I murmured his name in warning. “I came here to tell you that we need to stop this. We need boundaries. The looks you keep giving me,thatkissyesterday. You’ve made it perfectly clear we can’t be together, and I can’t get over you if you won’t let me go.”

“Tell me I can kiss you again.”

I swallowed, my heart racing as I tried to summon the strength to deny him. His last kiss had shattered me, but another one might destroy me entirely.

“That would be a bad idea.” It was all I could manage to say.

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not…”

He lowered his lips to mine, and I melted into his arms as he kissed me. His kiss yesterday had been raw and filled with hunger, but today’s kiss was different. I could almost taste his desperation and sadness on his lips. I could feel he was aching as much as I was in the way he grasped my body tightly in his hands, holding me to him like I might disappear if he let me go.

Everything about this felt so right. But it also felt so, so wrong.

I pulled back from him and gasped for air. “You can’t keep kissing me.”

“I can’t help it,” he gritted out. “The only thing stopping us is my grandfather. In the woods, in my room, where no one can see, we can do whatever we want.”

His words were so alluring and his lips still so close to mine I almost moved toward them again. But then I saw sense. He was talking about a secret relationship again.

“I’m never going to agree to that, Noah. I’m surprised you keep asking. You hate secrets as much as I do.”

“It would be worth it to be with you.”

Looking into his eyes, I found it hard to believe he didn’t care for me enough to tell his grandfather to go to hell. He was looking at me like he would burn the world down around us just so we could be together. Apparently, those feelings weren’t enough.

“Couldn’t we just talk with your grandfather?” I whispered. “Maybe if we explained our feelings to him, he’d understand...”

My question seemed to break the moment we’d been sharing, shattering it so thoroughly I had to wonder if I’d perhaps dreamed it. Noah loosened his grip on me and stepped back, his expression turning to ice as he looked away. “He won’t understand. His hatred runs too deep.”

“If you could just tell me what happened…”

“There’s no point.” Noah felt so distant now even though he was only a few steps from me. “You think the truth will help. You think if you understand what happened you might be able to find a way around it so we can be together. But this isn’t a fairy tale, and there is no happy ending for us.”