CHAPTER 128
**WINTER**
“We both know this can never—”
“Shh.” I press my finger to his lips, silencing the words before he can rip this moment away from me. I don’t want to hear it. Not now. Not when the air between us is thick with something heavier, something that feels like a lifeline when I’m drowning.
His gaze flickers, his eyes dipping to my mouth. His fingers twitch like he wants to reach for me, to close the distance between us, but he doesn’t. He’s holding back.
“What’s the matter?” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”
His jaw tightens, his breathing uneven.
“I want to kiss you so fucking badly,” he mutters, his voice thick with restraint, his entire body wound tight like he’s barely keeping himself in check.
I reach for him, my fingertips grazing along his jaw, feeling the tension there. “Then do it,” I whisper.
I don’t know why I want this so badly—why I’m clinging to something that will only hurt me in the end.
The last time he kissed me, it was in the woods. He humiliated me. Left me. Made sure I knew exactly where we stood.
But still… here I am, craving his lips like they won’t be the thing that ruins me all over again.
"Do it....." I repeat
His whole body stiffens. “I… I can’t. I shouldn’t. Not after....” His hands curl into fists at his sides, like he’s fighting himself.
“You can,” I insist, my voice trembling as much as my body.
“I’m not glass, Zion. I won’t break.”
His jaw clenches. “You don’t get it, do you?” His eyes burn into mine, sharp and unrelenting.
“I hate you, Winter.” The words are laced with venom, but his hands betray him as they reach for my face, as his thumb brushes the bruise marring my skin with a gentleness that contradicts everything he just said.
I swallow hard against the lump in my throat, my fingers tightening in the sheets as I force myself to hold his gaze.
“Then why are you here, Zion? Why were you here last night?”
His nostrils flare as he exhales sharply, his grip on me tightening for a fleeting second before he abruptly pulls away.
“Fuck this—I don’t have time for this,” he mutters, shifting to get up.
No. Not again.
Before he can escape, I grab his T-shirt and yank him back down. He lets out a frustrated grunt as he falls onto the mattress beside me, his body rigid, his jaw tight. My heart is pounding so hard I swear he can hear it.
“Too much of a coward to tell me the truth?”
The words slip out sharper than I intended, but I don’t regret them. I need him to stay. To stop running.
Zion freezes. His whole body tenses like a loaded gun, his hands curled into fists against the sheets.
Slowly, he turns his head, his eyes locking onto mine with a look that sends a shiver down my spine.
“I’m not a coward,” he growls, his voice low and edged with something raw.
“What happened to you… it was because of me.”
My breath catches.
“You’re bruised and broken because of me,” he continues, raking a hand through his hair in frustration, his fingers pulling at the strands like he’s barely holding himself together.
“And I don’t know how the fuck to fix it.”
The words hang between us, thick with unspoken guilt and something deeper—something I don’t know how to name.
“Fix it, by kissing me...”
His eyes snap back to mine, something dark and conflicted swirling in them.
“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do, Snowflake.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t,” I whisper, tilting my chin up in defiance.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. I can see the battle waging inside him—the push and pull of wanting me and punishing himself for it.
Then, with a low, guttural curse, his hand collars my throat, his grip gentle yet possessive, and his mouth crashes down on mine.
The kiss is rough, desperate, filled with frustration and something neither of us dares to name. His body hovers over mine, careful, as if he’s still holding himself back. But I don’t want careful. I want him.
I want the way his tongue tangles with mine, the way he kisses me like he’s trying to steal the memories from my skin.
Like he hates himself for wanting me but can’t stop.
My hand slips beneath his shirt, my fingers grazing the hard, toned ridges of his stomach. A sharp jolt shoots through me at the contact, a warmth that spreads like wildfire under my skin.
Zion stiffens, his muscles tensing as if my touch physically restrains him. His eyes darken, his jaw clenching as he pushes up slightly, putting space between us—but not enough.
“Fuck,” he hisses, his breath uneven. I can see it—the battle raging inside him, the war between what he wants and what he thinks he shouldn’t have.
“I’m not having sex with you,” he says suddenly, his voice firm, and my heart tumbles into my stomach.
"Sex?"
I open my mouth to protest, to tell him that all I want is a kiss, nothing more—to feel something other than the fear and violation that still lingers after that night. I don't think I can be intimate with anyone after what happened... But the raw intensity in his gaze silences me, the words dying on my tongue before I can even speak them.
“You can’t expect me to do that,” he grits out.
“Not yet. Not after he—” His voice cuts off, his throat working as he forces himself to breathe. His eyes shutter like he’s trying to block out a memory, to shove it deep enough that it won’t break him.
I don’t let him go there.
Reaching up, I press my palm against his cheek, guiding his gaze back to me.
“I’m not asking you to have sex with me, Zion,” I whisper, my voice barely steady. “I just… I just…”
The words won’t come.
His entire body goes rigid. His breathing halts. Then, slowly, he exhales, closing his eyes like he’s bracing himself.
When they flicker open again, something in his expression steals the air from my lungs. I don’t even have time to process it before he rolls off me, tucking me into his side, my back flush against his chest.
His arm wraps around me, strong, steady, unyielding.
“You just what, Snowflake?” His voice is rough, strained. His fingers splay against my stomach, sliding downward, toying with the waistband of my pajama shorts.
I don’t answer.
Because right now, I don’t know what I want.
Do I really want Zion—the boy who has told me over and over that he hates me—to kiss me...? To be the one to erase Ethan’s touch?
Or do I just want to feel something other than the weight of what was done to me?
I shudder against him, my body betraying my mind, and his grip tightens like he feels it too.
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