Page 69 of The Fall

His grip on my wrists is bruising now, but I don’t pull away. I lean closer instead, until our chests touch, until his heart hammers against mine.

He makes a sound like I’ve punched him, and his hands release my wrists to slide down to my waist. He’s holding me like I might disappear, like I’m smoke he’s trying to capture between his palms.

“Blair, look at me.”

His eyes snap to mine, pupils blown so wide the blue is a thin ring.

“You think you’re the only one who’s terrified?”

His breath catches. “Torey?—”

I hold my fingers to his mouth, and his lips part beneath them. His eyes close, and he turns his face into my palm. I feel every line of him against me, all that barely contained strength, all that carefully controlled power. But underneath it, he’s shaking.

“I don’t know how to do this halfway,” he says, voice rough as gravel. “I don’t know how to want you a little bit. It’s all or nothing with me, and that should terrify you.”

“It doesn’t.” Nothing about Blair has ever scared me, not his intensity, not his grief, not even his walls.

Another broken sound escapes him, and then his mouth is so close to mine I taste his breath. “Tell me to stop,” he says against my lips. “Tell me this is a mistake. Tell me we’re going to ruin everything.”

“Tell me not to kiss you, and I won’t.”

The words hang between us for a heartbeat, two, three.

His breathing stutters against my lips. His hands on my waist flex.

“I can’t. I can’t tell you that.” There’s nothing careful about the way he’s looking at me now, eyes dark and wild and full of so much want it steals the air from my lungs. “Kiss me, Torey,” he begs. “Please.”

The distance between us collapses. Our mouths crash together, graceless and desperate, and that first touch of his lips on mine shoots fire through my every vein. His lips are rough against mine and urgent, like he’s been dying of thirst and I’m water.

He tastes like need. Like finally. The kiss is messy.

We’re both shaking too hard to find any rhythm at first. His hands tangle in my hair while mine grip his shoulders, pulling him closer, always closer.

He kisses me like he’s trying to crawl inside my skin, and I kiss him back like I want to let him.

We’re teeth and tongues and broken sounds. My back hits the wall and he follows. His mouth opens under mine and I chase the heat of him, swallow the sound that escapes him when my tongue slides against his.

My hands search for the hem of his shirt, slipping beneath to find his warm skin. He jerks at the contact, breaks away long enough to breathe my name against my jaw before capturing my mouth again. I map the planes of his back with my palms; the muscles bunch and release under my touch.

I need more. I need everything. I tug at his shirt, trying to pull it up, trying to get closer to the heat of him.

His hands catch mine, stilling them, and he breaks the kiss with a hiss, our foreheads still together, his breath ragged. “I want to,” he whispers. “God, I want to. But I— Torey, my head isn’t right when it comes to you.” He leans in. “I can’t be casual about you. I won’t even pretend to try.”

I croak out a little snort. “When have you ever been casual about anything?”

That makes him laugh. It’s rough and raw, barely more than a huff of air against my cheek, but it’s real.

His hands are still on my waist, thumbs brushing over my hip bones in these absent little circles that are driving me insane.

“You’re not wrong,” he says, his voice soft.

“And that’s why I need to get this right. With you.”

The skin high on his cheeks flares. “I don’t have a map for this.

I’m not—Maybe you think I’m swimming in loads of experience here, but I’m not, and you mean too much to me…

” He squeezes his eyes shut. “So if you don’t want to wait for me,” he forces his words out, his voice turning to gravel, “or if you need to hook up before I can give you… Don’t tell me, okay?

If that’s part of this... Don’t tell me. Keep me in the dark.”

He thinks—God, he actually thinks I’d want anyone else.

“Blair.”

His jaw works, muscles jumping under the skin, and his thumbs have stopped their maddening circles. He’s rigid against me, every line of him braced for impact.

“No. I want you , only you. I’ll wait as long as you need me to. There’s no one else I want.” My thumbs brush over his cheekbones, and his eyes flutter closed for a second before snapping back to mine. “There’s no one else. There hasn’t been anyone else since you.”

He breathes hard, each exhale shaky and uneven against my lips.

His blues search mine, desperate, disbelieving.

This is the look I’ll remember when he walks out tonight.

This is the look I’ll spend forever sketching: his whole being caught on the edge of wonder, of hunger, of astonishment.

