Page 76 of Reckless Obsession

My mind is still lagging miles behind, screaming that this isn’t real, that Tristan Sinclair doesn’t kiss like this, doesn’t give in like this, doesn’t taste like whiskey and restraint finally cracking.

This has to be a dream. One of the thousands I’ve had about him over the years. The wet, desperate ones that left me waking up hard and furious, tangled in sheets that smelled like frustration. I’ve kissed him in my sleep more times than I can count, felt his mouth move against mine in fevered half-realities where he finally gave me what I’ve been starving for. Those kisses always felt like this: consuming, overwhelming, perfect. But in every single one, I kissed him back. Desperately. Every time.

So why can’t I now?

Why does this feel less like dreaming and more like one of those old maladaptive spirals I used to drown in? The kind where I’d build entire worlds in my head just to survive the ache of wanting him, convincing myself that a glance meant something, that a word was a promise. I thought I’d quit that shit years ago. Thought I’d beaten it back, patched the holes in my brain enough to live in the real world without constantly bleeding for something I couldn’t have. But here it is again, dragging me under like quicksand, pulling me into that same pit of longing, so deep and vicious it feels like my ribs might crack open trying to hold it.

“Are you alright?”

His voice hits me like a slap, yanking me out of the void. It takes a humiliating second to process that he’s stopped kissing me. That he’s hovering inches away, staring at me with something dangerously close to worry in his eyes. Probably because I didn’t kiss him back. Probably because I’m sitting here rigid as a corpse, staring through him like he’s a ghost I conjured.

I blink once.

Then again.

My eyes drop to his mouth first, because of course they do. Then higher, to the shape of his nose, the tension still sitting in his face like he’s bracing for me to do something unhinged. Then my gaze finally lifts to his eyes.

And that’s what gets me.

Not the kiss.

Not even the fact that it happened.

It’s the way he’s looking at me.

It’s soft in a way Tristan Sinclair is never soft. Open in a way he never lets himself be. There’s no cold calculation there, no immediate mask slamming down to hide whatever he’s feeling. He’s letting me see this unguarded flicker of concern, of confusion, of something almost tender, and it hits me harder than the kiss did. My heart stumbles, skips, then hammers so loudly I’m sure he hears it.

Why?

Why is he letting me see that now?

Why does that feel more dangerous than the kiss itself?

“Maksim,” he says again, quieter, worry deepening the lines around his eyes.

The way he says my name does something catastrophic to me.

It starts as a shiver—cold water dumped straight down my spine—then twists, turns hot, seeps into my bones, and ignites everything it touches. It burns a path from my head straight down between my legs. Consuming and so fucking alive that it obliterates every doubt in one violent rush.

This isn’t a dream. This isn’t maladaptive bullshit. His mouth was on mine. His hands are still on me. He’s real and close and looking at me like I’m the only thing in the room that matters.

Reality crashes back in, brutal and bright.

I don’t let myself think after that. Thinking would ruin it. Thinking would make me ask whether he’ll regret this in five minutes, whether that softness in his eyes is already starting to fade.

So I move.

I grab him by the neck and yank him back to me, crashing our mouths together hard enough to make up for every second I lost being too stunned to breathe.

This time I kiss him back.

Not carefully. Not gently. Not the way I used to imagine it when I was younger and more naive, believing that kissing Tristan Sinclair would be soft, reverent, like finally touching a forbidden religion. No. This is messier and more desperate than that.

The yearning that’s lived in me for years surges up, overwhelming, turning the kiss into something almost violent. I want to devour him, mark him, make sure he can’t walk out of here and pretend this didn’t happen. I want to crawl inside him and never come out.

My fingers dig harder into the back of his neck, pulling him closer, deeper, because if I let go now, if I give him even an inch of space, he might pull away and take this fragile, impossible reality with him.

He doesn’t.