“Try me.” When I gape at her, she sits up and props her elbows on the console. “How will you ever know the answer to that if you don’t tell me stuff?”

I scratch at my arm, feeling fidgety and erratic. “I can’t tell you everything. I can’t even tell myself everything. But … the whole touching thing freaks me out.”

“I know it does,” she says simply. “I could tell that from the first day we met.”

“I don’t even know why it does. I mean, sometimes I see things, and …” I jerk my fingers through my hair. “I just feel all wrong inside.”

“Ayden, I get that you’ve been through stuff, but I want you to always trust me. This whole fighting thing … well, it’s been killing me. The last month without you has been killing me.”

“I wasn’t fighting with you.” My voice weakens as she leans in, as if she’s about to hug me. All my instincts scream at me to back away, but I can’t move. All the emotions I’ve been running away from emerge and magnify, more potent and toxic than ever. “I was just confused … about stuff.” As she moves in to wrap her arms around me, something crumbles inside me—my self-control.

Before I can even comprehend what I’m doing, I angle my head to the side and press my lips to hers. She tenses, but only for a fleeting second, then she melts into my touch. I realize right then and there that I can keep running from her, but I can’t run away from my emotions. They’ll always exist under the surface, maybe even longer than I’ll admit.

“Oh my God,” she groans against my lips as I slide my tongue into her mouth.

She taste like frosting and feels so warm. My fingers begin to shake as I place my hands on her waist, needing her closer, yet fearing her closeness. I grab at her shirt, both pushing and pulling her against me while I kiss her with passion, heat, trying to suffocate the memories that scar my mind.

But they mix together.

Light and dark.

Fear and lust.

Liquid and fire.

I can’t get enough.

Yet I have too much.

I’m overflowing.

About to combust.

I start to protest, push back, because my mind is going into overdrive, but suddenly Lyric scrambles over the console and straddles my lap. Her warmth drowns me, seeps through my skin, and singes my veins. And when she presses her chest against mine, all the cold inside me flares. I tangle my fingers through her hair, tugging at the roots, and slide my hand up the front of her shirt.

“Ayden.” She bites at my lip, causing my entire body to quiver.

I’m so confused.

My mind wants one thing.

My body the other.

Fear.

Want.

Fear.

Want.

Past.

Future.

She rolls her hips against mine, and I gasp in desperation. In desire. In a million things I don’t understand. My body feels like it’s about to explode as my fingers inch up the bottom of her bra, and then graze her nipple. I have no clue what I’m doing. Absolutely no idea. Want. I know that I want something, so I continue to caress her, gasping and groaning as her nipple hardens under my touch. She bites at my bottom lip again, stabs her nails into my arms, holding onto me, or holding me up—I’m not sure.

I’ve never purposefully touched a woman like this. Feared it for three years. Yet I want to touch Lyric more than I’ve wanted to touch anyone, so I cup her breast, feel her delicate flesh, and lick her soft lips. She tastes so good, her skin is so warm, and the whimpers coming from her make my heart slam against my chest, almost painfully.

I’m not sure how long it goes on, us in the car, exploring each other, but it feels like forever.

I could have gone on forever.

Eventually, Lyric pulls away, but keeps her forehead pressed against mine as she traces a finger up and down the back of my neck.

“I’ve missed you,” she utters with her eyes shut. “I’m sorry I upset you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I openly admit as I struggle to get oxygen into my lungs. “But it wasn’t your fault I got upset. I was—am just confused.”

Her eyelids lift open and she leans back. “About what?”

“About … stuff. There’s things about me, Lyric, that even I don’t understand sometimes.”

“You know you can tell me, right? Tell me anything.”

“I wish I could … but I can’t even remember everything myself.”

Strangely, she looks terrified, her eyes widening. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to bring this up to you, but right before you stopped talking to me, I found an article on the internet that I think is about you.”

I swallow hard, scared to death, yet needing to know. “What did it say?”

She secures her arms around me, as if she’s afraid I’m going to run. “It just talked about three kids being pulled out of a house. That they … had some injuries.”

“Lots of injuries,” I whisper, scared to death that this conversation is going to trigger what happened before I was pulled out of that house. “More than I think the reporters realized.”

Her chest rises and falls as she fights to breathe evenly, her sympathetic gaze drowning me in emotions I can barely comprehend. “Ayden, I …” She trails off as her gaze wanders to something over my shoulder.

“What are you looking at?” I track her gaze out the rear window and see a cop car pulling up to my home.