This is the wild and terrifying edge of yes.

“Say it again.” The words are barely sound, more breath than voice.

“Only you.” I turn my face into his palm. “It’s only ever been you. There’s nobody else, and there never could be.”

The blue of his eyes darkens, storms gathering at sea.

“Torey.” My name breaks apart in his mouth.

“You have no idea what you—” He kisses me then, different from before.

Slower. Surer. I lean into him, into the heat of his body and the certainty of his lips and let him take whatever he needs.

When we break apart, he traces my bottom lip with his thumb and studies me with dark eyes that strip me bare.

I part my lips under his touch and catch the pad of his thumb with my teeth. His breath hitches. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he breathes. Then he exhales, long and slow. “I can’t fuck this up, Torey.”

“You won’t.”

He drags in air like he’s been underwater too long and finally came up.

Then his lips trace the corner of my mouth, my cheekbone, the hinge of my jaw.

“Torey...” His voice is raw silk, barely there.

His chest rises against mine, that scent of coconut and lime and salt threading through my head. “Tell me what you need.”

“You.” My thumbs smooth over the inside of his wrists.

I angle up to kiss him again, lips and breath, a question and an answer. He answers all the way, opening, letting me taste him, letting me lead.

Heat curls under my skin. I breathe into him and he breathes back. He swears under his breath, barely a word, and I feel it within our kiss. His fingers flex at my hips, and then those hands slide up, under my shirt, warm palms on bare skin. Mine thread into the soft strands of his hair.

“Blair...”

He lowers his head to my neck and breathes me in, laying open-mouthed kisses on me as slow as a prayer. His next words are low enough only I could ever hear them: “I don’t know how not to fall for you.”

His confession sinks past bone and into the very center of me. “Fall,” I choke out. “I’ll catch you.”

He stills completely. The roaming of his hands halts. Every muscle in his body goes taut. For a long second, he doesn’t move. Then, slowly, he lifts his head. “I think you already have.”

And with that, he kisses me again. This kiss is different from all the others.

His lips are firm and sure, moving over mine.

There’s no hesitation now, no trembling uncertainty.

He cups my face between his palms, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss.

It’s a kiss that draws a line in the sand between before and after. Before Blair, and with him.

When we part, he keeps his forehead near mine, our noses touching, and I feel the rapid thud of his heart where our chests meet.

“You’re shaking,” he says softly.

I am. My whole body quakes with aftershocks from what just happened, what’s still happening. “So are you.”

His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, then down my arms until our fingers tangle together. He brings our joined hands up between us. “This changes everything,” he says quietly.

“I know.”

His gaze lifts to mine, those blue eyes still dark with want but clearer now, more focused. “Are you okay with that?”

He’s asking about the team, about hockey, about what happens when we step out of this room and back into the world where we’re teammates first, where there are rules and expectations and a thousand reasons why this shouldn’t work.

“Yes.” The word comes without hesitation. “Are you?”

His grip on my hands tightens and he brings one of my hands to his lips. There’s no fear left in his eyes now. His mouth lingers against my knuckles. I nod.

His breath feathers my skin, then he lowers our hands but doesn’t let go, gaze moving over my face like he’s counting every freckle, every tell. The heat between us settles.

He draws a breath, and his hand slips down to catch mine, squeezing. “How’s your head?”

I don’t understand the question at first. My mind is a fog of wanting, and the shift throws me off balance. “Fine,” I say automatically, then stop. His eyes search mine. “It’s fine now,” I clarify.

“You were put on post-concussion watch. The update said you collapsed. Did they miss something after the hit?”

“No, I’m?—”

His eyebrows rise. There’s no point in pretending anymore. I sigh. “I’ve been dealing with some lingering concussion stuff on and off since Vancouver.”

His jaw tightens. “Torey.”

“I’ve been dealing with it. It comes and goes. Some days are better than others. Today is a good day. I’m here with you,” I say. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“Everything about you matters to me.” He steps back and takes a deeper look at me. “You get headaches right here, yeah?” His hand slides to the base of my skull.

Before I can answer, his thumb digs in, and immediate relief follows. My eyes drift shut.

“There,” he says quietly, his other hand coming up to cradle the side of my head while he works.